shinobi (arcade)

Shinobi (忍) is a side-scrolling hack-and-slash action and shooting video game produced by SEGA, originally released for arcades on the Sega System 16 board in 1987.

In the game the player controls an expert veteran ninja called Joe Musashi, who has to stop the Zeed terrorist organization from kidnapping students of his clan. During his fight this ninja shoots infinite numbers of shurikens and employs firearms for long range attacks, while using martial arts moves and katanas for melee combat.

Shinobi was a major commercial success in arcades; it topped monthly Japanese table arcade charts in December 1987, and became America's highest-grossing arcade conversion kit of 1988 and one of America's top five conversion kits of 1989.

It was adapted by SEGA to its SEGA Master System game console, followed by conversions to the NES, PC Engine, and various home computers.

Shinobi was re-released as downloadable emulated versions of the original arcade game for the Wii and Xbox 360. The arcade game joined the Nintendo Switch in January 2020 through the Sega Ages series.

Shinobi's success inspired various sequels and spin-offs of the SHINOBI series.