This Shinobi spin-off is debatably the greatest of the 16-bit Shinobi titles. Shadow Dancer is best remembered for introducing man’s best friend as your most reliable weapon when dodging bullets and shurikens. Mushashi and his K-9 was the equivalent to Mega Man and his robotic mutt Rush–with the exception of transforming into a hover board and providing power-ups.
While the boss battles were more memorable from the other games in the series, fighting at the top of the Statue of Liberty was pretty sick for its time, and still is. And the bonus rounds in between each level brought more enjoyment at times than the actually game, lol.
The insane boss battles and absurd difficulty made Shadow Dancer a trip. It’s bad enough the game was near impossible on Easy, but you had to go through purgatory and hell (Hard difficulty) in order to receive an actual ending. Who said the “way of the ninja” was an easy adventure. Nevertheless, there’s no reason why Shadow Dancer shouldn’t be in your collection.
