SHINOBI: Art of Vengeance review: A thrilling fight that lacks complexity

Every now and then, a game like Shinobi: Art of Vengeance hits just right. I’m not always looking for 2D action platformers, but when one comes along with fast-paced combat, a variety of platforming challenges, levels with hordes of secrets, and a strong visual flair, it can’t help but pull me in.

The game’s hand-drawn art style comes together so nicely. The backgrounds are so lively and beautifully drawn, and yet the characters still stand out in the best way. The carefully chosen keyframes in each of the attack animations combine with the visual effects really well and give the impression of complex movement without some poor animator having to draw 100 poses for a single swing of the sword.

The thing is, the game’s visuals are the only praise I can give that doesn’t have a little asterisk attached.

The game’s biggest problem is that, while all of its systems are engaging, their complexity doesn’t scale in a satisfying way. Take combat, for example. You have a good variety of moves in your arsenal, light and heavy attacks, throwable kunai, and a dodge. As you’d expect, you can combo your different types of attacks in various patterns for cool combos, and as you progress, you can buy more from the shop. The dodge also feeds into this, as you can use it mid-combo to keep the hits coming. On top of that, you have your kunai, which don’t do much damage but quickly build up a foe’s stun meter, which, when maxed out, lets you activate an instant-kill move that rewards you with money, health, and more kunai.

This is all very fun. It flows well, nailing combos is satisfying, it feels great to dodge an attack just in the nick of time, and if you’re good enough, you get rewarded with every enemy bursting into a shower of rewards when you insta-kill them. The problem is, it doesn’t develop much over the course of the game. While you can buy new moves from the shop, they never made much of a difference to how I’d approach combat. I didn’t feel like I was growing my arsenal or skills, and that started to make me lose interest.

The same goes for the special moves that you unlock throughout the game, as while you get given a good variety, there isn’t much reason to use more than a couple. The first one you get does really good damage, and once I’d found one that could shred an enemy’s armor, I found no reason to use any of the others. It doesn’t help that the enemy variety isn’t exactly vast, either. Each level adds one or two new enemy types, but none of them require much of a unique strategy; you’ve just got to learn a couple of new attack patterns and keep doing what you’re doing.

It’s by no means a bad system – I still had fun with most of the encounters – but I can’t help but feel there could’ve been more to it.

As you progress, you also slowly unlock more platforming abilities, which plays into the mini-metroidvania-esque level design, where to find all of the many secrets the game has to offer, you’ll have to return to earlier levels to unlock paths that were previously inaccessible. This is something I appreciate, as while a simple run through the game’s main story is only about 7-8 hours, this system offers a lot of replayability.

You can come back to levels to try some of the more advanced combat encounters or challenges that require you to use your full moveset for some fun platforming challenges. The platforming is another area where I wish the game pushed a bit harder. As you progress, you’ll unlock things like wall-climbs, grappling hooks, and gliders, which are all fun to use. The few times the game actually makes use of these tools to create challenging platforming sequences, I had a lot of fun, but those moments were few and far between, mostly stowed away in the optional challenges that someone just running through the main story probably won’t see.

It almost feels like the game is afraid to be too difficult. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for a 2D soulslike, but I wouldn’t have the complaints I do about the combat’s complexity if the game were just a bit more challenging and forced me to use the tools it gives me more skillfully. The boss fights showcase this the best, as they rarely took me more than two attempts — the attack patterns were too basic to catch me out for the most part.

It makes coming to a conclusion on Shinobi: Art of Vengeance difficult. I honestly did enjoy my time with it, but for every bit of praise I can offer, a complaint comes attached. The combat is fun and has a strong sense of flow, but it isn’t particularly challenging, and the complexity doesn’t scale well. The platforming tools make for enjoyable and satisfying challenges, but the game infrequently uses them to their full potential. If you’re looking for a side-scrolling action platformer, then Shinobi will absolutely scratch that itch, just don’t go into it looking for a genre revolution.

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