When games like this are released, you can't help but show your age as a gamer. Some people look at this game and say, "Hey look... it's a Ninja game, whoopee." Then other people like me start geeking out and reminiscing about plunking quarters into the original arcade machine at the local corner store after school trying to get past one of those 3D-ish ninja star throwing levels. Now THOSE were the days.

However, unlike some old school players... I'm pretty much ok with change. I don't mind Metroid being made into some sort of first-person-whatever-they-want-to-call-it, Link can look however Miyamoto wants him to and Shinobi can certainly make the jump to 3D. The big question is, however, how does the game series handle the jump?

Sega's Overworks development team has had a lot of experience with the classic action games with a number of their staff even working on the original Shinobi games as well as other classic action titles such as my personal favorite, Streets of Rage. The team knows what to do with a fast arcade-like action game. Shinobi on the PS2 features a good number of the modern bells and whistles that we expect from current games while still retaining the tried and true thumb blistering action that the series is known for. However, this could be both a blessing or the bane of the game's existence, depending on how you want to look at it.

Basically, the 'old school' gameplay, as I like to think of it at least, is gameplay that focuses on simple controls and non-stop action. Shinobi easily slashes it's way into that category, and manages to do it with style. However, on the flip side, old school games can feature slightly repetitive gameplay as well as difficulty that can lead to white knuckles and lots of frustration. Shinobi showcases everything I've mentioned here, but it doesn't mean it's a great or flawed game. It's simply not going to be for everyone and hopefully I'll be able to help you figure out if it's for you.

I'll try and break it down as simple as possible. If you are the type of person who gets bored easily when playing a game like Streets of Rage, Final Fight, or even the more recent Contra: Shattered Soldier, then you might want to look elsewhere. Shinobi is essentially you hacking and slashing your way through hordes of monsters and other various baddies in linear style levels. You're not going to be searching around for hidden goodies like you would in say Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, but there are a few trinkets around to collect. If you need to have 150 moves at your disposal at all times in addition to tons of combos, Shinobi may disappoint. If the thought of missing a jump, falling to your death and having to replay a whole level offends you, prepare to be offended.

Of course, you can't have the yin without the yang. While some people might be annoyed that the difficulty, I really didn't have too much of a problem with it. I'm not saying it is easy for me. This easily treats you like the kindergarten kid who accidently ended up in a high school game of dodge ball, and the game is just as sadistic as those bastards were to me... er nevermind. The game will do it's best to make you cry, let's just leave it at that. In the end, though, I really didn't feel frustrated with the game. If I fell down a bottomless pit, it was generally my fault. Started over the level also didn't bother me as much. The levels aren't built so that they do not take two hours to go through and the gameplay is set up so that you don't really want to go through the levels at a snail's pace. I just tend to have tolerance for this kind of difficulty as opposed to the difficulty of ridiculously cheap AI or certain games requiring a straight 2 hour sequence of perfect button presses just to get by one enemy.

Shinobi's gameplay is also deceptively deep. Sure, you can just blandly swipe away at your foes one at a time, but you are encouraged to combo strings of enemies together to complete a "TATE" which give you a bonus to your Yin or "slash" gauge which helps to power up your attacks. A "TATE" is basically performed when you take out all of the enemies in a given area in a short amount of time. You will see a counter on the top of the screen which will indicate how many people you are looking to cleave in two. Complete the TATE and you are treated to a little mini 'cut' scene where your enemies separate in half. It can get a little repetitive, but the challenge of completing TATEs as the levels increase keeps you coming back. You can also collect Yang from fallen enemies which restores some of your life gauge. You may not have tons of regular attack combos, but I would go out on a limb and say that Overworks did this intentionally to balance the gameplay between fighting and fast movement. Half of the fun in the game is jumping and dashing around while running along walls as you rain death upon your demonic foes.

In addition to the normal sword attacks, you also have some slightly advanced tactics like a defensive kick, dash attacks, charged attacks, etc. You might not use everything all of the time, but you will most likely find a use for everything at some point in the game. Of course you also have your trusty ninja shuriken, which serve to stun enemies in this version of Shinobi. Also, in pure Shinobi tradition, you ninja magics are back and better than ever, full of elemental screen filling effects that are sure to help you out in the difficult boss battles.

The graphics in Shinobi are generally pretty good. The character models are nicely detailed and animated, with the hero of the game featuring some of the best work. Hotsuma, (the lead character,) just looks badass in his design and that flowing material from his cowl is just too cool. He is easily in the same league as Dante from Devil May Cry and Alucard from Castlevania as far as cool heroes go. The levels are where people might not be to happy with the graphics. Although things generally look good, with Sega's classic use of color and style, however they seem a little simplified and repetitive at many points. Sometimes you will swear when you can get to a certain location when you are instead confronted with an invisible wall. I guess I'm just in too much of an exploration mode right now with games like Ratchet and Clank and Metroid Fusion.

The sound is an area where I was pleasantly surprised for some reason. I really love the music in Shinobi. The music really makes the game feel like an old school 80's game with Japanese inspired synth rock. It especially reminded me of the music in one of my favorite shooters, the venerable Thunderforce series from Technosoft. There is just something about it that gets the gaming fingers twitching. Everything else in the game gets the job done. You can even choose the Japanese voice track for the cut scenes, although the lip syncing has been reworked for the English language track. While the English track is fine, I find myself switching to the Japanese track just because it generally sounds cooler.

Overall, what we have in Shinobi is a really fun and frantic classic style action game. Sure, there maybe a story in there... but we're not talking about award winning here. The game is definitely worth a rental just for fun but buyers need to be mindful of what type of things piss them off in a game since Shinobi can easily trigger a lot of frustration in many people. I personally recommend the game and a purchase is required if you plan on mastering the game and unlocking the many secrets it holds. It's not easy, but it's also not impossible. I find Shinobi to be a lot of fun and the difficulty is very manageable. If you frustrate easily, you might want to stay clear, but you can't beat this game for some awesome classic style action.