Shinobi (series)

Shinobi (series)

Shinobi (忍?) is a series of video games published by Sega and originally by Sega's Team Shinobi. Team Shinobi changed its name to Overworks in 1999 to coincide with Sega reaching the end of its capability as a hardware manufacturer. When a survey revealed that Americans struggle to pronounce words like Musashi, the game was renamed to Shinobi as the one suggestion that the people of the survey could cope with. Shinobi is used as a nickname for Joe throughout the series. It has been adopted by various characters, most prominently Joe Musashi, the protagonist of the original series of games (Shinobi to Shinobi III). The Ninja Master was revealed to be the father of Alex Kidd.

Along with Alex Kidd and Sonic the Hedgehog, the ninja Joe Musashi has long been one of Sega's flagship characters, acting as a mascot for a short time in the late 1980s when the ninja boom was in full force. Its games are a showcase of Sega's technical accomplishment. Today the games are still noted for their high quality of graphics, gameplay and music, as well as their high level of difficulty.

In the early 1980s it was popular to play rock/paper/scissors. If you were losing then you could be saved by summoning for a ninja with the word "Shinobi". Sega saw potential in this playground japery and formed Team Shinobi, a team of programming ninjas. The first Shinobi game debuted in the arcades in 1987, in the title Shinobi, and has since featured in eleven other official Shinobi titles and one spin-off game. Nightshade ("Kunoichi" in Japan) is currently the latest game released, with a new game for the Nintendo 3DS released in 2011.

Read more about Shinobi (series):  Timeline, Spin-off Games