From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games

Reflections: "Shadow Dancer" (Genesis)

So over the past couple of years, I've become a big fan of the Shinobi series. I've been playing and loving just about all of its games. I've been raving about its best entries on this blog. And I've been enthusiastically talking about Shinobi games and my experiences with them on every forum and in every stream I've been visiting.

The Shinobi series has had a profound impact on me. In a short time, it has introduced me to a number of great games--some of which I place among the best I've ever played. It has given me The G.G. Shinobi, which is one of my all-time-favorite portable games; Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, which has quickly become my favorite Genesis game and one of my all-time-favorite action games; the amazingly great Revenge of Shinobi; and other top-tier action games like Shinobi II: The Silent Fury and the original arcade Shinobi.

And just recently, it gave me another wonderful gift: Shadow Dancer for the Sega Genesis. It's a super-fun action game, and I've been playing it regularly for many months now.

Now, Shadow Dancer wasn't exactly new to me when I picked it up. I'd known about it for a couple of years. I'd even played it once. I sampled it when I purchased the SEGA Genesis Collection. At the time, though, I was still under the impression that the console Shinobi games were unreasonably difficult, and thus I had no inclination to tolerate any nonsense. "The moment this game starts to get abusive, I'm out," I thought to myself as Shadow Dancer was loading up.

And after struggling mightily in its first stage, like I expected to, I promptly exited the game, and then I shook my head and said to myself, "I'm never going near that one again!"

Console Shinobis just weren't for me, I thought.

But when Revenge of Shinobi and Shinobi III came into my life, my mindset completely changed. After spending some time with those two games, I came to see the console Shinobis for what they truly were: incredibly fun, innovative action games that weren't so difficult once you invested yourself in them and made a sincere effort to learn how they played. I found that I actually loved these types of games.

And that's where I was emotionally when I rediscovered Shadow Dancer a couple of months ago. I was now looking forward to playing it, and I was prepared to be impressed by it. And it didn't let me down. It provided me a thoroughly enjoyable action-game experience. And for that reason, it quickly became one of my new favorite action games.

I've been returning to Shadow Dancer frequently ever since. And the whole time, I've been eager to gush over it on this blog!

That's what I'm here to do today.

So if you have some time, pull up a chair and let me tell you all about Shadow Dancer--another one of Sega's little gems!

 So in the past few months, it's become painfully apparent to me that the gaming community at large has little to to no knowledge of Sega's Shadow Dancer (or Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi, as it's otherwise called). Many enthusiasts--even those who call themselves Shinobi fans--aren't aware that it exists, and the few who are familiar with it aren't sure what it is or how, if at all, it fits into the Shinobi series' overarching timeline. One group says that it's a reimagining of the original arcade Shinobi, another group says that it's a unique series entry that takes place far in the future, and a third group says that it's a standalone game that has absolutely no connection to the wider series.

There's no consensus on the matter because so much of the information that's out there is vague-sounding or contradictory and because Sega has never bothered to provide a clear explanation for how Shadow Dancer fits into the Shinobi series. And consequently, I'm not able to confirm whether or not Shadow Dancer is canon, nor am I able to draw any connections.

The only thing I can say with certainty is that Shadow Dancer is an adaptation of an arcade game that bears the same name. It's a conversion of 1989's Shadow Dancer--a classic-style Shinobi game in which you take control of an unnamed hero and battle the forces of an unspecified terrorist group in an effort to save an unidentified city (I mean, you never want to provide the player too much information)--and it arrived on the Genesis in December of 1990, approximately 10 months after Revenge of Shinobi hit the platform.

Shadow Dancer shares some similarities with its arcade inspiration, yes, but it's largely its own game. It has a unique visual style, unique stages, a unique soundtrack, some unique minor enemies, and a set of exclusive bosses; and its structuring and level design is even closer to the original Shinobi's (this is why many believe that Shadow Dancer is a remake of Shinobi).

Also, its story is a bit more substantive: After destroying the Neo Zeed organization, Joe Musashi decided that his services were no longer needed. The threat had been eliminated, he thought, and the world was now safe. In the weeks that followed, he went to New York to spend time with Kato, his former martial arts student, and then he returned home to his native land for some rest and relaxation.

But not long after, a new threat emerged: the Union Lizard, a frighteningly vast and powerful group that took orders from a vicious "reptilian form." The Union Lizard's soldiers began a destructive march, and in a short period, they ravaged and conquered the whole of New York. Those who survived the soldiers' attack were chained and taken as hostages.

Upon hearing this news, Joe quickly returned to New York City with his faithful canine companion, Yamato, and began a mission to rescue the hostages and destroy the Union Lizard army.

There are, of course, all kinds of storyline discrepancies. The game's Japanese manual states that the hero is "Hayate," the son of Joe Musashi. The North American manual claims that Yamato originally belonged to Kato and that Joe became his owner only recently--after Kato was killed during the Union Lizard's attack on his elementary school. And the Master System version's manual tells a wildly different story (it speaks of a guy named "Takashi," who seeks to destroy a group called "Asian Dawn").

