I know this was highly lauded on release, but I’ll be honest – I’ve never been a massive fan of the game. Or the Shinobi/Shadow Dancer series, actually. I don’t hate them or anything, but I certainly wouldn’t hold them up as fantastic examples of the best the 8 and 16 bit consoles had to offer like a lot of people seem to. See also Ninja Gaiden, actually. [Edit: Oh, it seems I like the 3D port of Shinobi III for the 3DS. Well, that’s me correcting myself then.]
Maybe it will have improved with time? Well, no. Not really. It’s still not bad at all, but it feels just so empty and generic. Ten billion similar platformers since are probably to blame. I played through it, completed it, and moved on. And yes, I used the “make the 00 become ∞” thing so get all the shuriken because I’m not an idiot and there’s no way in hell the game is possible without them. I also found it odd that you can’t decide when to use your sword and when to use your shuriken. It seems you can only throw shuriken, but if the enemy is close you automatically sword them instead? A very odd design choice when you have limited ammo.
Oh, and that final boss? With his whippy hair? Utterly ridiculous.
