a challenging boss opponent. The core of Nightshade's gameplay is hack and slash, with accumulating combos on spawning enemies about the level. Using Hibana's arsenal of a katana (the primary weapon), short daggers (achieve less damage, but score a higher combo multiplier), shuriken (long range projectiles), and various ninjutsu spells, the game challenges the player to achieve as high a score as possible while eliminating the opposing threat. Nightshade also includes aspects of platforming. With Hibana's ability to dash in mid-air, the game requires the player to use this ability to bypass holes and hazards. Game mechanics restrict Hibana to only a double-jump and an air-dash before she falls, requiring the player to strike enemies in mid-flight to stay in the air. By doing this, the player combines accuracy and timing to stay in the air continuously, or fall to their death. If the player has a completed save file from Shinobi then Hotsuma, the protagonist of the previous game, is available as an optional playable character. He differs from Hibana in that he does not use daggers like her and is only able to use Akujiki, the sword he used in the previous game. Hotsuma plays exactly as before with the same arsenal of moves and operates under the same mechanics as he did in the previous game. He must always be finding and defeating enemies to feed their souls to Akujiki, or the cursed sword will devour his soul instead and kill him. Development Soundtrack The Nightshade soundtrack is based upon the Japanese techno of the previous iteration, Shinobi. All tracks were produced by Fumie Kumatani, Tomonori Sawada, Keiichi Sugiyama, Yutaka Minobe, Teruhiko Nakagawa, and Masaru Setsumaru of Sega Digital Studio. Nightshade did not see an official soundtrack release until July 2014, where it was released digitally on Amazon Music and iTunes. Reception Nightshade received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of one nine and three eights for a total of 33 out of 40. References External links Official page at Sega Hardcore Gaming 101: Shinobi 2003 video games Action video games Hack and slash games Overworks games PlayStation 2 games PlayStation 2-only games Sega video games Shinobi (series) Video game sequels Video games featuring female protagonists Video games set in Tokyo Video games about ninja Video games developed in Japan