But it's for the best that we ignore all such discrepancies and focus on the core theme: The evil Union Lizard army is attempting to take over the world, and Joe Musashi and his trusty canine companion have come out of retirement to confront the group.

Because as a continuity hound, I like that one the most!

 Describing Shadow Dancer is easy: It's basically arcade Shinobi with a new set of stages and a cool new visual theme. It plays just like Shinobi. It has the same core gameplay: You battle your way through five multi-stage rounds. You clear most of the stages by freeing all of its guarded hostages. You fight a boss at the end of each round. And after clearing a round, you challenge a bonus stage and aim to earn extra lives.

In Shadow Dancer, you take control of Joe Musashi, who has a number of abilities. He comes equipped with throwing-shurikens ("Death Stars," as the game's manual calls them), of which he has an unlimited supply, and a sword (the "Shinobi Sabre"), with which he strikes enemies that are close in proximity (when you're within two tiles of an enemy, the sword attack takes priority). The sword is strictly a ground weapon; when he's in the air, he instead jumpkicks in-proximity enemies. All three attacks have the same strength.

Joe has both a normal jump and a high jump, the latter of which is only usable when there's a traversable surface directly above him or when there's a plane-switching opportunity. He can crouch and thus take cover from head- and chest-level projectiles, and he can also crouch-walk to maintain said cover while advancing or retreating. And he has command of Ninjutsu magic and specifically screen-clearing spells.

He's basically the hero you remember from Shinobi.

But he's not a complete carbon copy of Shinobi's hero, no. This time around, he brings something new to the table: He has a furry ally--Yamato, his trusty canine companion! Yamato follows Joe wherever he goes and assists him by attacking enemies on command! (I'll talk more about Yamato later on.)

Shadow Dancer's rules and systems will be familiar to anyone who has played the original Shinobi: In each stage section and boss fight, you have a three-minute time-limit. When you're in a stage that contains hostages, you can't leave until all of the hostages have been freed (there can be anywhere from 1 to 7 hostages in a stage). Certain hostages award you a power-up that turns your shurikens into deadlier flame stars and replaces your sword attack with more-destructive punches and kicks (Joe kicks when he's standing and punches when he's crouching), and you lose this power when you die or clear a stage. You get one Ninjutsu spell per stage, and it refreshes when you die. And you die in one hit--save for instances in which you collide with an enemy, doing which will merely knock you back a bit (unless, of course, said enemy is carrying a blade and you happen to make contact with any part of the weapon).

You get points for killing enemies (each enemy type awards a different number of points) and rescuing hostages (1,000 points for each freed hostage), and these points count toward your score, which is displayed in the screen's top-left corner. You don't get rewards for reaching certain points-totals, so the process of points-earning is only good for chasing and setting new high scores (your high-score total is displayed in the screen's top-middle portion). You start with 5 lives, and you can earn more lives by uncovering hidden lizard symbols and meeting certain conditions in the bonus stages. And you have 5 continues in total; when you use one of them, you restart in whichever action or boss stage you were in when you died (the only exception is the final boss' stage; if you use a continue after depleting your life-stock in that stage, you get sent all of the way back to the round's start).

 And because Shadow Dancer is built on Shinobi's engine, it also controls exactly like you expect. It's a three-button game.

You attack by pressing A. Each time you do this, you'll toss a shuriken, slash with your sword, or throw a jumpkick. You can toss shurikens while standing, walking, jumping, crouching or crouch-walking, and you can do so rapidly. You have an unlimited supply of shurikens and are thus encouraged to freely spam them. And if you're within two tiles of an enemy, you'll instead attack them with your sword or jumpkick them.

You also use the A button to control your dog, Yamato. You can command him to charge forward and attack the nearest enemy by holding down the A button for about a second and then releasing it. Holding down the button charges your Yamato gauge, which is displayed in the screen's bottom-middle portion. If you release the button when the gauge is flashing, Yamato will charge forward and attack. Be aware, though, that the command only registers when you're standing completely still; if you're in motion at the time, nothing will happen.

You jump by pressing the B button. Joe's jumps are of the modular variety, and you can exert control over them at every point during their duration. They have a fixed height (about four tiles) but variable horizontal range (they can carry him up to four tiles). The jump controls are largely smooth-feeling, but there are moments when they can feel a little stiff. You will, for instance, meet some resistance when you're trying to pull back during a horizontal jump. This becomes a problem when you have forward momentum and a projectile is flying toward your head or torso. Your pullback control is limited in such an instance, and thus there's a high probability that said projectile is going to strike you no matter how soon you react. And it doesn't help that Joe's jump hangs a bit when it reaches its apex; his hanging in the air gives projectiles more of an opportunity to connect.

Joe also has a high jump that can only be used as specific points. You can use it by pressing up plus B. If there's a traversable platform placed above him, on an upper level, he can high jump his way up to it. He can otherwise use the high jump to switch between planes in stage segments that allow for such an action. If, for instance, there's a fence or a gate separating a segment's sprite and background layers, you can use your high jump to propel yourself over it and enter the background layer. When you're in the background, though, the high jump's input changes; you now have to press down plus B to high jump and thus reenter the sprite layer. The high jump is purely vertical in nature, and because it's a command move, you can't exert any influence over it.

