Shin Shinobi Den (Legions/X) | Sega Saturn playthrough (JPN) | Real hardware

Shin Shinobi Den, also known as Shinobi Legions in North America, and Shinobi X in Europe, is a side-scrolling action video game developed by Sega for the Sega Saturn in 1995. The game is part of the Shinobi series, which follows the adventures of a ninja named Joe Musashi.The gameplay is focused on platforming and combat, with players controlling Joe Musashi as he navigates through various levels filled with enemies and obstacles. Players can use a variety of martial arts moves and ninja weapons to defeat enemies and progress through the game.The game's graphics are 2D and feature detailed character designs and environments. The game also features animated cutscenes that advance the game's story.Review – This is the fourth game in the Shinobi series and continues the same style of gameplay as Revenge of Shinobi (i.e., The best one). It’s a bit confusing that it has a different name in each world region. The graphics are upgraded to use pre-rendered sprites like in Mortal Kombat and there are also live action FMV cut-scenes in between each level. These are actually well made but unfortunately my recording is a bit choppy since I used my PAL Saturn (while I was waiting for a replacement Japanese Saturn because I blew mine up), which skips on Japanese cut FMV games.The moves are pretty much the same as previous games. Sword strike, sword block, shuriken, double jump shuriken rain, and of course the screen filling super magic. I never really knew what the magic’s did and only used them by accident or as a desperation technique against a boss.The gameplay is really good and I enjoyed playing through as it wasn’t too difficult – until I got the minecart level. This was a real test of patience. You go for a long ride in the cart then get to a part you haven’t seen before and die. Then you learn for next time, do the whole sequence up until this part, then get past it (if you worked out what to do), then die on the next hazard and have to start again. This is really dull to go through the whole section over and over as you can’t speed it up and the bits that you have done are now easy and you done them a million times. This level was also way too long as every time you die, you have to start from the beginning with no checkpoints. Terrible level.The mountain level is a bit jankey too and I felt very lucky to get through it, rather than feeling that I had finally mastered it after losing a lot of lives.Most levels and bosses are fun and doable.I spent about an hour and a half going through the first 8 levels on my first try and then I got to the last level.Oh, what a chore. There are screen filling missiles that are transported through the level and these kill you instantly. Most are easy to dodge but then there are sections that you need to do a pixel perfect double jump to fit in a gap above them. These are very difficult to pull off and can be the cause of many deaths. But the biggest problem is that there are many to do in the level so you have to not make any mistakes, or you start the whole level again without any checkpoints. The worst thing is that if you do manages to finish the level, you need to be lucky enough to have enough lives for the rock hard boss fight because if you don’t have any and die straight away, upon using a continue, you start from the beginning of this insane level.In the end it took me an additional 1hr15m to complete the last level and over 40 lives. It was a real chore. I was very lucky that I was down to my last life and last hit when I completed it. If I had got hit one more time, it would have been game over and I would have had to start the whole game again.I really enjoyed this game but the minecart and last level let it down and only the most persistent person will make it through.

Rating - 8/10

Original (JPN/NTSC) game played on PAL Sega Saturn with NTSC converter cartridge.
Picture split between CRT TV for my own viewing and OSCC scan converter with 2x line doubler, upscaled to HDMI for recording
No cheats used
Easy difficulty
Deaths cut out
Box art from thumbnail is taken from my own collection

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