#NatsumeAtari

[pixelsproject]

『The Ninja Warriors Again』 Original Version & Remake Comparison

Despite it being the follow up to a thoroughly mediocre arcade game, The Ninja Warriors Again is an incredible beat’ em up for the Super Nintendo. 25 years after its original release, Natume would release a “remaster” for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PC. 

Branding this a remaster does the game a serious disservice. The Ninja Warriors Once Again features two new characters, two player co-op, new techniques, a new arranged soundtrack and brand new graphics.

At a glance, the new version looks pretty similar to the original, but characters have been redrawn to be considerably larger and with much smoother animations.

--- (Comparison gifs via NatsumeAtari's offical The Ninja Warriors Once Again website.)

[sixteen-bit]

闇の仕事人KAGE Shadow of The Ninja トレイラー第1弾

[savingcontent]

Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn Review

Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn is a glorious remake of the classic 1990 NES game. It’s a testament to the enduring power of timeless gameplay and the artistry of pixel art. This remake not only captures the essence of the original but also introduces modern enhancements that elevate the experience. Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn is a making it a must-own for both fans of the series and newcomers to…

[capsulecomputers]

Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn Review

Developer: NatsumeAtari Publisher: NatsumeAtari, Edigger, United Games Entertainment GmbH Platforms: Windows (Reviewed), Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch Release Date: 29 August 2024 Price: $29.99 USD

Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn brings back the classic side-scrolling hack 'n slash remade with fantastic pixel graphics, revamped gameplay, super satisfying controls and extra features.

#Action #SideScroller #ActionRPG #Ninja #Retro

[meugamer]

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn recebe data de lançamento para agosto

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn ganhou uma data de lançamento para PC e consoles, anunciada pela NatsumeAtari. No título, assumimos o controle de um lendário ninja em um jogo repleto de ação e gráficos em estilo retrô, usando nossas habilidades para derrotar todas as ameaças do mundo e libertar a humanidade da tirania. É um jogo de ação side-scrolling com tema ninja lançado pela desenvolvedora…

[blaze-n-rekka]

More classic video games making a comeback - Shadow of the Ninja | NatsumeAtari

[kermakatti]

Yooo it looks like next Tengo Project reimagining is Blue Shadow/Shadow of the Ninja/闇の仕事人 KAGE 👀

[dragaorpg]

Penny Blood: Hellbound está disponível na versão completa

A editora NatsumeAtari e a desenvolvedora Studio Wildrose anunciaram que Penny Blood: Hellbound saiu do Acesso Antecipado e está disponível na sua versão completa. O jogo convida os jogadores a liberar o caos em um roguelike repleto de ação, baseado no sombrio universo de Penny Blood, o sucessor espiritual de Shadow Hearts. Assuma o controle de seis anarquistas habilidosos, os Hellhounders,…

[tomorrowedblog]

Penny Blood: Hellbound is out today

Penny Blood: Hellbound, the new game from NatsumeAtari and STUDIO WILDROSE, is out today.

Unleash the hounds from hell and fight your way free of this otherworldly prison in a roguelike adventure that explores the world of Penny Blood’s darker side! Can you find the distinction between good and evil…?

[clickbliss]

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn is a tremendous neo-retro game with the art and quirks to match

by Amr (@siegarettes)

Developer: NatsumeAtari

Publisher: NatsumeAtari, Edigger, United Games Entertainment GmbH

Returning after 30 years to revisit their original work, Tengo Project have once again proven the kind of mastery they’ve achieved with decades of experience. Tengo Project’s previous efforts built on Super Famicom works that were impressive in their own right, but with Shadow of the Ninja, Tengo Project takes on their Famicom work, giving them more leeway for interpretation and an even larger gap in fidelity to impress us with their lavish animation style. 

The aesthetic treatment is likely to impress anyone with an eye for pixel art, easily proving Tengo Project to be some of the best artists in the business, even with decades of incredible talent following after them. Massive multipart bosses, smooth animations, elaborate explosions and detailed special effects give the same feeling as watching an anime that’s been painstakingly hand drawn in a medium where computer aided effects have become common. Tengo Project have even gone so far as to update the same tools they used from the Super Famicom era, keeping a period appropriate workflow. 

