I’ve always been used to seeing ninjas in more traditional settings. That’s especially considering that their fighting style requires elusiveness most of the time. There are a slew of games out there that touch on ninja story arcs. These push the boundaries of one’s emotions while testing their reflexes in high-stakes environments. And yes, there is a lot of button mashing involve: to get the combos right, to use items at the right time, and to escape death at every point.

Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn on the Nintendo Switch is mostly the latter but you remove the whole ninja story arc and historical setting in play. It adds a modern twist to an otherwise traditional way of combat in a fast-paced environment filled with perils and obstacles. Even the style of the graphics, in a way, still follows a simplified direction. It’s more 2D-looking similar to the original on the NES.

Is it enough to play the game all the way through? If anything, it depends on how far you’re willing to go.

A taste of modern ninja combat

The entire game rests upon the idea that the way of the ninja is that of a simple one: attack when needed and be aggressive with it. Overall, the way you fight off waves of enemies and obstacles revolves around short and long-range attacks timed perfectly. When going on the defense, you could only avoid attacks instead of having items to protect you.

Speaking of items, Shadow of the Ninja also comes with various items you can use to aid your progression throughout all six stages. From healing items to weapons, they’re quite helpful. That’s especially true against some of the tougher bosses or harder to clear obstacles down the line. You can find these within each stage by breaking metal containers, so they’re not that hard to miss.

It’s a high-risk, high-reward system that makes you adapt your strategies the moment each stage or sub-stage begins. You’ll assess the environment, figure out which enemies you can hit with short or long-range attacks, and get by obstacles while beating the 1000-second timer. For a casual player, it can be overwhelming no matter how you slice it. Thankfully, you can play the stages as many times as you like.

Two modes, unlimited possibilities

Where I spent most of the time playing Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn was in Arcade Mode. There’s a six-stage gauntlet that puts your ninja skills to the test. Of course, the first few levels are there to serve as a way for you to get used to the controls. But it only gets harder from there. As customary to any game with a timer, you will lose your life trying to get through all six stages. And that’s just part of the experience.

As you go through Arcade Mode, you will carry over any items you acquire along the way and earn a score depending on how much you cleared in one go. At the end, you also earn some of the items as consumables, which you can purchase when you replay the same level in the other mode, Time Attack! However, every death within the stage resets the score and removes the items, but not your progress!

In order for you to unlock Time Attack, you’ll have to get through just the first stage of the game. Honestly, that’s all good but you can only unlock the rest if you’ve beaten them in Arcade Mode. So. you will spend a lot of time trying to beat the game. If only you could purchase items before starting stages in Arcade Mode, you could get it done a lot faster.

Overwhelming stages reinforced by trial and error

Now, these six stages are, in my opinion, carefully designed to do a lot of trial and error on. In terms of overall art design, it only made sense to do it with 2D sprites and desolate backdrops given an apocalyptic setting. What stood out to me was how they made certain stage elements pop out, especially for the platforms you’ll be climbing or scaling up on.

Although, there were some instances during my playthrough wherein I couldn’t tell platforms apart. It took some guess work to go through stages and grab items when the design doesn’t illustrate it as a platform. As a result, you will end up spending more time making guesses on platform design as you progress through the stages without meeting certain death.

Once you get used to the environment, you can breeze through a lot of the stages and enemies with ease. All it really takes is repeatedly falling off said stages or getting knifed to death!

A daunting task to finish

Admittedly, Shadow of the Ninja was a pretty interesting game to go through from start to finish. While it does come with game play mechanics that require repetition for perfection, it’s done in a short and rather fast-paced manner. For me, it’s action-packed and will make you think on your feet without having your survival instincts kick in.

I am appreciative of the fact that you can continuously replay the stages whenever you get a “game over” because of the difficulty. It doesn’t make you feel completely dumbfounded over making mistakes, and you don’t lose a ton of progress, too. Plus, the stage design is set-up nicely and ups the ante as you progress further.

It’s a solid pickup if you’re looking to just pass the time anywhere you are. It’s doable in terms of playing all the way through. But you don’t need to beat yourself up if you fail!