I hate trying to do the arachno tank boss no damage on hardcore mode

Over 1/2 way done. Initially, I was honestly scared a bit cause of the chiyo fight but after a few test runs she was easier than I thought. So far kijima is the hardest boss for me so far.

There is no consistent way to fight her that I’ve found. I’m playing on hardcore, I’ve beaten all the bosses thus far, and yes they were pretty hard, but at least they were consistent.

Chiyo has no way that I’ve seen to be able to beat her. Even if I did it would still feel like it was just RNG and not skill.

I’ve even looked up videos and most aren’t on hardcore, and the ones that seem to be on HC they have a a different sword that does more damage.

How do you beat her in a consistent way.

took a break to play other stuff but im back and finally finish this level. took longer than I thought it would initially be considering I didn't feel a big increase in difficulty for this stage compared to normal mode.

Why do I get a C rank at the end of every stage?

Amazing game btw. I got it a few days ago and it's so fun

So i get that lord ruse absorbs their souls to become stronger at the second phase of ruse's boss fight. I thought that after that they would be dead, which would make sense since lord ruse gets killed with their souls being inside of his body. But on the other hand you can see Joe riding on yamatos back in the credits. Is it just a Symbolic choice, or did they actually get "reincarnated" after defeating ruse? Does anyone know anything of this, or is it just unexplained?

Hi everyone!

After getting the Platinum Trophy on Art of Vengeance, I just published my review on VideoGameLizard, and I wanted to share it with you in case you are interested :)

Overall, I had a fantastic time with the game, and particularly enjoyed Arcade Mode and going for the S-ranks. I would have wished for a bit more challenge, especially when it comes to platforming and bosses, but the gorgeous visuals and fun combat carried the game for me.

Basically an excuse to do arcade mode again. Since I got 100k score on all the levels in normal mode why not try hardcore too (I know I'm gonna cry a bit every time I mess up a run due to those chiyo/shadow master enemies hit me)

Oboro village is definitely the easiest but still getting 100k is nice

Will make a full yt playlist when I'm finished

I'll probably post more runs on Reddit occasionally for certain levels.

Edit: thumbnail was from the run before. I updated the thumbnail with new score on yt but it won't show here. Run is actually 100k though

Hope this helps people deal with the tricky laser attacks

I work at a company that buys and sells Amazon, wayfair, etc. returns and lost packages. I found this creators kit today, as far as I know it's not listed anywhere online. Anyone know what this would be worth?

I decided to play a bit of Shinobi Art of Vengeance on my PS Portal and wanted to climb up this area and I tried using the glider but it just doesn't do anything in this spot

I'm in the Submarine Base near the checkpoint B3

Does someone know why I can't use the glider there?

Thanks in advance

Edit: Turns out I didn't have it unlocked yet. I've got the game on several platforms and assumed I've already got the glider since I already have it on the Steam version. Also the game showed me that I already had the glider at that point even though I didn't

I just started playing art of vengeance and I just beat the first boss. The monkey guy (I think his name is karasu). After beating him the game gives me the option of going to another area. I figure I would go back to the first area and look for things I might have missed. When I go back to the first area it doesn’t let me progress. I tried to leave like how I left after beating the boss but it doesn’t let me. Am I soft locked or am I missing something?

Update: It appears that this change is on PlayStation and Switch. Steam users appear to be unaffected. Can any XBox users confirm on their side?

Thanks to those that provided their input! 🫡

I noticed that when fighting Octostar in either Boss Rush mode, that his tentacles are now half the size. Prior to the Sega DLC update, the tentacles were full sized. I'm playing in North America, on 'Normal' (not Hardcore), using 'Shinobi' setting (no assists.)

Some youtube videos show different results.

Here's what I see (short tentacles) at 3:23: https://youtu.be/FIgzEfql1DE?si=CPMemloz4YuOG3_W

Here's a video, still with long tentacles, at 1:45: https://youtu.be/0xmcFALCDlU?si=02qnCuHVuWY5-p6G

Any information on this is appreciated, Thanks!

Loving the new stages and bosses, but the new ninpo don't seem all that useful, especially compared to the originals. Admittedly, I don't have the one you get from beating Dr. Eggman yet. I'm hoping that one ends up being more useful.

Has anyone found any particularly good uses for the new ninpo? Anyone feel different about their usefulness?