More divisive are going to be the deliberate anachronism of the gameplay, with plenty of quirks which feel Super Famicom era appropriate. Shadow of the Ninja ignores the numerous inputs available for more basic controls: you have a jump, attack and kusarigama as your main options, with a button dedicated to selecting and equipping various expendable items and weapons you pick up along the way. Rifling through your inventory requires you to slowly scroll through your items in real time, toggling between your active item and stand sword attacks, making you stationary and vulnerable during the process. 

Movement has the same unexpected weight. Modern action gamers might be used to a moveset that gives you control at every moment, but your tools here are deliberately limited. There’s a dodge, but it’s strictly for movement, with no invincibility period, or ability to cancel it. Jumps have noticeable jump squat frames, giving a noticeable delay in getting airborne and removing a tool aficionados often use to shorten the recovery of attacks. 

Every action is a commitment in a way that might feel archaic to someone familiar with the free flowing action game, which only limits your ability by the speed of your reflexes. Patterns need to be carefully considered, and actions planned. It’s an old school approach that basically guarantees you’ll have to attempt a stage several times to make any progress. 

It’s easy to imagine a version of the game that plays closer to a modern action game, or even a late Super Famicom release like Hagane: The Final Conflict, making use of the numerous buttons for a more free flowing approach, but Shadow of the Ninja is intentionally limited. 

Once I recalibrated my expectations, I started to enjoy chipping away at a stage, testing different approaches and uncovering hidden items. It’s an enjoyable approach, and I found the difficulty to be much better tuned than most Tengo Project releases, which trend towards overwhelming. On the difficulty scale it feels closer to the manageable chaos of Ninja Warriors Once Again, rather than the brutal tension of Wild Guns Reloaded.

My biggest criticisms ironically come from one of the most impressive aspects of the game. The visuals are so lavish that at times they make it difficult to differentiate background and foreground objects, and makes some of the boss attacks difficult to read. Given how punishing some encounters can be, it’s a particularly nasty problem to have, only softened by the introduction of unlimited lives and frequent checkpoints.

The other place its old school approach doesn’t work for me is how the unlockable weapons work.  Completing a stage unlocks items and weapons, allowing you to purchase them during a new playthrough. This is replenished with each run, giving you no reason to hold back when getting equipped, other than limited inventory space. One death will drop every item however, keeping it from being useful if you find yourself stuck, especially since weapons can’t be purchased between deaths. It feels more useful for those already familiar with the game, and discourages experimenting with the large array of ninja tools at your disposal. You can take them into time attack to try them out in stages you’ve already completed, but that removes any in stage checkpoints, so either way you'll be committing to a deathless run. It removes the strategic aspect of the shop you might find in game with similar shop mechanics, like Fantasy Zone, and leaves you with only the option for getting through a tough area dying repeatedly until the game assists you with more starting powerups 

Despite these frustrations, I hope Tengo Project continues to make games like this, not only for the artistry on display, but because each entry seems to inch closer to a format that balances their old school tastes with a game that gives you room to explore the breadth of all the mechanics on display. 

[gmlocg]

653.) Wild Guns

Release: August 12th, 1994 | GGF: Action, Arcade, Shoot 'Em Up, On-Rails Shooter | Developer(s): Natsume Co., Ltd, NatsumeAtari | Publisher(s): Natsume Co., Ltd., Nintendo Co., Ltd. | Platform(s): SNES (1994), Wii (2010), Wii U (2014), PlayStation 4 (2016), Windows (2017), Nintendo Switch (2020)

[pixelsproject]

『Wild Guns』 Original Version & Remake Comparison

Three years before Nastume released The Ninja Warriors Once Again in 2019, they released a different remake of another one of their classic SNES games.

Wild Guns Reloaded is a remake of a 1994 Super Nintendo shooting gallery game, Wild Guns. The original release is an absolute classic, so a remake would need to be handled by the right team...

