The first video game in the Shinobi series. It was first released in November 16, 1987 in Japan, for Sega's own Sega System 16 Board, and released worldwide later in Late 1987 on Europe, and in February of the next year for North America. Here, the player assumes the role of ninja Joe Musashi, who is in a mission to rescue the kidnapped young members of his clan from a nefarious terrorist organization known as Zeed.
The player controls Joe with an eight-way joystick with three buttons for attacking, jumping, and using ninjutsu (called "Ninja Magic" here), he can also crouch and jump to higher or lower levels of the stage. Joe's arsenal consists of an unlimited supply of shurikens and melee attacks for close range. Upon rescuing a determined number of hostages, the player can also upgrade Joe's melee attacks to using a katana and replacing the shuriken throw with a gun, of all things. Ninjutsu techniques can only be used once per stage, clearing a zone of all enemies and dealing heavy damage to a boss, and it varies depending on the stage between a thunderstorm, a tornado, or a doppleganger attack. The player must battle through three or four stages per mission, and upon rescuing all hostages in the stage, the player can enter the boss of the stage to defeat him and advance to the next mission.
Due to the game's popularity, it was ported to many platforms of the time: Sega Master System, Commodore 64 (and the Amiga), Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, IBM Personal Computer, PC Engine, MSX, and even a version for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The original Arcade version was released for Nintendo Switch through the Sega Ages series in October 31, 2019.
This game provides examples of:
- Adaptation Dye-Job: When the game was ported to the Wii and Xbox 360, one of the basic enemies had its colors changed from red and blue to green and yellow to eliminate its resemblance to Spider-Man.
- Advancing Wall of Doom: The first part of the Mandara boss is a wall of statues slowly trying to push you into an electrical beam.
- Attack Its Weak Point: All bosses have a soft spot you must usually jump to hit. Some of the regular enemies have them too as they can block shurikens with swords and such.
- Bonus Stage: After clearing the first three levels and every fourth level thereafter, you partake in one by throwing shuriken at ninjas without letting any of them get near you to get an extra life.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: You can use as many continues as needed in the arcade version (as long as you have the coins); but once you reach the final four levels, blowing all your chances will cause your game to be over for real. Quite devastating consequences, really.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: In Sonic the Comic. Shinobi was the first Sega game outside the Sonic the Hedgehog series to get a comic adaptation, and it was both faithful to the games' stories and suitably serious in tone.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Mandara (in the arcade at least) is seemingly impossible to defeat with a single life. You must destroy a wall of 16 statues before they push you into a deadly electrical beam. However, on the first attempt there simply isn't enough time to destroy them all before you are killed. On subsequent lives, the statues are weakened making completion possible. But it means you are always forced to lose a life on this boss. There is an exploit /
glitch however. - Continuing Is Painful: In the Master System version of the original game, dying resets the length of your life bar down to its default, and brings you back down to the slow-shuriken weapon. The former can be particularly frustrating in levels 4-2 and 4-3, which feature bottomless pits.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Originally, Joe was not the most traditional ninja around. He didn't wear his headdress-mask and he was a One-Hit-Point Wonder. The guy also went the high tech route when it came to his weapon power-up. When he powered-up, he exchanged his regular shurikens for a gun that shot rocket-propelled explosive shells. The flaming shurikens that he uses now are no less powerful but a lot less stylish and he's taken to covering his face.
- Gotta Rescue Them All: Each level requires that you rescue several tied up children by simply touching them, even if they are surrounded by baddies.
- Magical Ninjutsu: In the original arcade game, once per level, you can use ninja magic to either seriously damage a boss or kill all lesser opponents on the screen. Depending on the level, the magic takes the form of a tornado, multiple copies of your ninja, or a thunderstorm.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: The player dies in one hit in the original arcade versions of Shinobi. This can be quite jarring to players more accustomed to the console versions, since even the Master System version of Shinobi gave the player a life gauge. The only console game in the series to retain the one hit rule was the Genesis version of Shadow Dancer.
- Paper Tiger: First boss Ken Oh looks very intimidating, is 3 times the size of Joe, covered in armour and looks like he could trample/break you in half in a second. But all he does is stand perfectly still and put out fireballs that float about slowly and randomly. Still difficult on the first few tries but nowhere near as powerful and tough as he looks
- Point of No Continues: Once you make it to the final stage, all continues are disabled even after inserting coins.
- Shout-Out: An organization named "Zeed"? An enemy named "Ken-oh"? Someone must have been watching too much Hokuto no Ken when they made the game.
- Technicolor Ninjas: The ninja kids Shinobi has to rescue all wear dark pink clothes, while the enemy ninjas are more colorful, with red, bright green, blue and orange (the zombie ninjas).
- Treacherous Advisor: The leader of Zeed is revealed to be Nakahara, Joe's ninja mentor who formed Zeed, doing so in order to force Japan back into a feudal era where ninja were in high demand.
- A Winner Is You: The ending in the arcade Shinobi wasn't anything special to begin with, but it sure beats the Master System port, which awards the player with a blank Game Over screen (the same one you can get for losing the game).