Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: NemoTheCaptain

Nine words of truth, kill the battle and cut it with one knife.

Exactly 20 years ago today (November 10), Sega launched the PS2 version of "Shinobi Ninja", leaving an important mark in the history of action games. Chic characters, lightning-like movements, full of wind soundtrack, so that players remember so far. Unlike other action games that contain a lot of growth and puzzle-solving elements, Shinobi Ninja embodies the pure aesthetics of action games.

There is no mechanized training process, players must use the characteristic system "kill array" to quickly and continuously defeat the enemy in order to enhance their own attack power. The killing team has the power to kill Boss in a second, and the pleasure after success is unparalleled. Although "Shinobi tolerance" is extremely difficult, countless action game masters still enjoy it, pushing the challenge to the limit. Such a personalized work, its birth process is naturally unique.

Sega's "tolerance" series began with arcades, and the 1987 arcade version allows players to throw an unlimited number of swords in their hands, closer to a shooter than an action game. The MD version of Super Ninja, which goes on sale two years later, is the starting point for the series to take off. Super Ninja introduces more ninja tricks and tricks, including a series of iconic movements such as the second jump and eight pairs of swords. In Super Ninja, the number of swords in hand is limited, forcing players to use more skills instead of blindly shooting, but players can also restore the old settings of unlimited swords through secret books.

In Super Ninja, the master planner led the team to complete the masterpiece Super Ninja, and then he served as the master planner of two other MD classics, Iron fist of Wrath and Super Ninja 2. Entering the Saturn mainframe era, Daisheng became the producer of the "Cherry Blossom Wars" series and had no time to think about the "patience" series. Saturn's "the Legend of the New Ninja" is an outsourced development of perfunctory work, the game uses live-action shooting as the material, the feel is stiff, the animation is like a third-rate feature film, suffered a fiasco.

During the DC mainframe period, Sega's Seventh Software Development Department, led by Daisheng, was reorganized into Sega subsidiary Overworks, busy with the development of two RPG models, Eternal Acadia and Cherry Blossom Wars 3. Although Overworks had the desire to develop a new series of 3D "endurance" series on the DC host, it lacked the skill to separate itself, and it failed to achieve this wish until DC stopped production.

"Cherry Blossom Wars 3" went on sale in March 2001, when Overworks finally got a break. In May 2001, Dachang Zhisheng set up a team of 50 people to develop the new series of "endurance" series of PS2 hosts. The title of the game is the same as the original arcade version of "ninja". In order to avoid confusion, domestic players adopt the juxtaposition of Japanese, Roman sounds and Chinese characters, and call the new work "Shinobi ninja".

At that time, part of the veteran of the "patience" series Shijia was still working, but they had other projects on hand. The planner of "Super Ninja" and the director of "Super Ninja 2" Ito Zhixing are busy developing the NGC version of "Eternal Acadia" and act as consultants only in "Shinobi Ninja". Dachang Guisheng is named as the executive producer, who is mainly responsible for publicity work, and most of the actual development details are handed over to his staff. These three veterans are only responsible for the general direction of the game to ensure that "Shinobi Ninja" does not deviate from the style of the series.

Although the actual developers of this film are involved in the "patience" series for the first time, most of them are not the first to develop action games, and after experiencing the two RPG of "Eternal Acadia" and "Cherry Blossom Wars 3", their desire to return to action games has become stronger and stronger. Director Shimizu Shimizu, who is in charge of the actual development, wanted a "pure action game". At that time, the most popular action games were Capcom's "Ghost Warrior" and "Ghost crying". However, as derivatives of "biochemical crisis", these two games had a large number of upgrade and riddle-solving elements, and their lineage was not pure. A pure action game should win with pure action, like MD's Super Ninja.

Shimizu Shimizu, the director in charge of the actual development of "Shinobi patience", takes a similar view, finding that there are fewer and fewer action games on the market, and the content is gradually changing. Capcom games still have a crisp feel, but followers often fail to do so. Some action games put the selling point in the process animation and riddle part, the operation part is very poor, leaving the whole story to the end. Dachang Guisheng believes that action games also need to pay attention to the plot and animation, "Shinobi patience" has made great efforts in this regard, but since it is an action game, the team should be most concerned about the pleasure of operation and moves.

Under the guidance of this train of thought, the feel has become the most important part of "Shinobi Ninja". As a ninja game, the protagonist has lightning-like fast and accurate movement, fast and ruthless attack action, and the game's sense of speed is far better than the previous "Super Ninja", reaching a dazzling degree close to "Sonic".