Otherwise, you can fall through platforms, down to lower levels, by pressing down plus B. You can crouch-walk by holding left or right while crouching. And you can use a Ninjutsu spell by pressing the C button.

 Now, if you're coming into Shadow Dancer after playing Revenge of Shinobi, which released almost a year earlier, you're going to have to temper your expectations. Shadow Dancer is not a follow-up to the highly acclaimed Revenge of Shinobi. It's not a next-level Shinobi game. Rather, it's a simple side-scrolling action-platformer whose gameplay hearkens back to an earlier period in the series' history.

If you've played the original arcade Shinobi, then you already have a pretty good idea of what Shadow Dancer is: You traverse a stage, you free all of its hostages, and then you move on to the next stage. At the round's endpoint, you fight a boss. And after you clear a round, you challenge a bonus stage. Generally, rounds are broken up into three stages: two action stages and a boss fight.

The only exception is the final round, which has a unique gauntlet-style structure and its own rules. In this round, you must battle your way through five separate "Rooms" and then take on the final boss. You can do so at a more leisurely pace because there are no time-limits. And this gauntlet has an expected theme: Each of its rooms is filled with a specific enemy type, and each successive room's enemy type is more dangerous than the previous one's.

Shadow Dancer's enemy cast is largely similar to the original Shinobi's. Most of its enemies are just cosmetically altered variants of enemies you've seen before. It has those like the following:

• Unarmed and knife-wielding grunts grunts who charge at you and strike when they get in close. They're now robots instead of punkers ("Mohis," as they're called) and rogue cops.
• Gun-toting goons who fire at you from standing, kneeling or lying positions. They're now military-fatigue-, visor-wearing soldiers instead of rogue cops.
• The defensive dual-shield-wielding strongmen who toss their shields like boomerangs and do so at varying ranges and across low or high horizontal planes (and sometimes both in alternation). The dual-shield-wielders' primary function is to guard hostages. They replace Shinobi's sword-and-shield-wielding strongmen (Hussom and Mahsan), who performed the same job; though, unlike their predecessors, they have no mobility, and they can't toss their weapons across the screen in a purely straight-moving motion. If you die and restart a stage, you won't encounter any dual-shield-wielder whose hostage you rescued; it stays dead (unless you're forced to use a continue, in which case everything resets).
• And those annoying ninjas who appear from out of nowhere and either leap or crouch-walk toward you. These guys, too, are defensive and generally difficult to engage. Getting too close to them or making direct contact with them will likely result in death. Usually they appear in pairs or in large groups and attempt to overwhelm you. Ninjas are the only enemies that respawn after a certain amount of time has elapsed. Also, ninjas will randomly spawn in if you remain idle or dawdle for too long. And they come in four different power levels: blue, gold, red and black; each successive form is more defensive, more leap-happy, and more deadly than the last. And the toughest of them, the black ninjas, have a special rolling attack that's hard to cut through.

That's not to say, though, that Shadow Dancer's enemy cast is comprised wholly of recycled enemies. It isn't. It has two exclusive foes: defensive claw-armed ninjas that swiftly roll toward you when you come within a certain range of them, and green one-eyed mutants who drop in from offscreen and proceed to crawl toward you and execute pouncing leaps when they get close.

But that's about it. It has only six enemies in total. It has no other exclusive foes or variants of Shinobi's arachnamen, scuba ninjas, bazooka soldiers, skeleton ninjas, freakish junkie heads, rooks, or staff-wielding monks.

It's disappointing that Shadow Dancer's enemy cast is so much smaller than Shinobi's, yeah, but ultimately not that big a deal. Shadow Dancer overcomes this deficiency by using what it's got in interesting and cool ways (by having its enemies do things like break through windows!). It gets the most out of its enemy cast and thus makes you forget that you're fighting the same six foes over and over again.

Then there are the bosses.

All of Shadow Dancer's boss fights have a similar structure: You dodge a boss' attack or series of attacks and then wait for it to expose its vulnerable point, and in that small window of time, you attack the vulnerable point. The boss' patterns are pretty simple, and it's never too difficult to find their vulnerable points (though, the smaller a boss' hitbox is, the more accurate you have to be). Each boss has six units of health.

Shadow Dancer's boss cast is comprised of five exclusive foes. (Though, its first boss, the Stomper, is quite similar to Shinobi's Ken-Oh, who also pulled first-boss duties. Shadow Dancer's having a Ken-Oh-like foe as its first boss is obviously its way of giving a nod to its inspiration.)

When you're in situations in which the action has become too chaotic or in which you're currently being overwhelmed by enemy forces, you can turn to your Ninjutsu magic. A Ninjutsu spell will help you to deal with the situation by clearing the screen of all enemies, projectiles and damaging debris. What's great is that the spell's reach extends 10 to 20 pixels beyond the current screen, so it's also able to clear out enemies that are just offscreen! That's some generous range!

You get one spell per stage, and it refreshes when you die.

There are three different spells (flame, tornado and meteor), but they all have the same function: clearing the screen. They're different only cosmetically; the spells' raging flame pillars, huge tornadoes and large meteors clear the screen in exactly the same way.

