Segas' Shinobi has been a long running series since 1987, and has spawned over 10 games. Shinobi for the Nintendo 3DS is the newest offering and despite being titled "Shinobi", is a brand new game for the series, Taking a step into the past, the main character is Jiro Musashi, head of the Oboro clan of Shinobi lore. Jiro also happens to be the father of the main character from many of the past Shinobi titles, Joe Musashi. The E3 demo already shows a lot of promise despite still being an early development build of the game. Jiro can use his blade, throw kunai, double jump, and cast ninja magic spells just as the previous Shinobi games characters could. New to Jiro is the ability to counter attacks, Right before an enemy attack makes contact, you can hit the counter button and negate all damage as well as leave your enemy open for your own assault. The timing for this is fairly strict, but very necessary if you want to get a good score at the end of the stage. It also makes for a great way to show of your ninja reflexes. The Sega representative stated there was a lot of difficulty balancing left to be done, and the game was still undertaking many tweaks to damage of both Jiro and the enemies. Based on the E3 build, it was a moderate challenge.

Jiro currently has access to 4 different magic, or ninpo, spells and can swap freely between them. They range from attack types like fire ninpo that blasts the whole screen clearing out enemies in its' way, or defensive types like electric ninpo that shields Jiro to prevent any damage from incurring. Throughout the stages there are various power ups like health recovery items or extra kunai pick ups like previous Shinobi games. The side scrolling stages are generously lengthy with multiple checkpoints and plenty of enemies to get through. Overall they are very straight forward and linear, with only one clear way to traverse them. the E3 demo also had a brief horse riding sequence that placed the camera behind the back of the player. This portion lent itself well to the 3d effect and had the player jumping over fallen tress while being attacked by other ninjas on horseback. It was very basic in design but broke up the standard side scrolling game play. One other useful tool in Jiros' arsenal was a grappling hook. This grappling hook, in conjunction with the double jump,can take the player to great heights. It only shoots upward however, so its' usefulness was only there when the stage design allowed for it.

Graphically, Shinobi gets the job done but has very little texture along with low polygon character models. It looks much better in motion than it does in still screen captures. The game will feature unlockable characters and weapons according to a Sega representative. It will also utilize the 3DS street pass functionality, although it remains to be seen what that will entail. Other cool features are animated cut scenes and the ability to save replays of completed stages. This Shinobi feels like a good mix of the older games with a dash of some new. The game is due to be released this fall 2011.