The person of "Shinobi tolerance" is set up by the individualistic painter Tu Lincheng, whose painting style is elegant, free and easy, and has great charm. Capcom players are no stranger to his handwriting, and all kinds of gorgeous characters in "Ghost weeping" and "warring States BASARA" are his masterpieces. Tulincheng left Capcom as early as 1999 and opened the door to cooperation with other companies.

Arcade and MD-era "Ninja" series refer to American ninja movies such as Ninja Vengeance, in which the protagonist Qiao Musang fights in a modern city dressed in a traditional ninja costume, a contrast characteristic of the 1980s but out of date in the 21st century. Overworks needs a modern ninja, a superhero full of personality.

The elegant painting style of Tu Lincheng handed over a full mark. Shinobi Ninja sets the stage in the modern city of Tokyo, but because the city has been destroyed, large areas of high-rise buildings and subways have changed beyond recognition, with the exception of the remaining shrines and temples, it is difficult for players to recognize Tokyo from the game.

The new protagonist Xiuzhen is unforgettable with a model-like eight-pack abs, a Batman-like wrist guard and a red scarf as long as the reincarnation. The reason for adding this iconic super-long scarf, on the one hand, is to let players see the high-speed moving track of the protagonist, on the other hand, it is also to improve the details of the figure. The lens of the action game is fixed behind the protagonist most of the time, and many people focus on the front, leaving only a mediocre figure. Tu Lincheng never makes such a low-level mistake.

The screenplay of the "Cherry Blossom Battle" series was written by Akira Horiwu, a famous animator, while Shinobi Ninja gave the script to the director Shimizu himself. Although Akita Horiko did not participate in "Shinobi tolerance", he can be seen everywhere in the plot: Tokyo was attacked by mysterious Onmyoji, the magic city of ancient Japan reappeared on a moonlit night, and the protagonist's relatives and friends were controlled by the villains to join the battle. These are all the routines of the "Cherry Blossom War" series.

Akita Horiu's animated masterpiece the Cosmic Knight has also left a mark on Shinobi Ninja. D-Boy, the protagonist of the Cosmic Knight, faces the desperate situation of relatives and friends being controlled and fighting back alone from the very beginning, in which cannibalism becomes the core of the plot. Seiyu Takano as an elder brother, with genius-like ability, and stable and reliable personality, younger brother Seiyu Shinya (Evil) ability is not weak, but has been living in the shadow of his brother. In "Shinobi tolerance", the same is true of the relationship between brother Xiuzhen and brother conservation.They are not biological brothers but are brothers and become enemies under the teasing of fate. The sound of conservation is the same as that of D-Boy, both of which are Tomoshi Morikawa, but this time the elder brother is controlled by the enemy and the younger brother fights back alone.

The brothers in "Cosmic Knight" use a special selection ceremony for the ninja family "Oboro". As candidates for master, Xiuzhen and conservation must have a life-and-death duel in adulthood. Conservation has a very high reputation among the people, but lost to Xiuzhen, the people all suspect that conservation deliberately gave up the chance of life in order to keep his younger brother alive, Xiuzhen became the new master of the Oboro clan in such a vision. Four years later, Hirudo, who had long been defeated by the Oboro clan, suddenly came back to life. while Xiuzhen was out, he turned the conserved corpse into a puppet manipulated at will, and almost all the Oboro ninjas except Xiuzhen were killed by conservations. become the new puppet. At the beginning of the "Shinobi tolerance" plot, Xiuzhen has to face the desperate situation of a family being destroyed and turned into an enemy, but even if there is only one person left in the Oboro clan, he will complete the task of defeating the earth-shoveling leeches, which is his mission as the Lord.

After a year of low-key development, after a year of low-key development, Shinobi Ninja showed its first trailer and trial level in E3 in 2002. Although the post-production process of this work has not yet been completed, the basic system has been finalized. It was also the best time for Overworks. High school students who played Super Ninja more than a decade ago have now become magazine editors. Seeing the rebirth of "Shionbi Ninja" in 3D, these old players are not stingy with praise and even shed tears of excitement. The reaction of the outside world convinced the game that the game was in the right direction.

The three-and-a-half-minute trailer covers the original painting, scene animation and real machine operation of the game, so that players who are unable to attend the E3 venue can also see the true face of the game through video. Xiuzhen jumped from the helicopter, the knife cut high-rise deceleration, and finally jumped to the ground of the classic scene, is extremely chic. As amazing as the action, there is the aftersound around the beam, three days of incessant theme song "patience: Tan Tan". At that time, the "Super Ninja" composed by you San in ancient times was once regarded as the insurmountable peak of the series of music, and no one could have imagined that "Shionbi Ninja" could rise to its peak again.

