Review #288: Nightshade

 Ashes to ashes.

 I can't believe it's been two years since I last played Shinobi on the PS2, a game that earned a place on my PS2 favorites list. Nightshade's got some pretty big shoes to fill, and it succeeds, mostly.

 Taking place an unspecified amount of time after the events of Shinobi, you now play as Hibana, a Ninja under control by the government, as she is tasked with stopping Nakatomi's Ninja and collect all the shards of the broken Akujiki, before more hellspawn are brought into the world. Hibana is one cool Ninja, I swear to god, she and Hotsuma are the coolest Ninjas around. Unlike Hotsuma, however, Hibana is much sassier, spouting one-liners and taunts all the time. And as cool as he look, the game is Japanese... which means that the camera loves to focus on her butt, which is a bit off-putting. Heck, even her standard slash looks really weird, since she has to shake her hips in order to pull it off. That aside, they managed to make Hibana look really cool, and act the part. As for the story, it's pretty shallow, and there's a bit of backstory that is best off learned by reading the instruction booklet... but then again, I don't think that this is a game you want to play for the story.

 The game plays a lot like the previous game. Hibana can slash, double jump, stealth dash, cling to walls, throw Kunai and unleash three different spells by collecting scrolls. But there's been some new additions, firstly, some enemies can block attacks, while other come equipped with armor, both which are dealt with by kicking them with Triangle. Hibana's air-game is a lot stronger than Hotsuma's as well, she can also use an aerial homing kick to close-in on her foes, and there's a new gauge, filled by collecting certain items or killing enemies, that allows for strong charge attacks. And guess what, unlike Hotsuma, Hibana uses a sword forged in the style of the Akujiki, but it's not the Akujiki, which means her life isn't being constantly sapped away!

 I played the entire game on Normal mode, and it's almost as hard as the first one. Almost. Not having to care about the life gauge makes quite a difference, but in its place come new platforming challenges that will require Hibana to use the homing kicks on flying, armored enemies, in order to get across certain chasms. And it has to be the homing kick, since slash attacks will just bounce off armored enemies. The thing is, landing an aerial hit on an enemy resets your jump, stealth dash and homing kick, so you must make it across by exploiting this mechanic. This makes the latter levels, where this becomes a necessity, very challenging, as tapping the wrong button, or aiming at the wrong enemy(And the targeting reticule can sometimes pick the worst targets, and you can only switch targets by tapping R2), or even getting hit mid-jump, can result in you dying. At least the checkpoints are slightly more generous than the first game.

 The game has three unlockable characters(Hotsuma among them, if you have a Shinobi cleared save file, and he can't kick, but his normal slashes break armors and guards!) that play noticeably different from one another, plus, extra costumes for Hibana and another one of the playable characters. There're also Oboro coins hidden on every level, and collecting them nets you access to Survival, Time Attack and Mission Mode levels. There's quite a bit to do and unlock on this game.

 The game falters a bit when it comes to bosses. I felt that some of them were a bit too random on their patterns, making it a gamble when it came to scoring hits and not getting hurt. Maybe I'm just bad at the game though, and that said, I could clear the game on normal, so it's definitely doable. I also felt that sometimes the game had way too many waves of enemies on certain areas, which got a bit tiresome when I just wanted to explore the damn area. I mean, you could always ignore them, but that's not the way I roll.

 While Shinobi is a slightly better game, Nightshade is no slouch. It has some amazing levels to play through, some that will put your platforming to the test. It's a fun game, and a worthy companion to Shinobi.
 8.5 out of 10