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Something a bit different this week, but not actually different in terms of tone or focus. It's more an administrative difference, because this is a rare piece of Sponsored Content. I get a lot of content sponsorship offers—a few a week, usually—but nothing that seems like a natural fit for my channel and my style. But for once, I got an offer I really couldn't refuse. It's not every day that Sega comes to you and says, "We dig your Sega retrospective series. Can we commission one?" I mean... talk about personal validation.

The decision was made even easier by the fact that the topic—the Shinobi series and the upcoming Art of Vengeance—are legitimately great and look genuinely excellent, respectively. And I've actually mulled the idea of putting together series retrospectives on the channel for years, which means that this gave me the excuse to give it a try. So, I don't think you need to worry too much about sponsored content happening often. I'm not going to promote anything I don't genuinely like, or that doesn't fit organically into my existing work. And it's certainly not like Nintendo is ever going to come to me and say, "We dig your NES Works retrospective series...."

All of that is to say, please enjoy this Shinobi retrospective. It will not be the only Shinobi-related video you'll see this year! Sega Genesis is just a few months away.....

Files

Previews only

The Oboro family tree: A Shinobi series retrospective | Segaiden Special 02

The Shinobi series is making a comeback this summer after years of dormancy with LizardCube's Shinobi: Art of Vengeance. No simple visual facelift for a decades-old video game, Art of Vengeance appears to take a holistic approach to the series' evolution, pulling in bits and pieces from practically every game in the nearly 40-year history of Shinobi franchise. This episode, the first (but definitely not last) franchise retrospective for the Segaiden and NES Works projects, takes a look at the Shinobi games and how they evolved over time, with some thoughts on how those elements feed into Art of Vengeance. In addition to the arcade and Master System releases, which I covered last year, this episode also works as something of a preview for upcoming episodes on the Genesis and Game Gear titles, while also reaching even further ahead to games that are entirely outside of this channel's scope, like PlayStation 2 and 3DS. Oh, and modern systems (what with Art of Vengeance, you know). This episode was sponsored by Sega. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance arrives August 29th—preorder now and save 10%! Visit shinobi.sega.com to learn more.

Comments

Marcus Trapp

Just as Sega is a pioneer in the video game industry, I trust others will follow their lead in sponsoring your content. If this is the future of advertising, I am all for it!

Matthew Daley

I didn't realize there was so much Shinobi - I only knew of the Master System, Game Gear, and Sega Genesis games. Looking forward to Art of Vengeance, Dragon's Trap was near perfect.