Sega says the Crazy Taxi reboot will boast a “cheerful feeling of freedom” and combine it with a “fusion of nature and city” in its environments, while Golden Axe will see players defeat enemies “with a variety of attacks with swords and magic”. Meanwhile, Shinobi is set in a world “full of monsters and ninja actions”, and will task players with using the “legendary sword” Oberozuki to “slay Evil once more”.

New screenshots and artwork for the titles have also been shared. You can view them below. Whether or not Crazy Taxi is going to be a live service game as past leaks have suggested remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Sega has also confirmed that the Jet Set Radio reboot will be open world, and revealed that the next Streets of Rage game is called Streets of Rage Revolution.

“In recent years, Sonic the Hedgehog has forged new paths for Sega, bringing the franchise to life and reaching new audiences in ways we had only dreamed of in the past,” said Co-COO of Sega Corporation and CEO of Sega of America Shuji Utsumi. “Building off that success, we are digging into our legacy and reimagining several franchises to bring these games to more audiences around the globe.”

Utsumi’s statement goes on to talk about how this is only the beginning for Sega.

“Today’s announcement is just the start of our initiative. First and foremost, our ambition will be to create great games with memorable characters and worlds. We hope fans of all ages will look towards our future with anticipation as we release these projects in the coming years.”

During its announcement at The Game Awards 2023, Sega confirmed that new games in the Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi are in development. The studio also announced new games for even older franchises, including Shinobi, Streets of Rage, and Golden Axe.

Sega recently released Sonic Superstars, which it had described as a new take on the classic 2D Sonic formula. Released back in October, Sonic Superstars has seemingly seen a weaker start than Sega had anticipated. Previously, the company had released Sonic Frontiers, which was quite successful and saw a host of content being released through post-launch updates.

Jet Set Radio appears to be a platformer like its predecessors but with a larger world to explore. Streets of Rage is a beat ’em up but in 3D. Shinobi is perhaps the most stunning, with an animated 2D style that appears stop-motion while staying true to its action side-scrolling roots.

Golden Axe is more of a 3D hack-and-slash title with co-op, while Crazy Taxi is, well, Crazy Taxi. Except it seems the police are more active in stopping the player’s insane driving. All five titles are without release dates but will arrive over the next few years. Stay tuned for more details and announcements from The Game Awards.

Shinobi

Nioh’s “masocore” description actually describes Sega’s Shinobi way better. While it starts out relatively fine, things quickly spiral into the deepest depths of hell. Are you constantly killing enemies? If not, you’ll die from the cursed sword which is slowly draining your health. Died from the insane platforming challenges? Have fun restarting the entire level because there are no checkpoints in between. The bosses are similarly torturous. You can unlock Joe Musashi from the original Shinobi, who doesn’t suffer from constantly health loss and has unlimited shurikens that deal more damage, but only after making significant progress.

NOTE: There will be spoilers ahead for all games mentioned in this feature, so if we’re talking about a game you want to avoid spoilers for, skip ahead to the next entry.

CRONOS (GOD OF WAR 3)

The Cronos boss fight in God of War 3 is the perfect encapsulation of everything this series is about. The sheer scope of this entire fight is simply staggering, and the brutality that Kratos exhibits while taking the Titan down – from ripping off his fingernail to stabbing him through the throat – are the epitome of that era of God of War. In God of War (2018), when Atreus sees a dragon and asks Kratos if he can kill something that big, it’s hard not to laugh and immediately think back to the time he killed a creature literally the size of a mountain.

BANJO-KAZOOIE

Once one of the premier 3D platforming properties in the industry, Banjo-Kazooie is often considered one of Rare’s greatest accomplishments, and has more time has passed since the series went away, demands for a return have kept on growing fiercer. The fact that 2008’s Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts wasn’t at all what fans wanted it to be has only made those demands louder. Whether or not Microsoft will see the value in bringing it back, or whether or not the Rare of today will be able to recreate the magic of the Rare of the late 90s are both big question marks, of course, but it’s definitely a series that deserves another shot.

The series has roots all the way back to an arcade side-scroller in 1987, before the console wars of Genesis and SNES were so much as a whisper on the playground and during a time when Sega was a large player in arcades. Largely featuring Joe Musashi, the titular Shinobi, who has to match strengths against the Ninja Crime Syndicate Zeed to prevent them from reverting Japan to a civil war torn nation. Yeah, game narratives were fun back in the late 80’s.

Interestingly, the original Shinobi game never made it to the Genesis console, since it wasn’t quite a thing at the time, making it to the little remembered Sega Master System a year later and then to basically everything else, including the NES by the end of 1989. The game was designed to be easy to grasp and enjoy, with jumping, melee and shuriken attacks, and Ninjutsu moves being mapped to three buttons and a joystick on the arcade cabinet. Home console ports were generally well received, probably because they toned back the quarter gobbling difficulty by altering mechanics, such as giving Joe a health bar.

The huge popularity of the original arcade release spurred Sega to begin considering Joe Musashi as one of their headliners, and thus the floodgates would open with both Shadow Dancer and The Revenge of Shinobi launching in 1989. The second and final arcade entry would borrow almost all of the mechanics from the first game, and also do a dog companion many years before games called it innovation.

Revenge of Shinobi is where the series finally hit the big time, where it was a huge player in Sega’s 1989 lineup for the Genesis console, intended as a showpiece for the brand new hardware. Director Noriyoshi Ohba would take the series in a decidedly new direction, not only lifting earlier console port’s decision to introduce a life bar for Joe, but to have the series tweaked to better fit onto a home console by making it more story driven. So in the spirit of the 90’s, the ninjas from the first game kill his master and kidnap his wife. What a time to be alive.