Ninjutsu spells are primarily desperation moves, but they can also be used tactically. In stage segments that are filled with enemies, you can use the spells as a form of preemptive crowd control; you can rush forward across several screens and trigger a whole bunch of enemy spawns and then use a spell to effortlessly wipe out a huge crowd of enemies! This is an especially useful tactic in stage segments that are filled with those annoying ninjas.

So the goal in each stage is to free all of its hostages, and sometimes you gain a lot by doing so. The majority of the hostages reward you points that only serve to increase your score, but some others reward you commodities that are actually of practical use. Certain hostages provide you extra lives (1ups and even 2ups) and the aforementioned power-up (which grants you flame shurikens and flame-enhanced punches and kicks). The power-ups are hugely beneficial because they provide you attacks that allow you to kill any type of enemy in one hit. Even the most-well-shielded enemies are helpless against them; the powered-up weapons almost unfailingly cut through their defenses (sometimes they're able to absorb a single flame shuriken).

Though, because these attacks are so overpowered, the game limits your use of them. You lose the power-up when you die or exit a stage, and in the former instance, you can't regain it because freed hostages don't reappear when you die and restart (they do, however, return when you use a continue). The important thing is to hold on to the power-up for as long as you can and get maximum use out of it. Believe me: It makes life so much easier!

And some stages contain a really helpful item: a round, gold lizard symbol that awards you either one or two extra lives. These symbols are hidden in certain objects and spaces, and you can uncover them by striking said objects and spaces with any of your weapons. Finding them is a matter of experimentation--of throwing shurikens in every which direction and striking every onscreen object. If you're too lazy to do that, you can instead let Ninjutsu spells do all of the work for you; the spells strike at screens' every pixel, and thus they allow you to quickly and efficiently sweep entire screens (and parts of previous and upcoming screens) for hidden symbols.

Also, Shadow Dancer awards you special bonuses for clearing stages under certain conditions: a 100,000-point "Peaceful Bonus" for finishing a stage without attacking; and a 50,000-point "Shinobi Bonus" for using only striking attacks during the course of a stage.

And, like I said, there are between-round bonus stages in which you can potentially earn extra lives. After you finish a round, you get to partake in a cool challenge in which you drop from a skyscraper and engage with groups of wall-jumping ninjas as you're descending. There are 50 ninjas in all, and you get rewards for achieving certain kill-totals: If you kill anywhere from 1 to 47 ninjas, you get mere bonus points. If you kill 48 ninjas, you get one extra life. If you kill 49 ninjas, you get two extra lives. And if you kill all 50 ninjas, you get three extra lives! There's also a secret pacifist bonus: If you record 0 kills, you get one extra life (this bonus will surely be appreciated by anyone who don't trust in his or her ability to competently take out 48 or more ninjas).

Shadow Dancer's bonus stage is way superior to Shinobi's because it actually gives you a fair chance to earn a reward (I don't think I've ever cleared Shinobi's bonus stage). It has a very manageable difficulty. Also, it's a lot of fun to look at and play! And I've discovered a little trick that'll help you to reliably score 50 kills: Just line yourself up with the left building and mash the attack button! If you can sustain a good mashing speed, you'll succeed in taking out all of the ninjas (or almost all of them; sometimes one or two manage to sneak by)!

Then there's Shadow Dancer's new element: Its assist character--Yamato, Joe's trusty canine companion. Yamato follows Joe wherever he goes and provides his services when they're needed. He represents one of the game's defining aspects.

You can prompt Yamato to act by holding down the attack button and doing so until the Yamato gauge fully charges and begins to flash. If you release the button when the gauge is flashing, he'll charge forward and attack the nearest enemy (be aware, though, that he'll only respond to your command if you're standing completely still at the moment you release the button). Specifically, he'll wrestle with and effectively immobilize a targeted enemy and leave it vulnerable to attack.

There's only one instance in which he won't be able to perform this function: If a shielded enemy is currently in a defensive pose, Yamato won't be able to attack him. Rather, Yamato will crash into the enemy's shield and suffer an injury, and resultantly he'll turn into an ineffective puppy; and he'll remain in this state anywhere from 5-22 seconds (I'm not sure what decides the penalty's length). He'll also get hurt and turn into a puppy if you don't take out the enemy he's immobilizing within 6 seconds; said enemy will break free from his hold and push him away.

If Yamato is in puppy form, you won't be able to command him. He won't react. You'll have to wait until he returns to his normal size. If you're not interested in waiting, though, you can do one of two things to bypass the entire process: use a Ninjutsu spell or free a hostage. Doing either will instantly return him to his normal size!

Yamato is most useful, I find, when two projectile-firers are close in proximity to each other and operating on different cycles. In such situations, you can use Yamato to immobilize the guy in front and temporarily take him out of the equation; this saves you the trouble of having to do extra math. Usually, though, I refrain from calling upon Yamato because doing so sucks the challenge out of the game, and it strikes me as a cheap way of neutralizing threats. I'd rather do it all on my own! Achieving victory is more fulfilling that way! If you're a newcomer, though, you'll probably feel differently and have more appreciation for the advantages that Yamato provides. He can be a great help.

