The Cyber Shinobi (also known as The Cyber Shinobi: Shinobi Part 2) is a side-scrolling action videogame produced by Sega released for the Master System in 1990. It was the third Shinobi game for the console (following Alex Kidd in Shinobi World) and served as a futuristic-themed sequel to the original Shinobi. The game was released exclusively in Europe, Australia, and Brazil, as it was released at a time the Master System was discontinued in other markets.
Plot[]
Cyber Zeed - the villains who previously tried to destroy the world - are back! Zeed's army is stealing plutonium from the power plants. Their goal is to melt down this planet! All the world's nations joined forces in an attempt to put an end to this chaos. Thousands of troops were sent out. But none of them was successful.
Then Joe Musashi - appeared the grandson of the brave ninja who had defeated Cyber Zeed years ago. Joe's the only one who can use the four types of Ninjutsu - Fire, Tornado, Lightning and Earth Element. He's the only hope! Be Joe Musashi and wipe out Cyber Zeed for good!
Gameplay[]
The controls and rules of the game are completely different from the original Shinobi. While the objective of the game is to reach the end of stage and then fight a boss, unlike the original, the player is prevented from proceeding when reaching certain points of each stage until a certain number of enemies are eliminated (much like a side-scrolling beat-'em-up).
The player attacks primarily with his sword and a crouching kick. The height of the player's jumps can increased as well by holding the d-pad upwards while pressing the jump button. The player has a total of four gauges on the top screen. In addition to his "life" gauge that shows the amount of damage the player can sustain before losing life, there's also a "power" gauge that determines the strength of his basic attacks, a "shot" gauge that shows the remaining ammunition of his current sub-weapon, and a "Ninjutsu" gauge that determines which spells the player can use. By destroying item containers located throughout each stage, the player can pick up power-ups marked by the letters "L", "P", "S" and "N" to fill out each individual gauge by one unit.
When the player first picks up "Shot" power-up, he will wield a shuriken launcher, which can be replaced with an automatic "Vulcan" gun, and then a supply of grenades, by picking up subsequent "shot" power-ups. Each sub-weapon can only hold up to eight shots each and when the player's current sub-weapon runs out of ammo, he will revert to the previous one and so-on until his last sub-weapon runs out as well.
"Ninjutsu" spells are performed by pressing buttons 1 and 2 simultaneously. There are a total of four Ninjutsu spells and although, each one requires a different amount of units to perform, only two units are actually consumed when one is performed. As a result, the player can max-out his Ninjutsu gauge, use the powerful spell, and then work his way down to the weaker ones. The Ninjutsu spells available are "Fire" (requires one or two units), "Tornado" (four units), "Lightning" (six units) and "Earth Element" (eight units)
Stages and Bosses[]
| Stage | Name | Boss |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Construction Site | Crazy Bull |
| 2 | Harbor | Sea Bat |
| 3 | Field | Heli Blast |
| 4 | Jungle | Black Tiger |
| 5 | Waterfall | Red Hopper |
| 6 | Enemy Hideout | Psy Gunner |
Reception[]
The game was rated 58 out of a 100 by Sega Pro magazine, which criticized it for its lack of content and easy difficulty. Richard Leadbetter on the May 1991 issue of Computer + Video Games gave the game a score of 46% and compared it unfavorably to the Master System version of the original Shinobi.