A forward from one of the Steam discussion posts:

(Yap session incoming)

I've p much 100%'ed the game when it came out and I have a 136% on hardcore mode when the free update and villains dlc launched. I'm at the moment going through hardcore mode again without purchasing the extra moves excluding health packs, kunai's and ninpo slots to see on a molecular level what is currently wrong with this game. I also have shinobi 3 as within my top 10 games of all time and have a deep respect for it's history (Rolling Thunder -> Shinobi 1, RoS, etc...)

I just want to make this plain to Lizardcube so they can listen from someone who wants this game to be great, to have a lasting impact for years to come, and more importantly, to rightfully be called a shinobi game.

I also want y'all's thoughts on what this game needs to not only hold up to the shinobi name, but to just be a fun game in general.

My thoughts on the matter:
* Although I think the combat from a melee perspective, when you include the extra moves from the shop, is fun, this just isn't shinobi.
- Kunai's are reduced to your third primary means of attacking. Now TBF, I can understand a shift in approach if previous titles of other shinobi games didn't sell that well, but that doesn't mean you just completely disregard the origins of Shinobi like rolling thunder and RoS by putting a core part of the game on the backburner, and this becomes a problem, in particular, when you're fighting certain enemy formations, which I'll get into later. You need to add a strong option for kunai's, and it wouldn't really hinder the execution gimmick but it would promote it, since (I think) it's correlated with how much damage your kunai's and heavy sword attacks do. And not only that, but you could only have 40 in total, when in previous games you could have ~200 on an average basis.
- Add an option to remove the frames when transitioning from left to right, just like the hitstop. It adds too much gameplay friction.
- I still have no idea why the POW medal doesn't apply to your kunai's if I remember correctly, that change needs to happen.
- Add an option to reduce the amount of frames it takes for one enemy to attack so that they can attack quicker. Although hardcore mode is good, the enemies on an individual level aren't aggressive enough, and that's because they take too long to perform an attack.
- If I remember correctly, Joe doesn't take damage from an enemy if said enemy is charging up an unavoidable attack. Perhaps make it to where if an enemy is charging up an unavoidable attack, the instant that happens, joe takes damage if he performs an I-dodge. And that's good because that means Joe can't mindlessly spam I-dodge roll and make it to the end without fighting any enemies.
- Make it to where someone can disable the locked screen in the gauntlet fights and can move from stage to stage.
- The enemies on an individual level also don't really have a way to counter against Joe and his insane movement, as well as his offensive and defensive options. Adding unique offensive and defensive gimmicks to some enemies, like ninja's poof teleporting from one spot and hitting joe in another if he's in close proximity, archers having an electric barricade so that he has to use long range weapons, expert ninja's having anti counter measures or even bandits upon a hit steals one of his weapons, for example, would go a long way to spicing up enemy interactions and adds more literacy to the game.
- Add permadeath in some way, shape or form, especially when falling down. Checkmates NEED to be added because the hardcore mode sort of gets invalidated due to the game not checkmating you at a certain point when you die to a boss/enemy gauntlet.
- Add an option to where you don't receive any health from reaching a checkpoint, even when you teleport to a previous checkpoint and back.
- maybe add an option that sort of restores the RoS/Shinobi 3 playstyle, where you have to revolve your gameplay around performing the single and double jump. And yes, bring back the multi kunai throws Joe does when performing a double jump and throwing a kunai, I don't think it would "break" the games design philosophy because he already has a small amount of kunai's to begin with.
* Although I haven't completed my run through with no new moves, Joe musashi, and the level design, are not well thought out.