 So, as you can see, Shadow Dancer is quite different from the two games that bookend it. It's not a consolized action-platformer that requires you to explore lengthy, wide-open stages and complicated mazes, no. It's a straightforward, to-the-point arcade-style action game. And it's great at being that. It delivers action that's fast-paced, engagingly intense, and vigorously fun, which is exactly what you're looking for when you play an arcade-style game. (And it has dual-plane action, which I love! Any game that allows you to move between foreground and background planes is an instant winner in my book!)

A big part of the fun is learning how to effectively deal with each of the different enemy types and coming up with reliable strategies. Success in Shadow Dancer is all about knowing how to utilize the surrounding environment. It's about tactics: crouching behind objects to find cover; switching between planes to sneak around and avoid troublesome enemies or to pop up right behind defensive-type foes and slash them before they can react; using the high-jump and drop-down mechanics to approach enemies from the side and surprise them with attacks; baiting multiple ninjas into jumping over to a single spot and then taking them out all at once; and using movement manipulation to force waiting claw-armed ninjas to either roll forward or climb up platforms and thus put themselves in a vulnerable state.

Also, you can use the lack of contact damage to your advantage. You can purposely initiate contact to knock a foe back and temporarily immobilize him. This tactic is useful in three instances: (1) If two enemies are close together and on different animation cycles, you can collide with one of them and temporarily take him out of the equation. (2) If you feel that a nearby enemy is about to outdraw you, you can bounce him back a bit and reset his cycle. And (3) if you're afraid to jump right in front of or directly behind an enemy because you don't trust your reflexes, you can instead jump onto him and knock him back and then get in a shot before he can regroup! Note, though, that you can't do this to bosses. They always hold their ground. You just bounce off of them.

Charging forward without thinking can have dire consequences. You have to be tactical, and you have to look before you leap because enemies tend to suddenly appear at screens' edges. If you move too quickly or fail to give the camera enough time to center itself after you ascend to an upper level, you'll be at risk of getting struck by a projectile that was thrown or fired by an enemy that was positioned just offscreen. You have to be aware of your surroundings at all times.

Shadow Dancer's bosses aren't quite as interesting or as creative as Shinobi's, but still they're pretty great. They're large and animated. They have cool, visually striking attacks. And most importantly, they're fun to fight! They keep you focused and engaged, and they inspire you to perform skillfully and thus zealously string together combinations of deftly executed attacks and evasive maneuvers.

The bosses can feel overwhelmingly difficult at first (mostly because you can only take one hit, and thus you don't have much time to get a sense of what they're doing), but once you memorize their patterns (which are rather simple) and figure out how to accurately strike their vulnerable points, you'll be able to take them down pretty easily (well, four of them, at least). Also, you can expedite the process by depleting four of a boss' six health units and then using a Ninjutsu spell, doing which will allow you to effortlessly knock off its remaining two health units!

So yeah--Shadow Dancer has a lot of endearing qualities: engaging level design and enemy interactions, cool weapons and tactics, fun boss battles, and all-around great action. And these qualities help Shadow Dancer to be one of the best of its kind.

 Visually, Shadow Dancer isn't on Revenge of Shinobi or Shinobi III's level. Its sprites and textures aren't as starkly colored, as clean-looking, or as well-rendered as theirs, and its environments and stage settings aren't quite as enrapturing. Though, even then, it still manages to be a great-looking, visually appealing game.

It earns that distinction with an alluring visual style that's best described as "arcade Shinobi with a harder edge and the 'attitude' that Genesis games were apt to convey." That's to say that it makes up for its lack of visual depth by exhibiting some very strong tonal conveyance. It uses dark shades and worn-looking textures to masterfully depict a gritty, lived-in urban setting that has been dilapidated by both age and the destructive activities of dark forces. It creates a convincing portrayal of a city that has fallen into despair.

The only issue I have with its textures is that some of them are overly grainy in appearance. They're dithered rather than smoothly shaded, and consequently they have a low-quality look to them. Environments that are formed from such textures (environments like the Statue of Liberty exterior) look flat and pixelated and just plain unattractive.

But still, Shadow Dancer is a great-looking game, and it has a lot of cool things to show you. It seeks to impress early and often. It's always eager to show off its big effects and visually engaging set pieces. It makes that inclination clear in its first stage, which depicts a destroyed city that's been set completely ablaze. The stage's background immediately grabs your attention; it uses a distortion effect to simulate heat refraction, and thus it creates a scene in which the entire cityscape oscillates in mesmerizing fashion. And as you move along, a number of electrifying events transpire: flame pillars violently explode out from the street's manholes, and earthquakes cause parts of the environment to split apart and leave behind large gaps! Everything about this stage arouses your senses and grips you in some way.

(Honestly, the oscillation effect is a little goofy-looking because it causes the buildings to wave back and forth in a manner that's so exaggerated that you get a scene that looks more like "enflamed city blissfully sways in rhythm to the stage's groovy music" than what you'd see if you were actually viewing an enflamed city through bent light waves. Still, though, it's a neat effect, and it's fun to look at.)

