Shinobi

1001 Video Games

The Arcade version of Shinobi appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Arcade Version

In comparison to the original arcade version, there are a few missing features in the TurboGrafx-16 version (the status of the other home conversions is unknown): the machine gun, the bonus round and a few enemies (including the boss of the second mission).

Hidden messages

The Amiga version contains this message to crackers, hidden within the game code:

Fuck me! I never thought you would do it!! Bet it took a long time though!

By the way, the only way to crack this game is if you have at least 4mb of fast ram... theres a hint! Are you enjoying this, by the way? Me (Richard Aplin) and Tim (the programmer) thought we might give you a little challange... I reckon I'll hold you off for about a week. Oh, by the way Quartex, you told me at the SAE party this would be EASY.. Well is it? I'm sure POPULOUS was easy too! (hehe)

Well, obviously you weren't fooled earlier!! I'm impressed! Not a bad bit of hacking.. but the best is yet to come!! Hehehehehe.. Just wait, cos now it gets REALLY good..

If you are reading this message on a pirated version of Shinobi, may all your days in prison be computerless!

Title

Shinobi in Japanese means: stealing (into); spy; sneak thief; surreptitious visit to house of ill repute. The Chinese character displayed on the title screen and throughout the game is the character for Shinobi in Japanese.