Shinobi - The Real Ninja

Shinobi on the Master System doesn't have many mods to it so any mod is welcoming, but upon trying out all three of these patches it quickly becomes clear that two of the three patches on offer here are very hard, much harder than the original retail game and i'm not sure that's a good thing or a bad thing as this game was already hard enough.

For instance, in the ''Arcade'' and ''Enhanced'' patches the Mandara statues in Round 3-4 each take an extra hit to knock off and they slide faster across the floor than in the original, even with the faster shuriken fire it is still close to impossible to beat this boss, I couldn't beat it, they kept pushing me into the electricity beam to the left yet in the original retail version I can beat this boss because the statues move slower and take one less hit each.

The ''Classic - Friendly'' patch is the best out of the three as Joe Musashi still has his new balaclava hood and can shoot more than one shuriken on default. Nothing else was changed here and because of that it ends up being the best one.

• The things I don't like about the ''Arcade'' and ''Enhanced'' patches is that the melee up close attacks are quicker giving Joe less time to connect his hits with enemies, in the original version if you were nunchucking an enemy and another enemy runs into it he would be killed as well, that doesn't happen with the shorter and quicker melee attacks on offer here.
• The Mandara boss is impossible to beat because each statue comes with an extra hit to knock off and now slides faster across the floor.
• The double jump is useless in the ''Enhanced'' patch as Joe's jump height is reduced but given a double jump to make up for it and that double jump's height is the same as the original standard jump.

The good things about these patches is that Joe now has a hood like on the title screen and he can throw more shurikens quicker than in the original retail version. These changes are great!

The patches should be retitled ''Normal'' ''Hard'' and ''Harder''.

Instead of making the game harder, try reducing the difficulty especially on Mandara, make the statues move slower with less hits to knock each one off and if a double jump is to be included, give the ninja his full jump height to make it easier to cross those pixel perfect platforms especially in Rounds 4-2. I appreciate the work that has gone into this especially the new design of Joe Musashi and if I sound a little harsh it's only because I don't like games being made harder than they already were, I want them easier or given the choice to have an easier version and or a harder one.

It's a good decent mod and I can only recommend it to those that want the game to be harder than it already is. If you're looking for an easier version, you're in the wrong place buddy.

3-5 stars.