Then there's the elevator stage whose setting is Liberty Island. As you ascend upward, you see the different parts of the Statue of the Liberty. At the same time, you battle hordes of ninjas and dodge helicopter fire! And when you make it all of the way to the top, you battle a boss on a platform that's placed right in front of the statue's head! The entire time, you also have a constant view of the ocean and the distant city (Shadow Dancer is loaded with beautiful cityscape backgrounds).

Another stage is set in a dark, shadowy cave. In this stage, the only areas you can see are those that are illuminated by the cones of light that beam through the cave ceiling's tiny openings. As you traverse it, you feel fear and apprehension because you never know what's hiding in the darkened areas.

The bonus stages, too, are visually engaging. In each one, you drop from a skyscraper, and as you fall, you battle dozens of wall-jumping ninjas. The action starts high in the sky and continues on until you reach the city streets below. As you descend, the scene changes; the sky gives way to the city's buildings, which slowly and fantastically come into view.

Really, these bonus stages do as much as any other to define the game's personality and spirit. (As an aside: I like how the bonus stages reflect the passage of time. They take place in the morning, in late noon, at sunset, and at nighttime, sequentially. Thus they tell the story of how long Joe's adventure is and when each part of it occurs!)

And then there's my absolute favorite stage setting: the suspension bridge! It's one of the most visually engaging, most-imagination-stirring settings I've ever seen in a game!

The stage is formed from two beautifully rendered displays. The first is the suspension bridge, on which all of the action occurs. The multi-level bridge is amazingly-well-crafted and strikingly authentic in appearance. It has all of the features of a real suspension bridge: towers, cables, a sag, archers, rails and tower foundations. Its surfaces and supports are comprised of beams and girders that are held together with rows of bolts. And it even has walkways! You can see one of them on the bridge's background portion!

The suspension bridge is an absolutely captivating stage element. As you cross over it, you feel compelled to marvel at its construction and entrancedly examine every part of its frame. That's how well-presented it is. And because it's placed in a wide-open area, you can access and traverse all of its different parts! You can travel its upper or lower levels, and, if you want, you can even jump down to one of its tower-foundation-platforms and hang out down there!

The other display is the stage's breathtaking background. It's a huge multi-screen animated background that scrolls both horizontally and vertically and remains in view everywhere you go. There are three elements to it: a cloud-filled sky, a distant cityscape, and flowing ocean water whose animation is as gorgeous as it is hypnotizing.

The cityscape and the scrolling clouds are nicely rendered, yes, but the real star here is the ocean, whose animation is extremely impressive. The ocean is formed from several independently scrolling background layers (probably about 3 or 4 layers, though the designers' graphical wizardry makes it appear as though there are as many as 13 layers), and thus it has the appearance of a massive, mile-long free-flowing water body. It has incredible visual depth and powerful energy, and it encompasses the entire setting in the most majestic of ways. It's just a stunning visual.

And it's always there with you: It's visible through every set of girders, rails and beams. Every between-space is a window to it. And you're happy about that because its presence provides the setting an enchanting energy that fills you with wonderment and inspires you to imagine--to form rich, vivid visualizations of picturesque bridges surrounded by majestic oceans' unceasingly flowing waters. Also, the ocean background provides a gorgeous view! You don't want to stop looking at it, and sometimes you can't help but stop and observe it for a minute or two (up until the game warns you that you're running out of time).

The best place to view the ocean is from the tower-foundation platforms. From there, you can see it in all of its splendor. You can get a better sense of its amazing depth and scale. Seeing it from that position makes you feel as though you're surrounded by engulfing water. It's an awe-inspiring scene.

I love everything about this stage setting. It's one of my all-time-favorites. Every time I play Shadow Dancer, I look forward to traversing the suspension-bridge stage and taking some time to lovingly examine its every element.

And you know what? There's one area in which Shadow Dancer is on par with the other Genesis Shinobi games: animation. Its characters, scrolling backgrounds and events (like the environments splitting in half and flames shooting out of manholes) animate just as nicely as any of those in Revenge of Shinobi and Shinobi III.

Its characters, in particular, are well-animated. Their general movements work on six-frame cycles, and thus they move, jump, run, crawl and crouch-walk smoothly and gracefully (Joe's shuriken-throwing animation has only three frames, yeah, but that's still two more than what his Revenge of Shinobi incarnation's has!). And the majority of them have idle animations, so they're lively even when they're in stationary positions! Yamato even has a turning animation, which is something I love to see in 2D games! Also, you can make Joe look upward by pressing up on the d-pad; I love when games have head-tilting animations, too, because they look cool and they're the best tool for having playable characters bop to the stage music!

So I don't really have any major complaints about the game's animation. I mean, sometimes the background's scrolling animations are a bit choppy, sure, but that's not a big deal to me. The only time I really notice the choppiness is when I'm specifically looking for it.

Shadow Dancer, also, has two cool pre-stage animations: As the game is introducing the upcoming stage, Joe, while standing atop the screen, forms the round-number text with his shurikens. And when you press a button to advance past a stage's intro screen, Joe, who's positioned to the left of the lives-total display, dives off the screen--an action that symbolizes his "diving into action." They're cool little touches that provide the game an extra bit of personality.

