Shadow Dancer review - Sega Master System

I didn't like the Megadrive version much, because apart from the dog, it had nothing new on offer and the game simply wasn't anywhere near as good as Revenge of Shinobi. On the Master System, Shadow Dancer fares better, but even so I'm still left with a nagging doubt. Getting to each end-of-level boss is easy, but until you work out the method and magic required to do them away, you get stuck. Once you finally succeed, you go straight through to the next boss where you get stuck again, making progress rather sporadic and frustrating. A shame, really, because otherwise this is a fine game with good graphics and plenty of variety. Ardent Shinobi fans might enjoy it, but at the end of the day my overall feeling is that with a few more gameplay tweaks, this could have been so much better.

The absence of any canine in this conversion of Shadow Dancer doesn't really effect the game much, but what does stop it from being loads of fun is the difficulty level. The levels themselves are quite easy, but the guardians are ultra-rock-hard, which leads to more than a little frustration. This is a pity, because otherwise, Shadow Dancer is a fun game to play, the graphics are quite good, with some especially nice animation, and the levels are varied enough to stop the whole thing from getting boring. Anyone considering buying Shadow Dancer would do well to try it out first.