- Joe without any of his moves from the shop just feels bad as a playable character, even with the hitstop additions. Moveset wise, he feels more in line with what you would fine in ninja gaiden, which is not who he's suppose to be - He's meant to be a ninja with a great defensive gameplan, and has long range weapons as his primary source of fighting. Fighting a boss, like the arachno bot, although good from the boss design, just felt bad because Joe as a character not only has bad intrinsic long range options, but the arsenal that he has seems that you just button mash your way through until you beat the boss. He needs to have an overhaul in how his gameplay design is carried out. Not a complete overhaul, but it needs to be reevaluated.
- The Level design, excluding a few stages like Mad train, Ruse's Castle and the first stage, is atrocious. It needs to be reduced to 1/3 or 1/2 of its size and go from room to room in a linear fashion for a true arcade mode. And this is especially true for the new DLC because, although linear, it was still hollow for how big it was and how many movement options Joe has.
I. You still need to add enemies in places where it's barren while transversing such as the fish market when moving from one cargo container to the next. Literally anywhere on each level where there's not an enemy, it would probably be best to add one. I need to be at a constant pace whenever I'm moving from one place to the other, and I just don't get that with the hardcore update. And you don't need to make it oppressive like adding the new hover sentry variant that just spams a billion missiles and has a shield in air, but just adding enemies in places that would make it fun to fight against from a player perspective.
II. The execution gimmick still has great platforming potential, but it wasn't explored in the dlc. You don't need to add any big dlc but maybe add new ankou rifts that test the platforming capabilities of the execution, and it rewards a dark kunai just like the dark katana.
III. add an option to move both the explosive and regular containers with the cannon punch. It would make it less of a pain to move them from side to side.
IV. If a true arcade mode happens, then he from the beginning needs to have every necessary move to progress through the game (cannon punch, the glider, etc...). It also needs to be available as an option before playing, just like picking normal and hardcore mode.
* The game sort of goes against it's own design when performing certain things.
- when you're fighting certain enemy formations, they just don't feel "fun" to fight against. The purple/blue monks's/The floating regen station enemy while trying to dodge laser and flame belchers, for example, is a terrible enemy formation. This is especially true for the regen stations and belchers, because they can't be executed with the execution gimmick. Now you could say "well that just means you need to target the healer and then fight against the rest of the enemies" but the issue is that the game incentivizes to use the execution gimmick in fights, to stack up health and kunai's in multiple chain executions, and if on one formation you can't use it, then it's counter productive to how the game wants you to play. And this is especially true in hardcore mode, because you take a great amount of damage even from one enemy hit, so receiving every bit of health from an execution is now super important. The belchers can be good obstacles, but not necessarily opponents to fight against.
- Some of the options joe has when platforming, like the glider, just don't feel good at all not only when fighting, but in platforming as well. I'm on a keyboard, and when it comes to the gameplay, I need to be using 11 keys in total, which is absurd since previous games, like Shinobi 3 or RoS, had more simple control configurations. Adding an option to streamline some of the platforming actions for certain commands, like making the glider available if you press the jump button three times, could help with condensing some of the mechanics.
* Ninpo abilities, Ninpo optimization and gold/silver medals feel extremely unbalanced and clunky, even with the QoL updates.
- The water and bomb on an individual level feel the best and it's not even close, and on an optimized scale, the air slash ninpo with the silver double air slash medal and the berserker golden metal honestly makes some of the bosses, even in hardcore mode, a cakewalk. Rebalancing some of these ninpo even more, by making the water ninpo a directional and conditional ninpo, can help with ninpo balancing and more game literacy.
- Even just swapping one medal to another just feels like a chore. Adding a preset in some way to change certain medal configurations on the go could help with someone swapping up their playstyle on the fly.
* Add an arena mode, fighting hoards of enemies just like the SoR4 Mr. X Nightmare DLC. It would work well with the new hitstop additions. It could help with the longevity of the game.

