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Shinobi X was one of the first Saturn projects to be announced, and really offers a taster of what the machine can do. To the dismay of some, it's a standard left to right style platformer, indeed a textbook example of the genre. That's not to say that it doesn't have a few fancy tricks to show, however.

The styling and gameplay is very much in tune with the three previous Megadrive Musashi games. Joe, the ninja hero, pulls off the same mixture of acrobatics and magic - many of the same moves. The difference is excellent new animation, using digitised actor sprites.

In the game's favour, the control is very responsive and quite instinctive. Using blocking and combination attacks makes Shinobi more than hack and slash, and your opponents are similarly smarter than the average platform game stooge. The nine levels start to get hellish about halfway through, and take you through familiar, pagoda, minecart and dungeon territory, with your gal's kidnappers always one step ahead.

Since our favourite import review, Sega's major change has been to the music. Unhappy with the Japs' trashy ditties, Sega commissioned one of their composers at Sega UK in Chiswick to come up with an original soundtrack. It's rather more atmospheric than the original. Also, the game seems to play slightly faster, upping the difficulty level marginally.

There are some valid criticisms to be made of Shinobi X for being too conservative and unadventurous, but there are always takers of well-tailored conventional titles, and Shinobi should have its market.

Overall 84%
Smacks firmly of Shinobi.