Shinobi 3DS

[thethird]

and this:

www.1up.com/news/shinobi-revived-3ds

An artist at Griptonite Games had Shinobi 3DS listed on his LinkedIn profile before removing the game's name. It mentioned he had "created whole levels for Shinobi on the Nintendo 3DS, including many props for use in a variety of environments."

Griptonite has worked almost exclusively with handhelds in the past; its games include the DS version of The Simpsons Game, The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night on GBA, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions on DS, and Marvel Super Hero Squad.

I never played the 3D Shinobi games, but I quite enjoyed me the Genesis stuff. Curious about how this is going to turn out.

[Joseph]

Initial reaction: "OMG NEW 3D SHINOBI FINALLY!"

Upon learing that this is yet another project being farmed out to a Western developer...

:*-(

[kitten]

Because Eastern developers have been making so many great games lately.

[Feynman]

No kidding. Most Japanese megacorps are either outsourcing to western developers who don't understand how to make a Japanese game, (poorly) attempting to emulate the western style themselves, or just giving up and making games for Japanese otaku.

Most of the really great, fresh games coming out of Japan right now aren't coming from ancient companies like Konami or Capcom. They're coming from smaller studios, and from old hat developers who have started their own companies outside of the stifling atmosphere of those old giants. Platinum, From Software, and Mistwalker are responsible for some truly amazing games this generation. Level-5 is another development house to watch, as they are without question the current leader in quality jRPGs, and they aren't scared of trying new things. Admittedly, Level-5 is no longer a "small" studio, but they are now what Square used to be so many years ago.

[Joseph]

Oops. Let me correct my original post:

A new Shinobi game being developed by the studio that did "Ben 10 Ultimate Alien: Cosmic Destruction" and "Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir"?! AWESOME. :-D

[Ike]

Those were pretty well received games, from my experience. Sold a lot of them.

[kitten]

May 25, 2011 0:51:24 GMT -5 Joseph said:

Oops. Let me correct my original post:

A new Shinobi game being developed by the studio that did "Ben 10 Ultimate Alien: Cosmic Destruction" and "Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir"?! AWESOME. :-D

Contra 4 was made by people who made "Sabrina: The Animated Series: Zapped!" and "SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab." Other studios that have made great games have made mediocre licensed games.

[lanceboyle94]

I only played two games by Griptonite (Assassin's Creed II Discovery and Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions*) and considering how those games were I'm pretty sure the 3DS Shinobi is gonna be just as good as those.

*Well, actually three: they also made Digimon Racing. And I think I should count those by Amaze that I've played.

[Joseph]

I know, right? So excited for this. I need to find a Wal-Mart bargain bin that has fresh copies of "MillionHeir". Maybe I can pick up a SpongeBob game while I'm at it.

[Ike]

So, if a game company produces a game that's not to your taste and not even targeted at your age group it invalidates everything else they do? Get over yourself, smartass. You know exactly nothing about this game except that it's on the 3DS and is a Shinobi title.

[Warchief Onyx]

They made some pretty solid games that would otherwise be licensed dreck. Like the Harry Potter RPG for Game Boy Color was surprisingly well-made. The Assassin's Creed game for PSP was also pretty decent.

And Contra 4 was pretty good and WayForward had a VERY similar profile to Griptonite before they made that, outside of niche darling Shantae.

[loempiavreter]

Here's for hoping the dev won't churn out a metroidvania game with the Shinobi tagged name tagged over it, :/ I know original Shinobi and Super Shinobi's isn't exactly Ninja Gaiden or Strider/Osman in pacing, a bit slower like Rolling Thunder, but that still isn't a reason to make a metroidvania game out of it.

Wasn't the Spiderman Shattered Dimension from them a metroidvania? That worries me :/

@kitten
Wayforward showed their influenced on their sleeves (Shantae, Sigma Star Saga all before Contra 4), they also had a few of the top pixel artists from Wayofthepixel working/freelancing for them.

[munchy]

Now that I know this isn't a 3DS version of the PS2 game (kinda sad about that), I'm curious.

All this mentioning of WayForward makes me royally pissed at Konami for not hiring them for anything else. They MUST make a 2D Castlevania.

[Joseph]

All kidding aside, I simply can't get behind a new Shinobi that isn't being done by Overworks/Sega WOW. The last time this happened was "Revenge of Shinobi" on the GBA...and that turned out gangbusters, right? :-)

According to Wikipedia, Sega WOW's most recent projects were the first two Valkyria Chronicles game. If I'm not mistaken, people liked those. They've always been a solid studio. (At least the Overworks side.) It makes no sense to hand this project to a no-name shovelware developer when Sega's got perfectly good talent in-house.

[Ryu the Grappler]

Here's what some of the Shinobi ex-staffers were up to in years since the original arcade and console games.

Yutaka Sugano (Director of the arcade version of Shinobi) - Works for Artoon now. He was the Project Manager for Blue Dragon for Xbox 360.

Motoshige Hokoyama (Director of the arcade version of Shadow Dancer) - Was still working for Sega as of 2009. Not sure what other games he did other than Sonic Drift.

Tomohiro Kondo (Director of the Genesis version of Shadow Dancer) - He directed the Panzer Dragoon series as well. Now works for Land Ho!
www.landho.co.jp/landho_top.htm

Noriyoshi Ohba (Director of The Revenge of Shinobi and the PS2 version of Shinobi) - Works for Gung Ho Works now.
www.gungho.jp/cgame/

Tomoyuki Ito (Director of Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master) - Seems to be working for Gung Ho Works as well.

Masahide Kobayashi (planner for both Game Gear Shinobi games) - Works for Psyclone Incorporated now. I have no idea who they are.

Ryo Kudou - Credited as "designer" for the Game Gear Shinobi. He is actually an illustrator and did the cover artwork for the Japanese versions of the games (not the American versions though unfortunately).
www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~kudou/top/top.html