Chibi Ninja Shino-kun: Treasure of Demon Tower

A really fun platformer game with quite a lots of level, a collectible per level and a time goal at the end. My only cons would be that resetting a level to get a lower time is painful, from the moment you die, pressing start, restart level and moving left, it will take 10 second to happen.

The attribute that differentiates this game is the movement, especially the grappling hook. It is very player-friendly and enables all sorts of neat tricks. The rest of the moment is good too, but not as distinctive. (The wall-jump timing in particular needs some time to really sink in.) The movement is designed to restore the air jump and grapple very favorably to the player, but not so often to make all the levels trivial. The controls are fully rebindable even on a gamepad. (This does not apply to the menus, but that is much less important to me.) There are no unlockable abilities. The player advances through the levels by getting better at the game; everything is available the whole time. The difficulty curve works well with this, not rising too steeply nor too slowly (although there are, here and there, one or two tricks I found rather annoying). The pixel art style is done well. More importantly, it never obscured readability during gameplay. I am not sure what to think about the music. I never muted it, but I expect some players will. I like some of the later tracks more than the earlier ones. There is a very simple plot with no writing, as in an earlier era of gaming, …

- Unique but familiar moveset that feels great, gives you lots of ways to tackle levels and find fast routes - Great pacing - each level is quick to pass but each has something interesting, no fluff - game feels like it has enough content - Music is very nice and charming, but there’s too little of it – I ended up keeping the sound on for the first 8 levels of a floor, then turning it off until the next floor due to repetition - There’s some confusing waiting: spawning into a level plays a 2 second animation that happens while the clock is going; restarting the *-20 level each time makes you do the same ~5 second run to the start of the level. I’m probably just being impatient, but having the clock run while you’re not in control feels bad. - Some hitboxes seemed off to me - but there arent many places where you need to squeeze through tight areas - I’d love to work on better times on levels, but I don’t have enough intrinsic motivation to do that. I’d love to see an update where I could get gold/silver/bronze medal per level if I hit a specific time – that would extend the life of the game for me considerably. - The freeze frame effect (e.g. when sliding into an enemy) feels like …

6 USER REVIEWS?!? I've only played up to stage 2-10 as of now, but I can already say that this game is criminally underrated. The movement options are super cool. The graphics are nice. The music is authentically old-school and charming, and the game-play is modern, varied and very fun.

I love the art style and the concept. The game is somewhat unforgiving and frustrating in a good way, like it makes you time and think about your path forward and you feel good about making it to the finish line. Easier to control with keyboard than a game pad in my opinion.

Wow, this is an incredible hidden gem! Very fun platformer with good pacing and a fun moveset! This game is begging for some speedrunning attention. As soon as I finish a level, the first thing I want to do is play it again and go for a faster time. Well done! I highly recommend this game!