Shadow Dancer is 2D Action Platformer originally released in 1989 for the Arcades and 1990 for the Sega Genesis. It has us take on the role of a ninja and his albino wolf companion in an attempt to reclaim New York from a rival ninja cult. It is all explained in before the main menu and is never brought up again. All you have to know is that New York is completely devastated and spewing streams of fire out of sewer lids while the ground itself is being split apart. It is one heck of a sight for your first few seconds of playing the game and immediately grabs your attention to the fullest.
Your main form of attack is throwing an unlimited supply of shurikens at your foes though none of them will just sit there and let you end them. They will take cover behind walls, spin in place to deflect it or when facing other ninjas they will expertly block them with their weapons. You can try switching from throwing shurikens at their chest, to crouching and trying to attack their lower body in hopes of being able to get a hit in. When you are at your most dangerous and at the same time in the most danger is when you are in close range and are able to use your unblockable sword attack for high damage.
Learning how to fight in both melee and long range is a fairly important as you will often be attacked from both sides of the screen and must split your attention between them. One hit is all it takes to kill you and every enemy has their own attack patterns, making for some rather intense moments where you feel like a master ninja and are able to smoothly get through a battle. All the while your wolf is on standby waiting for the order to subdue an enemy. Your wolf is most useful when there is a single, hard to reach target. It cannot kill in enemy but it can incapacitate an enemy for a couple of seconds, leaving them defenseless and ripe for the killing. You must time when to send the wolf to chew on someone though, if your foe is ready to attack your wolf will take some damage and be transformed into a puppy for some time, leaving you without it’s abilities until it has recovered.
The final tool at your disposal is ninjutsu magic. It is a bail out, screen clearing attack for when you are certain you are about to meet your demise and can only be used once per level. Levels themselves are of decent length and have quite a bit of variety between them. One has you fighting in a city ablaze, another one the Statue of Liberty being chased by a helicopter and a rather neat one where you must fight in a dark cave with little idea as to where your foes are in the thick darkness. Your main objective for each level is to save every one of the captives before you can move on. Aside from points, releasing enough of them also gives you a huge boost to your attacks until the level ends.
Extra lives are pretty common if you know where to look. You see they are invisible and are only revealed when you hit them with a shuriken. So throwing your shurikens all over the place like a madman is a pretty good way to get some much needed lives. Every three levels you have a chance of winning more lives in a bonus round which involves you jumping off a skyscraper and nailing enemy ninjas on your way down like some kind of awesome upside down version of Galaga. One feature I really love about the Shadow Dancer is that bumping into an enemy does not harm you like most games of this genre. Instead both of you get stunned for a small while and this can be used to your advantage if used smartly.
The game has three difficulty settings to choose from in the main menu and they change enemy placement, spawn new stronger ninjas and make bosses much more of a threat. You can also choose to turn off shurikens, leaving you with just your sword if you are brave enough. In the first difficulty mode you are unlikely to have trouble until the last of the 5 stages. There is a boss after each stage and most are plenty of fun to fight like a monster thing that blends in with the wall or a giant iron man that causes chunks of the building to give way with a single stomp. The last boss is kind of a letdown, it feels more like surviving an onslaught of grunts rather than you actually fighting someone.
There is not much platforming to speak of aside from the opening level where you must jump over the endless pits left after the ground splits apart so most of your deaths will come from losing a fight than missing a jump which is a big plus in my books. The controls are tight and precise so you have no one to blame after being shot or stabbed in the face. When this game is at its finest is when you get into the groove of it and are able to take care of enemies with relative ease while dodging their attacks that will spell your demise if they happen to connect. That focus on learning and anticipating your enemies’ actions without the fear of being cheaply killed just by bumping into them or simply missing a jump, make this one of the funnest Action games on the Genesis.
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