The soundtrack should be matched with the game style. "Shionbi Ninja" is a gentle game, so the soundtrack of the game adds traditional Japanese instruments such as Xiaodi and Taigu.

In-game show's super-long scarf "Shinobi Ninja" is not the only ninja game with a public trailer in E3 in 2002. It has attracted attention by sneaking into the masterpiece "Tianchu 3" and the Xbox version of the fighting game, the Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword. Shimizu welcomes other manufacturers to bring innovation to ninja games, but the history of "Ninja" series is earlier than "Tianchu" and "Ninja Dragon Sword" series, he believes that Sega does not need to follow other series, to maximize the charm of "pure action games" is the goal of "Shionbi Ninja".

The "kill array" system can be described as the soul of "Shinobi tolerance". The demon knife "Akujiki" held by Xiuzhen is engraved with the nine-character mantra of "those who are in front of the battle". Each time an enemy is killed, it will ignite a Chinese character, so the attack power of Akujiki is multiplied. Using a normal attack requires dozens of knives to grind off the Boss can be solved by the nine-word kill. Therefore, the Boss battle idea of "Shinobi Ninja" is very different from that of other games, where players need to wait for Boss to summon miscellaneous soldiers in avoidance, and then use the kill array to end the battle.

The demon knife engraved with nine words of mantra lasts only 5 seconds. If no new enemies are killed within 5 seconds, the killing will be interrupted. On the other hand, Akujiki, as a soul-sucking knife, will suck Xiuzhen's own physical strength if it is not offered. This system forces players to become an efficient ninja, ensuring the fast pace of the game.

From the beginning, it was believed that "Shinobi Ninja" should be played in 3D rather than 2D, because 3D space can accommodate more enemies and more complex battles. In order to make a killing, Xiu really needs to adjust the position of himself and the enemy, a field control skill similar to the "Iron fist of Wrath" in the MD era. However, players are quite controversial about this Boss game, and even the top players who are familiar with all the field control skills cannot guarantee that every Boss battle will enter the ideal situation. The luck factor of "Shinobi tolerance" is more obvious than other games.

In the case of no pursuit of high scores, even if there is no kill, the use of ninjitsu can quickly deal with Boss. The Boss war phase of this work can be redone indefinitely, but there is no inventory in the miscellaneous war stage, and once you are defeated, you can only start all over again. There are a large number of dead cliff terrain in the miscellaneous combat stage, and for the novice who passes the customs for the first time, the number of falls to death is no less than that of war. Banyuan, the director of the Xbox version of the Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword, gave up the idea of customs clearance because he fell to his death too many times.

Miscellaneous battles are full of cliff terrain even though beginners complain about the cliff terrain, Dachang Gusheng and Shimizu still retain this design. They believe that the cliff can maintain the tension of the first customs clearance, and the number of falls after being proficient in the back version will be greatly reduced. Shimizu believes that the core design of a game cannot satisfy everyone. If a novice thinks that the difficulty of the game is moderate, the master will not be satisfied, and vice versa. The design of this work is biased towards the master, which is the designer's own choice.

"Shinobi tolerance" also has some funny designs. Magma is not a dead terrain in this work. Xiuzhen can even use some of her energy to walk on magma, but as soon as she falls into the river, Xiuzhen will be finished immediately. This design stems from the bad taste of winning in the big market, and he believes that the protagonist of the dry duck is the tradition of the "tolerance" series.

The perspective of this work also makes many players complain, because the protagonist's movement speed is too fast, the battlefield situation is rapidly changing, players need to frequently use the L1 key to manually adjust the perspective. Shimizu said that this design is also deliberate, if the perspective of the game is more automated, the scene will only be more chaotic.

Although Shinobi is not a perfect game, it is still a highly integrated game, and even if you look at it 20 years later, there is no perfect solution to the above problems. All the disadvantages are sacrifices for the good. If Shinobi gives up killing and high-speed combat, these shortcomings can be solved, but the game also falls into the stereotype. A game with both distinct advantages and disadvantages is far better than a mediocre work that lacks personality. This is the way to survive in Sega in Shimizu eyes.

Tokyo's "Tan Shimizu" hopes that "Shinobi tolerance" will bring PS2 players back to the MD era, to the golden age of action games where "you can get endless aftertaste and satisfaction as long as you go through customs once", so he attaches great importance to the artistic style of this work. Limited to the cost, the picture of "Shinobi tolerance" is not gorgeous, and the repetition of the scene is high, but the chic scarf and killing system make up for the deficiency of the picture to a large extent, and the scene and character design of the Boss war also devote the painstaking efforts of the development team to ensure the satisfaction of the players after clearance.

