Shadow Dancer Ii

[ginzu]

Shadow Dancer II

Intro: I wanted to beat this game cause I'm a fan of ninja games h34r:.

It's a platform game that happens in New York where you are a high skilled ninja who has a wolf which comes with him through all the game and helps him in the fight too biting the enemies that are ninjas too, you also have different kinds of magic that you can use wherever you want to.

Graphics: They look pretty good, I won't say they are a masterpiece but they are OK.

Sound: Simple but nice. Music can seem a little repetitive but it's OK.

Playability: This game is really hard, I mean, one hit = dead = restart level. That makes the game lose some points at playability. Thanks to the savestates or this game would be very hard to beat.

Finishing: This game is a good game to play if you like ninja games, I won't say it's better than Shinobi cause it's not but it's pretty fine and I'm sure you'll like it.

It isn't too long (can't remember how many levels but no more than 20) but hard so it'll take you some time to beat it up.

Compatibility It runs perfect at 166mhz with sound and fs 0/1 in fGEN32.

Score:

7 of 10 points! recommended :blink:

 

[ralp99]

shadow dancer's cool. al the games in the series are (shinobi - try in on GPengine, and the revenge of shinobi and shinobi III on genesis)

shinobi III might be the best. I haven't beat that one yet..

 

[kotd]

Shinobi 3 is definately the best. But I prefer shadow dancer over revenge of shinobi. I'd give it 8.5 but it is really hard

 

[Huxley]

Compatibility It runs perfect at 166mhz with sound and fs 0/1 in fGEN32.

Shadow Dancer runs fine at 133Mhz on my GP32.

We're talking about Shadow Dancer and not a sequel, right? I'm not sure if Shadow Dancer II exists

If so, I'd agree with this review but up the score to an 8 or 9. IMHO this is one of the finest games on the megadrive and easily the best in the Shinobi series. Where the other three Shinobi games are rather basic 'walk fowards and kill everything in sight' games, Shadow Dancer adds several gameplay elements to the format that help add variety. First is the wolf that follows you character around everywhere. Not only is this a nicely implemented graphical gimmick, you can also command the dog/wolf to attack enemies and hold them still while you move in for the kill. There's also two levels of play on many stages which you're able to switch between with a swift backflip. This adds a slight tactical element to the game as you consider the best way to approach the badguys waiting for you on the other side of the fence.

All in all, a great game. I'm not a fan of the Shinobi series, but I love Shadow Dancer.

 

[ralp99]

shadow dancer was cool but (I can't believe I am still talking about this) it definitely had a less-polished feel to it than the the other two games.

it was more like a "real" sequel to the original shinobi with the hostage saving, one-hit deaths, bonus rounds etc. interestingly it was almost completely different from the arcade version (an arcade port exists for SMS -- maybe atari ST as well?)

i never really felt like the whole dog thing was necessary, like you said a gimmick that just got old after awhile. the game is still fun to play with and the graphic/audio styles are still pretty cool, vintage genesis. but.. not as stylish as the other two shinobi sequels, or as challenging.

 

[Huxley]

We're talking about Shadow Dancer and not a sequel, right? I'm not sure if Shadow Dancer II exists

My bad...it is actually Shadow Dancer II. Anyone got any info on the original Shadow Dancer?

Anyhow, I finally competed this last night (muchos thanks to fgen's savestates!). The final few levels are a disappointment considering the top-class level design of the first few. For whatever reason I don't know, they decided to drop the two level play mechanic in favour of a more simplistic one, making these levels not much better than anything else seen in the other Shinobi games.

Still, a great little game that's a must for any GP32 owner (because it's one of the few games that has sound on Fgen).

 

[Zorn]

i think the best ninja game i know for the fgen32 is shinobi 3!
it's a great feeling when you are running with your cool ninja through the levels.