Controllers beware: The much-loved and much-hated Shinobi series is being revived

Wanna play an action platformer about a badass ninja named Joe Musashi? Streets of Rage 4 developer Lizardcube is reviving the much-loved and much-hated Shinobi series this year, as announced by Sega at Sony’s recent State of Play. The return of the famous ninja action series will happen this year, on August 29.

2D action platformer Shinobi: Art of Vengeance will focus on speed and precision, having you use sword, thrown daggers, magical ninja arts, and ninja strategies to take down foes as quickly and efficiently as possible. It’ll focus on “limitless combos” customized by unlocking magical amulets and using your Ninja tools to uncover new paths.

“Each weapon a tool, each tool a part of the whole. This is the mastery of a Shinobi,” says the trailer voiceover.

The big draw for a lot of us aside from the gameplay will probably be the really, really cool art style. Developer Lizardcube is going for a lovely hand-drawn look that uses digital and particle effects pretty sparingly in order to make every move and attack seem very distinctive. In the trailer and screenshots alone you can tell that effects like fireballs and explosions have distinctive, well-defined edges that you associate with a hand-animated style.

As far as the story? Well, I expect it’s going to be ridiculous and over-the-top because I see environments that look like feudal-era Japan and environments that are clearly some kind of cyberpunk city filled with bioengineered monsters. All of that on top of a guy named Joe Musashi who’s definitely doing ninja magic and wields a demon-infused sword. Should be a wild ride.

You can find Shinobi: Art of Vengeance on Steam or on the official Sega Shinobi: Art of Vengeance website.

It’s part of a larger effort by Sega to revive many of their series, and it’s a hell of a choice: The Shinobi series had 11 games between 1987 and 2003, a 3DS entry in 2011, and nothing since. Most famous to many people is the infamously difficult PS2 game Shinobi—a 3D hack-and-slash game where every level had to be completed with no checkpoints. It’s one of the games of that era which is, anecdotally at least, responsible for a lot of broken controllers.