Boss battlefield scene full of charm according to common sense, Tu Lincheng's elegant painting style is not suitable for 3D games, but Tu Lincheng himself has the ability of 3D art, and he still retains the original spirit after turning the 2D original painting into a 3D model. In addition, as the main beauty of "Shinobi Ninja", Tu Lincheng is also responsible for a large number of original scenes, providing a reference for the development team to handle the artistic style. The Golden City under the blood moon, the Kuanyong Temple where cherry blossoms are in full bloom, and the shrine irrigated by lava. These scenes are carefully built for Xiuzhen and Boss to fight a decisive stage.

Boss with full personality is also a big selling point of this work, such as the burly "King Kong" like the Buddha statue, the gorgeous fire ninja "inflammation", and the blind "carving" wielding a knife in the water. These Shangnen used to be Xiuzhen's subordinates, but now they have become manipulated puppets, and all Xiuzhen can do is to let them rest in peace.

The American version of "Shinobi Ninja", which shows great powers, was first released on November 10, 2002, including Normal, Hard and Super. The Japanese version released on December 5 of the same year removed the Super difficulty and added the Easy difficulty, but the Easy difficulty only reduced the threshold of the battle, the cliff terrain was still completely preserved, and the novice still had to face the test of frequent falls to death. The European version released on May 14, 2003 contains three difficulties: Easy, Normal and Hard, but the European version of Hard is equivalent to the American version of Super.

In terms of hidden elements, this work has no growth system at all, only provides 50 obscure coins scattered in various difficulties for collection, through obscure coins can unlock hidden roles and challenge tasks. In addition to the default show true, players can also operate conservation and Joe Musashi. The attack power of conservation is twice that of Xiuzhen, and the soul-sucking speed is also twice as fast. Qiao Musang does not have a soul-sucking system and has an unlimited number of swords in his hand, but his sword in his hand cannot paralyze the enemy, reminding players of the classic secret books of "Super tolerance."

Conservation is not only a Boss, but also an operable hidden character. After the release of this book, the challenge for players has just begun, and the difficulty of Super to cut all Boss has become a challenge for experts. At first, the role chosen by the master was the conservation with the highest attack power, and then turned to Xiuzhen with lower attack power. The master is exhausted of all the means that can increase the attack power: attacking the side of the Boss can achieve 1.5 times the damage, attacking the back of the Boss can achieve 3 times the damage, attacking the Boss in a fleeting state of provocation can also achieve 3 times the damage, wielding a knife on the wall can provide 2 times the damage. All the calculations are to enable Xiuzhen to kill Boss in a killing state.

With the deepening of game development by experts, all kinds of hidden skills have also been excavated, including "Akujie eight pairs" (killing battle state can greatly increase the power of the sword in eight hands) and "pausing Xu Li chopping" (using the pause button to cancel the forward swing action of Xu Li chopping, you can also adjust the direction of attack). After some development, Super difficulty, Xiuzhen in theory can not be cut across the Boss only a 3B level of Baiyun (tiger-headed spider).

The Boss octahedral king (mechanical weapon) of the 6B level was initially regarded as the Boss that could not be cut by Xiuzhen under the difficulty of Super. Later, the master found a very harsh second kill method: jump to its shoulder in a provocative state of Boss and hit the side of Boss with a pause of Xu Li. This style of play requires a lot of operation and luck, but it is not an impossible challenge.

After the huge octahedral king killed Boss in a second, the master turned the challenge goal to a quick attack, and skills that all kinds of developers could not think of gradually emerged. Among the domestic experts, one of the most famous is Kelvin, who is known as the "god of patience". He moves like a thunderstorm and blindly shoots a sword in his hand, which shocked Sega employees.

Shimizu Shimizu, the director of Shinobi Ninja, respects the action game master, and because of this, the master also respects the game. In the end, the global sales of "Shinobi Ninja" reached about 800000, far less than the 2 million sales of "Ghost Warrior" and "Ghost Cry". However, the development cost of "Shinobi Ninja" is far lower than that of Capcom's two blockbusters, and the figure of 800000 has reached Sega's goal.

After the release of Shinobi Ninja, the sequel Kunoichi Ninja was immediately put on the agenda and released at the end of 2003. The word "Kunoichi" stands for "female ninja" in Japanese, so the traditional Chinese title of the game is also "female ninja". The former director Shimizu Shimizu was busy with other projects, and the director of the sequel became Kobayashi Zhengying. Although Kobayashi was not involved in the development of the previous work, he was the planner of the handheld games GG Ninja and GG Ninja 2, and his seniority is older than Shimizu. Kobayashi nostalgia for the 2D era of the "patience" series, "Kunoichi tolerance" introduced a nostalgic style of highway levels.

