Part 29: Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen.

Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen.

The finally final update!



...
Who the hell is Zen?





Never heard of 'im.

Anyway, Shinobido 2 is the proper sequel to the original game, released exclusively on the Vita. It borrows from both other instalments in the series.

Ways it's like Tales of the Ninja (the PSP thing)

- It's portable.



- It doesn't have the garden or the mission editor, and it doesn't look like the crazy ninja mode is in.



- You have only one quick item panel, but you carry your entire inventory with you at all times.



- Missions are clearly rated and give experience, but you control what and how you level up.





- No lord cutscenes: most information is delivered via text, rarely you get voice. The few in-engine cutscenes are all about the main plot.



Ways it's like Way of the Ninja:

- The dynamic campaign structure. Only this time you actually see the lords' stats clearly.



- All of the old mission types are there.



- Some old characters are back.







- The Amurtita sect and Ichijo are same old, though the cultists had a bit of a KKK makeover in the six months between the campaigns.



- The 8 magic McGuffins plot. Minus the bear part, or the fun lords, or your character being a dumbass. It's really dull, except for Uz appearances.

- Most maps from the original have been recycled, got a facelift and a slight area expansion. The old item and patrol points are mostly there.











The water in the moat around the finished Utakata castle is strange.







- Some letters and mission flavour texts have been recycled, although re-translated. There are also new spam letters and they often come with items.



- There are two main playable characters, but nothing as different as flail/sword.



- Some old stealth kills are mixed in with the new ones. They all are fast. A few still fling corpses.



- Alchemy is still there, but it works completely differently and is no longer a math puzzle.



- The unlockable skins in NG+ are back and are obtained the same way. This time model swap affects in-engine cutscenes... mainly of people standing and talking.



- The regular move set is mostly the same including the uppercut slash, but its the shitty Japanese version without the downward follow-up.

New stuff:

- The translation was done by weeaboos.



Chimatsuri Sappo is what we know as Stealth Kill.



Uzumibi is our old friend land mine. Because this game about ninjas, set in Japan, featuring Japanese lords, sushi and architecture needed some transliterated words to hint at its Japanese flavour. It's even better when I get a recipe for a special scroll and have no fucking clue what it does, and why I should bother.

And yet, there's no Japanese voice track.

- New bandit design. You kill gangs of ripped furries in this one.



- Akame's army has been replaced by... well... Out of job barbarian actors.



- Bears got better at navigating the forest.



- Health regenerates out of combat. There's no health bar, instead you get a really annoying pulsating red mist.



- There are moral choices in the campaign affecting the ending.



- If you're trying to kill two lords, for the second one you'll be forced into an open boss battle against them. No chance to stealth kill.



- The hook (and the map) is now inseparable from your ninja. To the point that you'll have to level up both characters to give each the longest chain. Or level Zen and play with Kaede's skin on because, like all girl skins, that will make you use her moves.



- There's one new map. It's cute but has a few walls you can't hook.



- There's an instant kill counterattack move, as if straight from Way of the Samurai. Combat is still nothing special and should be avoided.



- There's a remote stealth kill move that eats units from a special power bar, so it's like the chainsaw in the new Doom. It's also a QTE, and a teleport if you wish.



- You can lock onto people through walls.

- There's a flying squirrel suit which lets you glide and adds a lot to infiltration and stealth kill approaches.







Say, this is a new starting point for the Kongo Pass fort. You can jump off and glide over all the usual guards and ninjas at the main gate.





The wingsuit is available to everyone.





Everyone.









Appreciate these because to take them I need to get Zen to start sprinting forward, jump with X, keep holding circle, maybe turn, and press Start and PS button at the same time to snap a shot. Start tends to pause the game.

///



How bad can it be?



That's how.



I've never seen them flock before.

///

A playthrough of Shinobido 2 can be finished rather quickly. Killing bosses by running them off cliffs and into wells speeds it up.



Actually, 6,5 hours on the save file.

It's been delisted on the PSN, so the only way to get it is a physical copy, and the DLC is gone.

Overall, I'm glad it's more unique Shinobido gameplay, but the presentation is a bit cheap and the story is entirely forgettable.

And now it's really