Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe's guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo's download service. Written by Sam C Gittins.

An old Sega classic makes a rather overdue appearance on the VC. Anyway enough from me and on with the erm... game!

Available for download this week we have...

• Shinobi (Arcade)

Points: 800
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Released: 1987
System: Arcade

So far we have had the astoundingly good second and third entries in the acclaimed ninja-based series but what of the game that started it all? Well wonder no longer for it is now upon us in all its former glory; many of you may not be as familiar with it as the two sequels that succeeded it but there is good reason to become familiar with the game that started it all.

Things are set in motion when the evil empire named Zeed kidnaps all of the children belonging to the Oboro clan and it's up to Joe Musashi to save the day by rescuing the kids and generally tearing 'a new one' in those responsible for this despicable act.

And with that brief back-story the real game begins but don't go thinking that this will be as 'straightforward' as Shinobi's later outings because this is an arcade game and a punishing difficulty level is part of that parcel. One-hit kills from the enemy are the order of the day here and if you go into this unprepared then expect to die... a lot; thankfully though you may adjust the number of credits from three to a staggering two hundred and forty, perhaps more than some would ever need but you'd still be well advised to take advantage of this most generous amount.

There are five main stages that are broken up into varied levels, most are of the side-scrolling variety where you'll use your ninja-skills in a familiar way to the other games and while your character may not be as quick as in the later games you can still jump to higher points where applicable and even sneak up on certain enemies for a satisfying stealth kill. As for the other levels there are bonus stages in which you can earn an extra life by throwing shurikens at enemies from a fixed first-person perspective which helps to break things up nicely.

Everything looks rather nicely polished and presented for an early arcade game, the sounds are also top-notch and match the excellent gameplay and it's amazing that everything has been preserved from the original version so well... apart from a slight palette-swap on a few Marvel-based enemies for similar reasons to those changes made to Revenge of Shinobi. Aside from that though it's a near-perfect port of a game that's still an engrossing game which has stood the test of time remarkably well.

Verdict : A slightly simpler but still super Shinobi title.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!

Sam Gittins
[email protected]

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