And Shadow Dancer, I can't help but mention, has one other alluring quality: Despite its being a mid-generation release, it has that "early-Genesis" look and vibe to it--a quality that I love. In every way, it's a quintessential "Genesis" game. You remain filled with that sense as you play it, look at it, and listen to it. The entire time, images of the late-80s-era console scene continue to fill your head. You think of Altered Beast, Golden Axe and all of the early Genesis games you and your friends used to play together and enjoy during that unforgettable period.

Shadow Dancer really brings you back. And to me, that's as good a reason as any to keep returning to it!

 Shadow Dancer's is one of the most of-the-era soundtracks in existence. It's pure-late-80s in character. It makes use of every rock variation that was popular at that moment in time: metal, progressive, funk (with intermixed voice samples!), jazz and pop. It gives you everything you could want from a 1989 arcade-style-action-game soundtrack: synth-heavy tunes that are quick in tempo, high in spirit, and comprised of multiple layers of strikingly complex (and often chromatic) melodies and note strings.

Shadow Dancer's tunes perform a number of jobs: They pump you up, and they use their hot beats to create a guiding rhythm. They help you to form a visceral connection to the action and remain immersed in it. And they inspire you to sway back and forth and bop your head in rhythm as you travel along and zestfully slice up ninjas. The game's music is always spirited and high in energy--even when it's sinister, ominous or urgent in tone. It keeps you feeling confident and invigorated.

The tunes, themselves, are great, which is not surprising. I mean, this is a Shinobi game, after all, and games from this series always have high-quality, rockin' tunes. Excellent music is a series hallmark. The best of them is 3-2's theme (the Statue of Liberty elevator-stage theme); it's a lively, inspiriting piece that's so amazingly stimulating that it makes you want to rock out as you slice up hordes of ninjas! That's just one of the many ways in which the game's music immerses you.

If I had to rank Shadow Dancer's soundtrack, I'd place it as a solid third behind Shinobi III and Revenge of Shinobi. It's not quite as great as theirs, but it's still high-level.

Shadow Dancer's sound effects, too, are very satisfying. Shuriken-strikes and sword-swipes produce pleasingly blunt stabbing and slicing sounds. Bullets electrically burst out from guns' barrels. Earthquakes, eruptions and explosions hit with thunderous impact. Debris crashes into the ground. Windows shatter violently. Shurikens whiz through the air and sharply "tink" when they hit shields. And Yamato flamingly blitzes his way across the screen when you command him to attack.

Some actions (like high-jumping, ledge-dropping and using Ninjutsu spells) have voice samples attached to them, and these samples are all nicely produced. They're a little scratchy in quality, which Genesis sound samples tend to be, but still they sound good, and they, like so many of Shadow Dancer's other little additions, provide the game a lot of personality.

Yamato is quite expressive, too: He barks repeatedly whenever he spots a threat (the barking's volume is low, so it doesn't get annoying), and he yelps whenever he gets injured! His sound samples, in contrast, are very clear- and clean-sounding (I guess animal sounds are less taxing on the Genesis' sound drivers).

Shadow Dancer's composer and sound designer, Keisuke Tsukahara, did some great work here.

 Now, you might be operating under the assumption that Shadow Dancer is a super-tough game. You know that it's part of the Shinobi series, which has a reputation for producing highly difficult games, so you might be inclined to believe that Shadow Dancer is just another one of those enormously challenging action-platformers that you can only beat via a process of slowly and painfully grinding your way through. "These kinds of games are too frustrating," you'd understandably think.

Well, I'm here to tell you that Shadow Dancer really isn't that type of game. It's difficult, yes, but not nearly as difficult as the series' other games. It has a manageable difficulty. It's an easy game to learn. Once you memorize all of the enemy locations and understand the bosses' patterns, you'll be in a position to have success (and it helps that there are no do-or-die jumps or other stress-inducing platforming challenges). Then it's all about execution and staying sharp (which you have to do in consideration of the fact that you die in one hit).

In the early going, you might be fooled into thinking that Shadow Dancer is "one of those" because it pulls some cheap tricks. It has some "Gotcha!" moments like sudden manhole explosions and instances in which large amounts of stony debris fall in from above and so at fast speeds and without warning. But these events are outliers and not really indicative of what the game's challenge is about. Shadow Dancer really doesn't embrace cheapness and cruel tricks. It's straightforward in its intent. It plays fair. And it gives you some advantages: It provides you Yamato, who can help you to deal with enemy clusters, and it hands out tons of extra lives.

In truth, Shadow Dancer's entire difficulty boils down to two specific late-challenges. The first is Round 5's final room, which is filled with highly formidable black-colored ninjas. If your reflexes and movement-manipulation skills aren't on point as you traverse this room, you'll likely get destroyed by these ninjas. If you want to advance past this room, you have to know how to capably deal with groups of ninjas and opportunistically use Ninjutsu.

The second such challenge is the final boss battle, which is far more challenging than anything you face previously. It can be an absolute terror even if you know what you're doing.