The new combat system of Hirahua, the protagonist of "Kunoichi endurance," has made a lot of adjustments to the details. The new armored enemy needs to break armor by kicking through the foot, and eight pairs of swords also have the ability to break armor, but the "gluttony eight pairs" feature has been removed. The new air kick can not only increase the time in the air, but also destroy the defense of the enemy in the air. Xu Li chopping becomes a long-range attack this time, and it is also the main means to kill Boss in seconds. To launch Xu Li chopping, you need to accumulate continuous attack slots, forcing players to use small Tai Dao, which is less powerful, so that the process of miscellaneous combat becomes lengthy, and the sense of speed is not as good as the previous work. Overall, the battle of "Shionbi tolerance" is a typical subtraction design, while "Kunoichi tolerance" is an addition, and the more complex system dilutes the features of the game.

In terms of the operable role of Xiaotaidao, which is used to improve the number of combo, the protagonist Hibiscus and sister Feishui adopt a new combat system, while Xiuzhen uses the old system of the previous one. Although Xiu really killed the attack, but he did not kick in the air, the risk in air combat is even greater. Qiao Musashi's infinite sword is still there, but the power of Tai Dao is greatly weakened, and he is very weak in the face of Boss, and basically becomes a special role in the challenge mode. The number of challenge mode levels in this work has increased significantly, giving Qiao Musashi full room to play.

"Kunoichi tolerance" provides a large number of challenge mode hurdles. One of the major goals of the new director Masayashi Kobayashi is to reduce the difficulty of the game. This time, the three versions of the United States, Japan and Europe all use the same difficulty. In the middle of the battle, the inventory points are increased and the number of disk readings is also increased. As for the so-called Beginner difficulty for beginners, it still does not solve the problem of frequent falls to death, and the oversimplified operation gives players bad habits, which is a failure.

The scene of this film is more modern and closer to the real Tokyo, correspondingly, the soundtrack also adds more electronic elements, these changes are a return to the tradition of the "patience" series in the past 2D era, but not as distinctive as the previous one.

The biggest failure of "Kunoichi tolerance" lies in the boring Boss war. In the humanoid Boss, the designs of master earthworm, sister Feishui and robot black steel are quite distinctive, while the rest of the windmill and ghost fire images are perfunctory like clowns. The non-human Boss is all giant bug-like gods, quite boring. Tu Lincheng only designed a few major roles for this work and no longer served as the main beauty, which led to a significant decline in the Boss design level of this work.

The main character level of Tu Lincheng's design is still the cumulative sales of the Japanese version of "Shinobi Ninja" is 210000, while that of "Kunoichi Ninja" is only 60,000. The decline in sales in Europe and the United States is similar, so it is impossible to talk about the sequel. In retrospect, Shinobi Ninja was an uncompromising personality game that finally reached its sales target and completed the task in a short period of one and a half years with no regrets. The development time of "Kunoichi Ninja" has been shortened to just one year, resulting in a lack of system adjustment and dilution of the game's features, leading to a failure in sales. If Sega could give Kunoichi more time to develop, maybe the 3D series could go further. However, history has no ifs.

Before the release of Kunoichi, Overworks merged with WOW Entertainment, another subsidiary of Sega (which develops Xbox games such as "Dead House 3" and "Sega GT2002") into Sega WOW. After the release of this work, Dachang Zhisheng left Sega, and the remaining team was merged by the parent company Sega in the reorganization to become the development team of the "Battlefield female Warriors" series.

Since then, some games in the "patience" series have been born. In 2011, the outsourced 3DS version of Ninja returned to 2D, and Xiuzhen and Hibana only made a comeback in the 2015 3DS chess game Cross Fields 2, and have not yet made a comeback. The arrogance of "Shinobi tolerance" was unprecedented 20 years ago, and it has become the last 20 years later.

Even so, a short and stunning bloom in Cross Fields 2 is better than obscurity forever. Shinobi Ninja, with its own unique temperament, has left a rich brow for the history of action games, which is still shining today.

Some references:

Sega official website: the famous gallery "Super Ninja"

Electric shock: an interview with "Shinobi tolerance"

Dorimaga: action games are immortal

Gamepro: interview with developers of "Shinobi tolerance"

"Shinobi THE WIDE" setting set

The official playbook of Kunoichi

Collection of works set by Tu Lincheng

The strongest voice of resurrection: OST appreciation of "Shinobi tolerance"

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