I see that the game dates from 1989, but in my memory I placed it in the last moments of the 8 bits. Not that there is a big difference between 1989 and 1990 (in which summer I switched to PC), but in any case it is important because I actually spent more time reading the reviews of the 16-bit versions than those of the Spectrum games.

So this Shinobi happened to me without pain or glory, plus it didn't attract much attention by itself. Some time later I had the opportunity to try 'Revenge of Shinobi' in Megadrive, also from 1989, and although aesthetically it was better than the original arcade game, it was not one of those that hooked me. I guess it happened to all of us, some games dazzled you from the moment you saw them advertised and others, no matter how much publicity and fanfare that accompanied them, you found them indifferent.

The peculiarity of Shinobi was to combine the platforms and the action (something that others, like Dragon Ninja or 'Rolling Thunder' had done, without going any further), in the typical side scrolling game and final enemies.

Released for all existing systems and to have (on PC, as almost always, we missed it for a few years, as it was made and distributed in America), MSX got the usual Spectrum conversion, without music and slower as almost always too.

In recent times, the Brazilians from Amusement Factory polished the conversion a bit, making it faster (it is the version played in the video on the card).

The usual story, I will not tell you more.