Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master was the third and final game in the Shinobi series to appear on SEGA's 16-bit machine, the SEGA Genesis (or Mega Drive depending on who you ask). Released about halfway through 1993, the game seemed to get great review scores in America, but the reception was more luke-warm in Europe. Not sure why exactly as I'd tend to side with the US reviewers, this game is awesome.

Anyway, several magazines had been doing previews of the game since at least November 1992, and when people compared the pictures of the game that these previews had to the final version, there were a lot of notable differences. Completely different looking enemies, different moves for Joe and even levels that weren't in the final game at all. There was, however, a reason for this, and it all started when SEGA sent the first version of the game out to reviewers.

The problem was that a lot of reviews gave the game a lower score that SEGA could have hoped for -whilst the likes of The Revenge of Shinobi had been getting 90% scores, Shinobi III was getting scores in the 70-80% bracket -not bad by any means but apparently low enough to worry SEGA into taking the game back into development and basically starting it again from scratch, delaying the release by half a year.

It didn't seem likely that anyone would ever get to play this first version of Shinobi III, and we still can't today, but we can play a prototype version of it -someone, somewhere, released the ROM and it can be downloaded off most good emulation sites. This version features largely incomplete (but still playable) levels which are completely different to the final game, and that is just the start of it -there are a lot of other oddities such as different moves for Joe, different bosses and enemies and more. See this section for more information.

SEGA slaved away at making this new version of the game and it was eventually released, mostly to better scores this time. However, there is also a prototype of this new version, and whilst certainly not as exciting to take a look at than the first beta, this one still has many differences, particularly later on in the game, including vastly different level layouts, different colours for enemies, glitches that were fixed for the final game and more. For a lot more information, see this section.

Sadly, the Shinobi betas aren't as well known as, say, the Sonic 2 ones, so I decided to make a site on covering them the best I could. Originally hosted by Angelfire, then Tekshities (roffle see what I did there?), a site which eventually got hacked by a fellow called Batman T.E.F., Ragey flew in and offered to host it on his space which was great and probably annoyed the god damn Batman. I've got no idea when I started this site, unfortunately, I'll hazard a guess at some time in either 2004 or 2005. Anyway, if you've got questions, check this FAQ:

Q) Shinobi III? Super Shinobi II? Buh
A) "Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master" is the name of the game in most countries, seemingly either putting the continuity like this:

Revenge of Shinobi, Shadow Dancer, Shinobi III

Or this:

Shinobi, Revenge of Shinobi, Shinobi III

However, the Japanese version is called "The Super Shinobi II", which is basically making it the direct sequel to "The Super Shinobi" (known as The Revenge of Shinobi to most of us). It really makes the whole naming issue quite confusing.


Q) Who dumped the beta ROMs?
A) I have no idea! There seems to be no back story to where they came from.


Q) Have the ROMs been tampered with?
A) Doesn't seem like it. The usually way of telling is if the SEGA logo is there or not when you first boot the game up -hackers usually remove this but both Shinobi betas have the logo.


Q) Are there any more prototypes available?
A) Yes, but whether or not they'll ever be obtained or dumped is another matter. The version everyone wants is the original version of the game, as it was completed and ready for sale until SEGA took it back in to be started again from scratch. Someone might get and dump a new Shinobi III proto tomorrow or in 10 years, you just can't tell with these things.