Perhaps that bravery to laugh in the face of copyright infringement was what made the series so memorable in the first place, since to Ohba’s own admission the reason you see Joe Mushashi go toe to toe with Rambo, Terminator, Spider-Man and even Batman appear as bosses in the game comes from a lack of his creativity, and not passing the memo along to the character designer that he was supposed to add their creative touches to them. The wall crawler himself is part of a fun piece of trivia for the game; it’s the only Genesis game to receive a revision 20 years following release, since his presence prevented rerelease due to licensing. So before the Wii Virtual console rerelease, they removed the Marvel credit and made him pink, making it ok.

The earlier arcade title, Shadow Dancer, would receive an adaption on Genesis called Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi. Enhancements to the control were well received, while the game strangely maintained the single-hit lives from the arcade. Depending on what manual you ask, the protagonist is either Joe’s son Hayate Musashi or Joe himself out of retirement. The game maintained mostly positive reception, aside from some outlets who believed that it was too difficult and a step back from the previous game.

It would be three years of Master System and Game Gear spin offs before Joe would resurface from retirement once again to take on Neo Zeed. Originally, Sega wanted the game to launch a year earlier, but apparently, they had some standards in 1992. Sega delayed and reworked Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master by a year, after a handful of gaming magazines had already released coverage on their game including screenshots and reviews, apparently because the publisher was not satisfied with how it performed for those reviews. Likely the right choice to make, since the Genesis version of the game is still widely considered one of the best titles on the system. While the game did remain well received, it also began to shy away from the staple difficulty and mechanics of the series, instead focusing on speed and style over difficulty, which some developers didn’t quite care for.

And just like the flash of a blade in the night, the Shinobi series would disappear before it even really began. Shinobi X on the Sega Saturn felt like a half-hearted attempt to reboot the series on the Sega Saturn, but the 3D craze had taken full hold by this point. There was no room in a 3D world for a 2D action game, and Sega was falling fast. The review scores reflected this change, and Shinobi would only see one more true sequel, as the Dreamcast title eventually launched for the PS2 in 2002. The repetitive gameplay left it wanting as well. That title did just well enough to gain a sequel in Nightshade, but little else.

Shinobi has remained in the shadows of its former glory for 7 long years at this point, following on from a rather disappointing 3DS entry that tried to do the Retro Revival thing, and the mini-game touch compilation thing at the same time, long after both had somewhat fallen out of vogue. Shinobi slipped away almost completely in lock step with a Sega that found itself flailing around, desperately trying to keep its consoles alive, and that’s what I feel brought the series down with it. Could Shinobi have a future? Sega made promises in 2017 that it was going to start listening to fans that it needs to pay off. Could Joe come out of retirement once again with a Platinum Games led revival? We need a new ninja to walk into the scene since we’re short a Hayabusa. We need a Shinobi.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Rather than talking about what’s in store for us in the future, though, let’s instead take a look back and talk about what have been some of the best ninja and samurai related games over the years. In this list, we’re going to take a look at fifteen such games. Given just how vast and popular this genre is, it goes without saying that this list isn’t going to be exhaustive by any means, so if we failed to mention any of your favourites, fire away in the comments section below.

Also note that just for the purpose of this feature, we’re clubbing samurais and ninjas together- we know they’re not one and the same. But you know, convenience and all. Also, this list is in random order and isn’t ranked, so keep that in mind as well.

Without further ado, then, let’s get right into it!

SAMURAI SHODOWN

Back in the days of the insane craze surrounding Street Fighter II, fighters were all the rage. Samurai Shodown came along and put an irresistable, samurai-centric spin on it. It wasn’t a revolutionary game, and it didn’t do anything that could be called unprecedented, but as those who have played it would gladly tell you, it was an absolute blast. With its dedication and focus on samurais, it’s a a game you simply must play if you’re a fan of the subject matter.

Shinobi

Of the many franchises that Sega has deigned to keep alive, Shinobi has been criminally left out. It’s a shame because in 2002, the developer had a chance to beat Team Ninja’s Ninja Gaiden to the punch with high paced ninja action and ultra violence. It unfortunately buckled under an (ironically enough) insane difficulty, lack of depth and poor level design. Shinobi 3D in 2011 attempted to reignite the 2D side-scrolling magic of old but it just couldn’t match the brilliance of the old-school Shinobi titles.

5th Cell lead animator Tim Borrelli has tweeted that the layoffs are happening at Shinobi developer Griptonite Games.

Here is the official statement from Glu Mobile CEO Niccolo de Masi:

“We believe concentrating resources on fewer titles, with a greater centralized support infrastructure will accelerate revenue growth in Q4 2013 and beyond. We made over 20 new ‘games-as-a-service’ (GaaS) hires in Q1 and anticipate hiring at a similar rate throughout the year. Our goal is to shift headcount investment out of raw studio team volume and into our centralized GaaS functions.

This rebalancing is expected to leave R&D costs approximately flat year over year. A reduction in force was commenced today to promote talent density throughout the studio, as well as fund over 80 new GaaS colleagues. This reduction is equivalent to circa 12% of the year’s starting headcount of 564 employees. Adding back forecast hiring we anticipate finishing 2013 with 582 Gluers worldwide.”

Good luck to all the people that have lost their job recently and hopefully they will find a new place to work at.

Stay tuned on GamingBolt for more gaming news and leave any comments you have down below.

Source – IGN