Shadow Dancer

Copyright : Sega | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Shadow Dancer should be pretty well known by just about every gamer from the past 10 years or so, it?s another of Sega?s babies that kicked ass in the arcade and proved to make very good conversions to the consoles (Mega Drive).

I am not so certain about the story line for this game but I do know that the arcade version which is now emulated in MAME is one of the best Sega beat-em-ups in years. You take on the role of a whie ninja who is skilled in the art of martial arts and defence, you are followed by your pet wolf who will help at all times to track down and kill the bad guys in many of the great locations this game takes on.

Though the game wasn?t so easy to play in the arcades the graphics were awesome and just the fact that you could set your wolf on the bad guys and just watch was superb - but you could only do that a certain number of times (3 I think) before you were limited to shruikens and magic.

Graphics

Shadow Dancer was hugely popular on the arcades and when I used to visit and help out at the local games store we sold quite a few copies of both the 16 and 8 bit home computer/console conversions of the game so someone liked it!

The graphics in this CPC version are actually better (believe it or not) than the C64 because it?s got colour and your character is dressed as he was in the arcade (white ninja suit). The C64 version of the game had very lmited colours and the graphics didn?t look much like the arcade version (though I?m sure it was very playable) so CPC gamers were very impressed at the conversion. All of the characters have been well drawn and look pretty big on screen without any slow-down in FPS what so ever.

Sound

Sound is also great, you get to hear the bad guys hit the floor, fire shots at you and more. We are even treated to a CPC version of the arcade theme tune at the start of the game, the only thing that you will really miss that was present in the arcade and I think in the Mega Drive conversion is the sound of the dog barking as he attacked the bad guys.

Gameplay

Gameplay is pretty good, the controls handle pretty well on the keyboard and it?s not slow what so ever. Some gamers may find the game a little tough and I know it?s nothing compared to games of today but back when this game was released we all had more patience and would tolerate having to start at the beginning of the game again if we got killed by the bad guys - but now this all seems a little frustrating, why not carry on from were you were killed?