Plot
Backstory Raised together within the Oboro Clan, Hotsuma and Moritsune were seldom apart during their youth. Being the younger of the two, Hotsuma looked up to Moritsune and considered his older brother to be a superior warrior. Eventually, the Oboro Clan commandment was revealed to the two boys after they discovered Akujiki, the evil soul-stealing sword that would be used in the ritual to decide the clan's leader. The commandment deems that the next clan leader must be determined by a duel to the death between the eldest clan heirs—in this case, Moritsune and Hotsuma. Aware of their destiny, the brothers trained incessantly, instructed by their foster parent, Kobushi (previous leader of the Oboro Clan). 10 years passed as the brothers refined their techniques and honed their senses, preparing for the long-time duel and training their skills. The duel occurred beneath a full moon, with only Hotsuma's childhood friend, Ageha, and Kobushi as the witnesses, where, after a long, exhausting fight, Hotsuma won and finally slew his brother, though he felt a great deal of guilt from it. Four years later, a massive earthquake struck Tokyo, and a mysterious Golden Palace appeared in the center of the destroyed city. With the appearance of the palace came the return of the powerful sorcerer Hiruko, who was thought to have been defeated and sealed by the Oboro Clan long ago. He summoned hellspawn to wreak havoc upon the city, and all but destroyed the Oboro Clan. The city's residents became paralyzed with fear. With the Oboro Clan ravaged and Tokyo on the verge of collapse, Hotsuma placed himself at the heart of the chaos, determined to reach the mysterious Golden Palace and avenge the death of his clan. Along the way, Hotsuma is also forced to battle the slain Oboro ninja who had been reanimated to serve Hiruko. Story The game starts when Hotsuma arrives in Tokyo in a helicopter, and while in position to the Golden Palace, suddenly two hellspawns arrive and crash into the helicopter, and Hotsuma jumps from it. After running through the city alleyways and streets, defeating several tanks and ninjas, he encounters the helicopter, now possessed. Ageha arrives and manages to distract it back into the air. Ageha is mad with Hotsuma exacting his revenge, but he tells her that he does not need her help, and then leaves her and goes through the city roofs, where he encounters a mysterious ninja named Aomizuchi, whom he fights, and Akujiki awakens by tasting his blood. Aomizuchi escapes when the helicopter arrives again, and Hotsuma escapes the fire. Hotsuma reaches the temples of the Oboro Clan, where Akujiki starts to eat his soul while trying to get rid of the sword. Ageha encounters him and tells him the story about the Akujiki; Akujiki is an evil sword that was longtime hidden during the Oboro Clan rule, and killed many fighters by consuming their souls. Akujiki needs to be fed, or it will eventually consume Hotsuma as well. She explains him that he will need to feed the sword by killing the possessed fighters, whose souls have been darkened, to still Akujiki and prevent it from consuming Hotsuma. Hotsuma continues through the Oboro Clan's temple, where he encounters several dogs and encounters a twin siblings and his young students, Shirogane and Akagane, who are slowly being possessed and beg Hotsuma to kill them. He destroys them in a battle and takes their souls. After a struggle with another wave of ninjas, he eventually reaches the main shrine of the Oboro Clan. There, Ageha is trying to help Kobushi, who is injured from fighting. Helicopter arrives again, and Hotsuma slices the rocket that was fired at them. He eventually manages to destroy it, but Kobushi dies in Ageha's hands. Hotsuma continues, leaving the temple. Midway into his journey, Hotsuma encounters a young shrine maiden named Kagari, who believes that she is intended to be sacrificed by Hiruko to release a statue called Yatsurao. She asks Hotsuma to kill her, but feeling guilty over killing his brother and the similarity of the situation where the girl wants him to kill her, he is unable to do it. This leads to her capture by Hiruko's minions. Hotsuma confronts and destroys Yatsurao, but in doing so, allows Hiruko to absorb its power and restore his youth, which had apparently been his plan with Yatsurao the whole time. Hiruko returns to his palace with Hotsuma continuing his pursuit. Eventually, Ageha meets him and reveals that she released Hiruko. She also reveals that the death match between him and Moritsune was not really to decide the Oboro's leader, but to provide a soul to keep Akujiki sated. Ageha secretly worked with Hiruko to get him to resurrect Moritsune, not knowing that the revived Moritsune would become one of Hiruko's henchmen with no memory of his past. Moritsune is actually Aomizuchi, the fourth hellspawn lord. Moritsune kills Ageha, then fights Hotsuma. Hotsuma defeats him again. After the battle, Hotsuma breaks to Hiruko's Golden Palace, where Hiruko reveals that he had all along intended for Hotsuma to kill all of the hellspawn and the undead Oboro so that their souls would fuse inside Akujiki. He could then take the sword and use it to rule the world. Hotsuma vows to kill Hiruko and destroy Akujiki, as he blames the evil sword for everything that happened. Hotsuma fights and kills Hiruko after an intense battle, absorbing the sorcerer's soul into Akujiki. He thinks of his brother as the palace crumbles around him. As the military celebrates the collapse of the Golden Palace, Kagari looks on with sadness in her eyes. ==Development==
Development
Overworks, a division of
Sega, had been the developer of the
Shinobi series throughout its early years. Other projects had prohibited Overworks from developing
Shinobi titles for the
Saturn or
Dreamcast. However, in 2001, Overworks member Noriyoshi Ohba realized that he had time to develop a new
Shinobi game, and Sega returned to publish it. The
PlayStation 2 console was chosen over the competing
GameCube and
Xbox because of its familiarity to the team;
Shinobi marked the jump of the series to
3D. Past
Shinobi games made consistent use of shuriken-based combat, which would have been difficult to master in a 3D game. An auto-targeting system was added, and the gameplay emphasis shifted to swordplay rather than shurikens.
Shinobi was showcased at
Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2002 together with other prominent Sega titles such as
Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller,
ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth, and
Panzer Dragoon Orta. The game was later exhibited at
Tokyo Game Show 2002. ==Release==
Reception
Shinobis initial release fell on November 12, 2002, in North America; December 5 in Japan; and May 15, 2003, in Europe. It was generally well received by critics, with respective scores of 71 out of 100 and 71.67% from review aggregators
Metacritic and
GameRankings. Weigand cautioned: "Casual gamers beware", noting that earlier
Shinobi titles had not been as demanding. Hopper called it "the toughest game I’ve played in a long time". Level design was received generally poorly.
1UP.com highlighted repetitive environmental textures as contributing to the difficulty of finding one's way through the levels, comparing them to textures that might be found in
PlayStation games. Smith echoed this opinion, additionally noting occasionally problematic default camera angles. Hopper stated that "[m]ost of the environments look very nice and detailed, while some are a little plain". Turner called the environments overall "samey" and "uninspired". The newly introduced Hotsuma was singled out for strong praise. Smith called Hotsuma "a great design, a sort of post-modern evolution of the ninja in comparison to the thoroughly traditional
Joe Musashi [the main protagonist of the series]", additionally commending the coordination of his moves with his appearance.
1UP.com stated that he is "the supermodel of video-game action heroes—lean, stylish and mean—and he fights as good as he looks". Turner and
Allgame's Brett Alan Weiss described him as "sleek". Weiss offered strong praise for Akujiki, as did Weigand for Hotsuma's scarf. ==Sequel==