Not a review, but a rant.

The recently mixed reception for this game is exactly why I don't listen to modern gamers about anything anymore. Especially the modern indie game fans that a game like this would generally appeal to typically.
Softened by low difficulty and excess convenience in their games now, they cannot fathom one that doesn't just hand out victory for free. So this fantastic game, another by the lovely people at Tengo Project, sits at an undeserved mixed because scrubs thought this would be beaten in a sitting and instantly recognizable.

God forbid a game make you learn some rules and new skills instead of being another dime a dozen, cookie cutter, disposable title. If you were expecting yet more toothless nostalgia bait that won't back up it's classic aesthetics in gameplay, you're in the wrong place. Shadow of the Ninja doesn't reward your meager legacy skill from playing Kirby and copy/pasted Metroidvanias all day. Treat it as the NES game it's reviving.

You don't get overpowered air dashes. You don't get forced RPG upgrades to circumvent the challenge with """build variety""". You don't have 20 different course correcting jumps that keep you from engaging with enemy patterns and tight stage layouts. Your weapons demand actual strategy and positioning. Bosses are hard. Enemy placement is ruthless. Jumps are stressful. It's biting from the very start with no patronizing tutorials or tutorial levels. And it's flagrant disregard for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is all very beautiful. This is a short game that wants you committed for the long haul like a proper, Japanese arcade style action game. And it does it with very few modern compromises.

Accept the game's terms, learn it's ACTUAL rules instead of the ones you preemptively decided it should have based on the presentation, and improve. You will lose and lose hard. If that's not your cup of tea, I'm sure you have some Super Mario Wonder to be playing. Maybe get back to that instead of crying in the reviews in a bid to get one of the best games of 2024 pushed down.

For those of you who are not weenies, this game is more than worth your time and money. Another excellent Natsume remake to the collection. The best yet, I'd say. Play it and recommend it to get it back up to blue like it deserves.

this game is mad underrated. the fact it's at mostly positive right now is criminal. Yes, it's hard. but many of the complaints I see listed here are simply not true. you can cycle through your gear, and you can easily clear the jumps but using the air twirl move. Read the manual in the options before playing and study the moves you have at your disposal. This is old school arcade style action! it's punishing, no doubt, but so much fun. I love the chain attack, it reminds me of castlevania IV.

Jumping is abysmal. Feel like I miss various jumps when I'm at the pixel edge of a platform. Boss 2 hitbox is just odd. Took me a while just to figure out how to hit the final piece of him.

I don't see a way to cycle through your items, so you can pick up mulitple items, but you're going to use the last thing you picked up. Need a healing item? You're going to need to use up that weapon first.

It's a beautiful game, but it could use a bit of modern polish behind it's 8-bit roots.