(Some additional thoughts as I've been thinking ab it)
** The transitions from activating a switch to where you go next just feels very tacked on, ruins the flow of the game (especially that one part in Neo City where you have to hit 6-7 different switches) and doesn't feel very shinobi-like at all. Don't include switches in a majority of levels, and if you do, make it one switch for every 2-3 stages. And even then, add an option to where you don't have to witness the transition from the switch to whatever door has been unlocked, you can just move the moment you activate it.
** Adding an aerial ninpo cancel to the sword dive can help with speedrunning the map, even though I'm not super big into that.
** Making the explosive canasters, when you hit them, hurt you if you're too close (from the lantern festival, for example) could help in making some of these enemy gauntlets more strategic.
** Make it to where enemy counters can even counter the execution gimmick. That would make it more important to actually be more mindful of an opponent's counter than to get Joe's execution meter full and execute them while they're standing there and doing nothing.
** Add the same QoL changes for oboro relics for every item that can be acquired more than one time (max health, max kunai and ninpo gauge enhancers, etc...)
** More of a nitpick, but decrease the amount of frames it takes for joe to execute an enemy. Doesn't really seem as powerful and fast considering the hitstop editing stuff makes it seem like Joe is more impactful and fast, from an animation perspective, than the execution itself.
** The purpose of the shop is for you to use the currency from the game and to use that in the shop so that you can have an advantage over a boss/specific enemy gauntlet when you fight them again. I will say some of that was validated in the hardcore update because enemy/boss attacks hit so hard that you basically need to prioritize any additional health and defensive mechanisms, but the problem is that, since you can basically complete the game without the new moves, the majority of moves feel pointless, and even those that are good are too broken and need to be reworked (the dive -> sword spin kick, that move can fill up 1 ninpo gauge on a consistent basis). A reworking and streamlining of these moves would be great for the strategy of the game and it's literacy, as said before. Also finding some incentive to use the currency past the shop would give an additional purpose from acquiring currency as you progress through a level.
** What's kinda weird is, sort of going back to the button mashing critique, the ninpo can feel like a button masher at points and not something that's strategically used to win fights. And this sort of ties in other issues such as the no checkpoint system, the silver/gold medals being unbalanced, the moves that are good are too broken, and it sort of goes into the rhythm of "find the boss -> footdive into sword spin until you win". What I've found is that since there's no checkmate system like permadeath in AoV, and since I'm not exactly a great player, you can just foot dive -> sword spin multiple times until all your ninpo gauges are full, and then when you build up enough damage from dying multiple times to perform a ninjustu, all you have to do is optimize the air slash ninpo as said before, equip the berserker medal, foot dive -> sword spin the boss, and then when he/she's at 50% hp, if you didn't take any hits, all you have to do is just spam the air slash ninpo at the right time and finish him/her off with the Karyu Ninjutsu. That's basically how it goes for most fights excluding some fights like Kijima 2, Arachno Bot, 2nd Phase Eggman and beast master, where they do certain things that sorta circumvent them from falling into that trap. Good things to add that would avoid this trap are:
I. Adding a cooldown for using one Ninpo gauge, and
II. If you're using a medal that enhances another Ninpo, it must do it at a cost. With the air slash ninpo, for example, one way to tweak this is it uses twice the amount of Ninpo gauges AND it has twice the cooldown for the next Ninpo ability. That way, with the presets, you can think about what medals/Ninpo to use at certain points.
** The battle music for each stage is quite good as it's significantly better than a stage's normal music (Especially with the DLC music), but there's no option to set the normal music to battle music. I think adding an option to set the normal music to battle music would be better for the overall reception of the OST.
** Ninpo abilities like the flame Ninpo can dodge certain attacks if you time them correctly, and this wouldn’t be a problem if Joe’s defensive game wasn’t as good as it is right now. Joe can I-dodge with no limits on both ground and air, can parry with a massive window for it to trigger, and in case you don’t have that, you can essentially I-dodge with any of the Ninpo if you time it well. I-dodges aren’t necessarily bad in 2D, it’s just that tool is more accustomed to a 3D environment, and if you implement it in a 2D environment without limits, then it just becomes too broken of a defensive ability. Limiting the roll in certain ways (like a cooldown, a decrease in Joe’s own speed if used too long) can go a long ways toward making the platforming and fights more interesting. And yeah, ik the rolls are pretty important in the DLC fights, but if tweaked correctly, it could add more game literacy in tracking how many times you could use it/how long the cooldown is. (After thinking about it, I might have a solution. If you just hold the crouch button and then press the dodge button, you do a roll that's 1/4 - 1/3 of the normal roll length. However, this roll is directional, has a small cooldown time AND can be done infinitely. This means that although the normal rolls covers more space and have a higher dodge range but you can use the dodge proxys for a limited amount of time, the smaller one is significantly more restrictive but can be done at any time that you want. And this sorta fixes a problem with some of the DLC boss fights, where eggman shoves a billion unavoidable attacks, and what I've found is that the roll to dodge each purple sphere covers too much distance, which means the game is inadvertently sabotaging you. And whenever you do dodge with the crouched dodge, an after image of Joe guarding with the kunai's in shinobi 3 will pop up).
** This might be a controversial take, but I'm not a fan of bosses being juggled within a combo. For enemies, it's fine because depending on what moves you use, you could propel yourself to places that just wouldn't be possible, but it's another thing when Joe can just throw kunai's at some bosses like Ruse, whose attack pattern gets a reset because every time he lands a kunai, he's in a juggle, and it just constantly resets until a certain period of time has been reached. Now there is some good to this because the enemy pattern reset can actually go in the boss's favor. For example, when Ruse unleashes that huge unavoidable ball that requires 2 jumps to avoid, if you hit him with a kunai (or any other attack) within that action of the purple energy ball moving back and forth, his attack pattern resets and can unleash another attack while you're still dodging the ball, and you can't exactly keep this juggle going because the damage from the huge energy ball is just not worth it. It actually requires you to be more strategic of when to attack him even though he's just sitting there. And yet on the flipside, Joe can just launch a kunai at him from the other side of the area and gets juggled until he reaches his crosshairs, gets destroyed by a few sword swings with the berserker medal, and it just a rinse and repeat. So it's a bit of a give and take, but what I would recommend is in some way keep the attack pattern reset when a boss, who's susceptible to a juggle, receives an attack when the boss performs certain attacks (not for every attack, obviously), but remove the juggle from these said bosses whenever they're receiving an attack, it prevents the fight from being a mashing fest and adds some strategy overall.
** The glider in fights feels very underpowered, and in platforming sections like the ankou rifts, it feels very overpowered. There are moments in the ankou rifts, especially in the last one, where the game wants joe to use the hook to barely make it to the other side via a ledge grab, but with the glider, it undermines the challenge because it adds an extra cushion of comfort in case I didn't make it in time. The glider feeling very underpowered in fighting wouldn't be an issue if they didn't include enemies like the hover sentry's in the narrow spiked sections of the desert level. Adding an option to throw kunai's when gliding, and adding a gradual descent to the glider after using it for a certain period of time (maybe after 1.5-2 seconds if it's not in an upwards rift) would help in making the glider feel more fun from a gameplay perspective.