The development team, Tengo Project, is led by three designers who worked on the original version of The Ninja Warriors and Wild Guns. Unlike The Ninja Warriors' remake, in-game sprites for the returning characters in Reloaded look nearly identical to how they appeared in the original version.

The difference in Reloaded versus the original version is the number of colors used. This is more apparent in Annie and Clint's alternate costumes. The original game had a 16-bit color limit whereas the remake utilizes double that amount.

Compared to the original, Reloaded features newly redrawn and reworked pixel art, a brand new OST, two extra playable characters and additional gameplay mechanics.

--- In a way, Wild Guns Reloaded and The Ninja Warriors Once Again feel like best possible versions of a George Lucas-style director's cut in video game form. Kudos to Tengo Project for giving us a wonderful look into the development process behind their games. I used their promotional websites to get all of the comparison images for this article and the one about The Ninja Warriors.

[professoricepick]

Bottom of the Barrel

Bottom of the Barrel

When it comes to my “mid-year” PC port articles, I generally have a difficult time coming up with a subject. After all, the first article of the year is always the “April Fools” list: consisting of games currently available on PC that I’d love to see receive ports to home consoles, so they can be enjoyed by a wider audience. Meanwhile, December’s list essentially serves as an end-of-year…

[savingcontent]

Go "Beyond the Shadows" in the making of Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn documentary

Continue reading Go “Beyond the Shadows” in the making of Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn documentary

[capsulecomputers]

Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn – Gameplay

If you enjoy arcade-style games, especially those from the 1990s, chances are you’ve heard of Tengo Project. They're known for creating incredible and unique revamps of classics like Wild Guns, Pocky & Rocky, and The Ninja Warriors.

Join us as we take you through a detailed look at all six stages in Tengo’s latest masterpiece: Shadow of the Ninja Reborn. Unlike the aforementioned titles, Shadow of the Ninja Reborn is a complete overhaul of the 2D hack-and-slash game originally released 33 years ago on the NES.

If you enjoyed the video, give us a thumbs up and subscribe!

After 33 years in the shadows, prepare to see this legendary action adventure in a new light! Looking and playing better than ever before, Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn is Tengo Project’s remake of a cult classic, that the fans have been waiting for.

Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn Developer: NatsumeAtari Publisher: NatsumeAtari, Edigger, United Games Entertainment GmbH Platform: Windows, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5|4, Switch Release Date: 29 Aug, 2024 Price: $29.99 USD

Available here - https://www.iningames.com/games/shadow-of-the-ninja-reborn/

[combogamer]

Natsume lanzará un nuevo juego de 'Pocky & Rocky' el año próximo

NatsumeAtari Inc. y Natsume Inc., anunciaron hoy que Pocky & Rocky 2021 (título provisional) se lanzará en 2021. El nuevo Pocky & Rocky es una secuela del popular Pocky & Rocky de Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) lanzado a principios de la década de 1990. "¡Estamos muy emocionados de trabajar junto con NatsumeAtari y su equipo Tengo Project para traer el último capítulo de la serie a Occidente!" explicó Hiro Maekawa, presidente y director ejecutivo de Natsume Inc. "Pocky & Rocky 2021 es una secuela que se lanzará más de dos décadas después del lanzamiento del título original para SNES. Esperamos que el juego no solo sirva para los fanáticos que solían jugar el juego original, ¡sino también a nuevos jugadores!" Pocky & Rocky 2021 es un juego de disparos de desplazamiento multidireccional en el estilo clásico de 16 bits con gráficos, sonido y diversión mejorados. ¡Las aventuras de Pocky y Rocky comienzan de nuevo! Pocky & Rocky 2021 es la tercera entrega de la serie de disparos de la doncella del santuario original. El nuevo juego está siendo desarrollado por el equipo de desarrollo original, Tengo Project. "Es un placer continuar las aventuras de Pocky y Rocky veinticinco años después con el mismo equipo de desarrollo", compartió Toshiyasu Miyabe, programador del equipo de Tengo Project. Read the full article