The boss character, Sauros, isn't really the problem; he's merely one of those kingly giants who hangs around in the background and commands minions to do all of the dirty work. It's the minions that are the problem. They're all black-colored ninjas, and Sauros summons them in waves. And if you don't wipe out all of the summoned ninjas before Sauros briefly reveals his vulnerable point, you'll be in trouble; you'll be so distracted by the ninjas that you'll likely miss your opportunity to score hits or get hit by the flames that fall from the ceiling when Sauros' helmet detaches.

This becomes a much larger problem later on when Sauros begins to summon subsequent waves well before you've finished wiping out previous waves. That's when things can really start to get out of hand.

This fight can be a killer. It represents the point in which you're most likely to earn a decisive Game Over. Even coming into it with 20-plus lives won't guarantee success. If you don't know how to capably deal with the ninjas, you'll continue to struggle, and after you suffer a string of crushing deaths, you'll probably become completely dispirited. "I'll never be able to win this battle," you'll think.

But know, my fellow enthusiasts, that you can endure the fight and emerge victorious if you learn how to calmly and effectively deal with black-colored ninjas. (All I can do is provide two tips: Jump over rolling ninjas to avoid having to fight them, and, when you can, despawn ninjas early by knocking them far offscreen.)

 And if you're the type who expects a greater challenge from your Shinobi games, you can find what you're looking for in the game's higher difficulties: Levels 2 and 3, both of which you can access from the game's options menu. In the higher difficulties, more enemies appear in each stage, and bosses have more health (8 and 10 units, respectively). Level 3 is of course insanely difficult, but it's at least merciful enough to provide you four additional continues (talk about enticement!).

Also, Shadow Dancer's challenge is progressive, so if you restart it after beating it, you'll automatically be placed in a higher difficulty.

There's also another challenge mode that can be accessed from the options menu: "Non-Shuriken." In this mode, you can only use your sword and your jump kick (you can use them freely, since there are no in-proximity limitations in this mode). You have no long-range options. Though, you do get to use shurikens during boss battles--mainly because the sword and the jump kick can't extend far enough to strike the bosses' vulnerable points, which are usually centered within the bosses' thick, bulky frames and thus out of reach.

It's an interesting mode that introduces new kinds of challenges and adds some variety of gameplay. It forces you to play a different way: more cautiously and more stealthily. If you like tactical action in your ninja games, then this is the mode for you.

These extra challenge modes do two important things: They give advanced players something to really bite into, and they provide the game a high degree of replayability.

Closing Thoughts

 And that's the story with Shadow Dancer. It's a sadly overlooked gem, and anyone who calls him or herself an action-game fan would do well to seek it out and play it. You'll be missing out otherwise.

Just keep in mind that Shadow Dancer isn't designed to be a large-scale, next-level Shinobi game. It's not like Revenge of Shinobi or Shinobi III, no. It's something different. It's a short, to-the-point arcade-style action-platformer--the type of game that's meant to complement the Genesis' larger, more-complex Shinobi-series entries.

I liken Shadow Dancer to Trojan, Renegade, Altered Beast, Golden Axe and other such "role-fillers," as I call them. It does a specific job--one that the big blockbuster-type games aren't capable of doing: It delivers a complete, satisfyingly fun action-game experience in a short period. In instances in which you're time-strapped or in need of a quick fix, it provides you a satiating action-game experience in an ideal amount of time (about 25 minutes or so). That's its value.

Really, Shadow Dancer is the kind of game that every classic console needs. It's a role-filler, and games of its type are just as foundational as any.

 For Genesis-lovers, Shadow Dancer is an excellent substitute for the original Shinobi, which inexplicably never came to the console (I mean, wasn't the Genesis designed specifically to be a home for Sega's classic and contemporary arcade games?). It's mechanically identical to Shinobi, it has the same style of level design, and it can be completed in the same amount of time (about 25 minutes, like I said).

And I'd say that it's the better game: It's more visually appealing, its stage settings are more interesting, it has better music (and not just by virtue of having more than one stage theme) and sound design, and it's a lot more fair in terms of challenge (which is to say that it has fewer "Gotcha!" moments). There's only one area in which it doesn't quite measure up: boss fights. Its bosses simply aren't as interesting as or as creative as Shinobi's.

But still it's easily the superior game. And it's hands down the best of the arcade-style Shinobis.

 Let me say in closing that Shadow Dancer is way superior to its arcade inspiration. The arcade version of Shadow Dancer is nothing like the Genesis version, no. It's a bad combination of rough, boring and frustrating. It has so much working against it: Its visuals and music are mundane. Its level design is maddening. Its mechanics are unpolished. And its enemies are just plain obnoxious.

Arcade Shadow Dancer is the only Shinobi game I haven't liked. It just isn't very good. The Genesis version completely blows it away. And certainly it blows away all of the console and computer ports of arcade Shadow Dancer.

So if you're planning on playing one of the multiple versions of Shadow Dancer, you'd do best to select the Genesis version. It's the best of the bunch.

And if you're a big fan of the Shinobi series or action-platformers in general, then Shadow Dancer is a game that you need in your life.