Shinobi

The five missions in the game are each three or four stages long. Several hostages are being held in each stage; Joe must rescue all of them before he is allowed to finish the stage. The last stage in each…

60 16 November 1987

Adventure Arcade Hack and slash/Beat 'em up Action

Shinobi is an adventure developed by Team Shinobi, released 16 November 1987 on TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine, Amiga, Amstrad CPC and Arcade.

Verified 21 Aug 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What Shinobi is

Shinobi is an adventure game developed by Team Shinobi and released in 1987. It was published by Asmik Corporation. It is available on TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Arcade, Atari ST/STE, Commodore C64/128/MAX, DOS, MSX and ZX Spectrum.

The premise, in the publisher's words

The player controls a ninja named Joe Musashi who has to stop a criminal organization called "Zeed" who are kidnapping the children of his ninja clan. Through five missions (consisting of three stages for the first mission and four stages each for the rest), Musashi must make his way to Zeed's headquarters and free all the hostages in the first two or three stages before confronting the boss at the final stage of each mission. At the start of each mission, the player is shown their objective, followed by a file containing a photograph of the enemy boss and a map display pinpointing the location of the next stage.

Description from the publisher · source

How it plays

It is played from a side view perspective. Its themes are action. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component. Available modes: Multiplayer and Single player.

Where it sits in the Shinobi series

Shinobi is the first of 36 entries we hold in the Shinobi series. The next entry was Shinobi in 1988. Its critic score of 60 is 13 points below the series average of 73. The highest-rated entry is Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed at 88.

See all 36 Shinobi games in release order →

How it was received

Shinobi holds a critic score of 60 out of 100. That places it above 15% of the 7,525 rated adventure games in our database, which average 72. Games released in 1987 averaged 72, so it scored 12 points below the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 63, across 51 votes.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for Shinobi yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

Know one? Send it in and we will test it →

Official trailer

Sourced from the publisher’s YouTube channel.

Screenshots

All media

Dlc

Shinobi

19 June 1988

Shinobi

1 December 1990

Shinobi

9 June 2009

Shinobi

31 December 2009

Sega Ages: Shinobi

31 October 2019

Quick answers

Shinobi — frequently asked questions

When did Shinobi come out?

Shinobi was released on 16 November 1987 for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Arcade, Atari ST/STE, Commodore C64/128/MAX, DOS, MSX and ZX Spectrum.

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