Lizardcube has graced us with another gem-in-the-making: Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, which we got the chance to preview in its newly released demo.
Backed by SEGA, they’ve already had their hands at revitalizing another one of their IPs, Streets of Rage 4, which ended up as a gorgeous and faithful sequel to the Genesis beat ’em up.
This is a preview coupled with a supplemental video preview. You can watch the video preview or read the full preview below:
This time they’re redrawing the legendary ninja platformer of the same era. That’s right, we’re going back to 16-bit platforming goodness with a dash of metroidvania (or exploration action) thrown into the mix.
The controls are tight, the art-style is unquestionably beautiful, map design teeters on being too open, but reigns things in by providing picturesque vistas and animated backgrounds.
It took me a little under an hour to get through the first stage in story mode and roughly 10 minutes to breeze through it again in arcade mode, which became available after defeating the first boss.
Running through the hand-drawn fields and dash-slashing hostile ninjas will feel natural to any veteran of the platforming genre. Controls are intuitive and become expanded the more you play, unlocking different context-sensitive combos and moves as part of story progress or after purchasing them at a yokai merchant.
Imagine my shock when pressing Down+Heavy Strike combo no longer sent me diagonally down towards an enemy, but instead plummeted me into a bed of spikes right below me. That’s why reading is important. Each and every upgrade is accompanied by 1-4 screen tutorial and supplementary video demonstrations. You couldn’t ask for more.
The same applies to items you can buy at the shop. Though here you are also given an estimate on how effective each move will be against regular enemies, armored enemies and how much execution gauge it will build up.
Executions play an important role in combat. Each enemy has their own execution gauge alongside their health bar (and armor bar on top of that if they have any).
Filling it up with heavy strikes and kunai incisions will allow you to perform a Shinobi Execution on any enemy in such a state on your screen. The more enemies you execute in this manner, the greater the rewards will be.
Ordinarily, enemies only drop gold on death. Executions will wring even more gold as well as kunai refills and health orbs out of numerous baddies, allowing you to expand your move set faster and sustaining your combat capabilities mid-fight.
If you’re feeling cocky or in desperate need of gold, try to keep as many enemies in a ripe-for-execution state as possible before performing the Shinobi shenanigans.
Just as important as sustainability is target prioritization. While the game isn’t very hard this early on, even a gang of trash mobs can overwhelm you if you don’t act accordingly.
This is especially obvious while attempting optional challenge rooms filled with wave after wave of elite squads. Take out the annoying sniper on the other side of a spike pit before taking on a giant axe-wielding yokai, young grasshopper!
The enemy roster appears quite diverse, doubly so for a demo. Granted, some of these only appear in challenge rooms, but I am grateful to Lizardcube for spoiling us with all this superb art.
Speaking of optional, backtracking is quite easy and painless. In story mode you are free to fast-travel to any major entrance or checkpoint snake stone (not so in Arcade mode). This refills your health and combat gauges. You’ll run across locked doors and barriers, which can only be broken with a specific move.
The whole demo reminded me of the spectacular Strider reboot from 2014. The ninja vs ninja/modern tech/occult aesthetic, map design and backtracking implementation… it all feels very similar.
Naturally, the hand-drawn art-style also lends to a slightly different gameplay flow with longer animations, so button mashing is strongly discouraged in this game. Once you get the hang of the combat flow (and it doesn’t take long), you’ll feel like a real ninja with the exaggerated swagger of a silent protagonist.
Knowing how well Lizardcube handled Streets of Rage 4 and the fact that I didn’t want to put the demo down after finishing it, I can confidently say Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is going to be a great title when it comes out at the end of August.
Look forward to our full review of Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, but until then, you can try the demo out for yourself. You won’t regret it.
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is in development for Windows PC (via Steam), Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PS5 with a release set for August 29th.