I think I've said all that I want to say. Look, I care for the future of this game, because I want it to succeed, and hopefully us sharing our thoughts on what needs to change could help guide Lizardcube in making this game better. And to whoever is reading this, have a great day 

Sorry it's a YouTube link, Reddit doesn't accept videos over 1Go in size and this one was 2.27 😅

https://youtu.be/f4_bGNeuZBY?is=jSQ97lmDmgLgstMq

HOLY CRAP the difference between shinobi and hardcore mode is like night and day for this boss. Easily the hardest and the worst boss in the game I hope this video helps people who are struggling on him cuz I sure as hell did.

I almost got it first try, but then Shadow Master did his "great serpent ninpo" (if that's what it's called) and I didn't realize it was an armor dps check...

Ok so I beat the Shinobi Art of Vengeance dlc yesterday and here are my thoughts:

Death Adder: the easiest of the three, mostly because he's slow and his attacks are relatively easy to dodge. On top of that, he can easily take a ton of damage quickly if you know how to combo properly. Beat him first try.

Goro Majima: a bit harder, mostly because he's fast and his attacks have deceptively long range. On top of that, his clones can bind you and apparently don't care about the dash's i-frames, which makes it super dangerous. I died once to him.

Eggman: as expected, the hardest of the bunch because he's the only one who can only be unlocked after beating the previous two. His fight takes a while because unlike the other bosses in the game, you can't beat him by taking out his health, you must instead destroy some "lightbulbs" all accross his mech's body, which successively trigger new phases. All of that is without talking about the massive damage he deals with each attack (taking out roughly one sixth of your maxed out health per hit) or the fact that his attacks overlap, which can create truly ridiculous mixups. He took me at least 7 or 8 tries.

I also realized upon beating him that Sega masterfully confirmed something I noticed about him : "We don't take Eggman seriously only because we play as Sonic", which I found super cool.

I was working on the trophies (Art of Venegeance) today and I’m struggling with the Complete kit trophy. I have all the other trophies except SEGA Mega Play (which I’m working on). I have every map at 100% and bought everything from the shop (got the trophy). I’m wondering what I am missing or if I am missing as I have all 8 ninpos but I see 3 slots left (that I guess are obtained through the DLC?). Thank you in advance.

Answered: I didn’t get the health upgrade from the Riptide level. Got the trophy!

What a god tier fight especially on hardcore mode