Ninja Issen is a fast, furious cyberpunk platformer in the spirit of Shinobi, out today
If you are in the mood for a game about dancing around screens full of energy beams and projectiles, searching for that fleeting window of space in which you can stop and perform an attack, I recommend trying the demo for Ninja Issen. If you miss 8 or 16-bit platformers like Shinobi or the original Ninja Gaiden, I also recommend trying the demo for Ninja Issen. If you liked The Messenger - classique Ninja Gaiden's greatest heir - but wished it was More Cyberpunk with cheesy PG-rated holographic dancing girls and Comix Zone-style story panels, I also also recommend trying the demo for Ninja Issen.
Out today, it's the work of solo Korean dev Asteroid-J, and based on the first level, is pretty decent. It does have quite a lot of dialogue for a ninja platformer, but the dialogue is tongue-in-cheek, and hopefully it'll fall by the wayside as you push beyond the tutorial sections.
Let's Talk Plot! You are a ninja found in an alley with his arm missing, like a lost kitten who is also a dreadful mass-murderer. You are rescued by some kind of benevolent scientist uncle, treated to a fix-me-up montage that leaves you with a fancy cybernetic arm, and packed off to Pixelart Cyberville (actual name forgotten) to murder waves of lesser cyber-ninjas, cyber-astronauts with jetpacks, cyber-turrets that shoot cyber-bullets, and cyber-hovertrucks with mouths that shoot cyber-lasers. Occasionally you fall into a cyber-deadfall, but that's OK, because you get lots of Continues and there's a checkpoint system. This isn't a one-hit-kill game, either - you can tank a surprising number of plasma bolts to the head, though I wouldn't make a habit of it.
Where ninjas of the Mega Drive era often had to make do with naught but a jump button,
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