Talk:Shinobi (series)

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Contents 1 Sequel Notes 2 Shadow Dancer 3 Picture of Hotsuma 4 Misc 5 Release date of Shinobi 3 6 Shinobi literally means? 7 Trademark question 8 Shadow Dancer (arcade) and Shadow Dancer (Megadrive)

[edit] Sequel Notes

It took 7 years to get a Shinobi sequel/reboot after the saturn release. Shinobi made a brief return in 2002 with "Shinobi" for the Playstation 2 by Sega's studio Overworks composed of members of the orignal Team Shinobi. While Overworks were working on a sequel/spin-off to shinobi the Sega Sammy merger took place and overworks were merged with Sega WOW, finally in 2004 the sequel/spin-off was released by Sega WOW under the name Kunochi (Nightshade US/UK/AUS). Prior to the release of Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden.

It is unclear what happend to the franchise after this.

1) It got lost between the mergers.

2) The game failed to gain proper foothold of the market and it was stopped due to competition from Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden.

3) Sega obtained rights to publish From Softwares Tenchu series

The 3rd option is the most likely one (as no official information was released). The tenchu games published by Sega was released to poor reviews and sales, thus the next Tenchu tittle set for release May 07 (US) is going to be published by Microsoft not Sega.

It appears that it won't be long now for the Shinobi franchise to break it's hiatus once again and return to the lime light most likely on the 7th Generatrion of Consoles (X-Box 360, Nntendo Wii, PS3). -- ~cube_b3 10:18

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cube b3 (talk • contribs) 17:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Shadow Dancer

Anyone got any official confirmation on which character exactly is supposed to be in Shadow Dancer? In this one article, it states both that the hero of Shadow Dancer was Joe's son, contradicted by the story that it was Joe avenging the death of a former pupil. I always thought it was the pupil story, never seen the 'son' story mentioned in-game or anywhere else.

To be honest I'm a bit confused over this matter myself. It could be his son on The Cyber Shinobi, or in one of the two versions of Shadow Dancer (Arcade vs. console version). I don't know which it is. --Steerpike 11:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I got the Shadow Dancer versions taken care of. It was not nearly as straightforward as the other Shinobi games. Starze 00:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture of Hotsuma

I wasn't aware that the picture of Hotsuma I put in the article was in fact a picture of Aomizuchi. I never played the game so I mistook him for Hotsuma (similar cap, ninja outfit). I've changed the picture back to a "real" one of Hotsuma now. --Steerpike 12:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Misc

You could also note that the original run of Super Shinobi (Revenge of Shinobi) had spiderman as one of the bosses. Marvel threatened legal action, as a result Sega replaced the character with some other art.

Also, I believe that Joe Musashi is the Americanized version of Sho Musashi (Joe=Sho) They are one and the same character. I could be wrong about that....

Anyways, thanks for the great article! :)

Regards,

Good thought on that Joe/Sho thing. I never stopped to think about that. Maybe you are right. In regards to Spiderman, that story has its own section on the Revenge of Shinobi page. I don't know if it's useful to add it here as well. Cheers. --Steerpike 12:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Release date of Shinobi 3

Does anyone know the official release date of Shinobi 3? People change this back and forth from 1993 to 1994. I'd like to know which one it is. I've seen different dates on different websites as well so that's not really helpful. I do know that Shinobi 3 was in production (beta) as early as 1992 so I'm more inclined to say 1993 myself. --Steerpike 12:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shinobi literally means?

The article currently says that Shinobi literally means "shadow." It apparently used to say that Shinobi literally means "ninja." Other web pages say that the word literally means "sneak" or "stealer-in." Others say that it literally means "blade heart." I'm dubious about it literally meaning all of those things. Can an actual Japanese speaker comment? Elysdir 07:33, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

• The Kanji I managed to find and translate literally mean "Enduring," and the character translates through Babel Fish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/) as "Patience." Perhaps it "literally means" everlasting? -WildKard84 04:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trademark question

Didn't every Shinobi game have a helicopter enemy boss? Or was it just in 2 or so games? Siyavash 18:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Not in The Revenge of Shinobi, Shinobi 3 or Shinobi X as far as I can remember. --Steerpike 19:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shadow Dancer (arcade) and Shadow Dancer (Megadrive)

Due to reverting this back and forth, some comments. It is obvious to me that Shadow Dancer (arcade game) and Shadow Dancer (Megadrive) are clearly two different games [1]. The Megadrive version was never meant to be a "port", it just uses the title from the arcade version but the gameplay and plot are completely different. In one the player controls Hayate, in the other the player controls Joe Musashi. Furthermore, the Shadow Dancer "version" of Megadrive has the subtitle "The Secret of Shinobi". This clearly implies it was meant to be a different title.

Other Shinobi games have shared the title "Shinobi" in the past, and neither were they ports of each other. --Steerpike 11:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

If you were to conduct a side-by-side comparison you'll see certain similarities between the two that indicate the console version is derived from Shadow Dancer. There was no title in between the two in question so I'd say that's a reasonable assumption, given there was a year between them even. Naturally, the MD iteration looks different because it's on a different platform that is not nearly as capable as the original arcade system board.

However, I am willing to let this slip as long as the other changes I've implemented remain intact. Combination 11:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind your clean-up on this article. I'm just not sure about your stance on these two games, and am wondering how sure you yourself are of it. And I'm just asking, are these similarities between both versions truly remnants of the arcade version or simply similarities across all Shinobi games? Of course you are right that the megadrive version would be different because of technical limitations but:

1. If these differences extend to the point where both games are almost completely different, it may warrant a different article. This is not like a megadrive port of Mortal Kombat II, where gameplay, characters and plot are identical.
2. The Sega Master system version wás a "direct" port of the video game. In light of this, the fact that they would change the Megadrive version out of hardware considerations doesn't make sense.

Now honestly this matter isn't a life and death issue. I have no desire to edit this back and forth so if you think you are sure about this I'll let it stand.--Steerpike 12:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)