The titular force ready to leap into action! note
Shadow Force, also known as Shadow Force: Henshin Ninja is a 1993 sci-fi Ninja-themed Beat 'em Up arcade game produced by Technos, and the last arcade-style brawler released by the company.
A.D. 2018 - The future is ruled by a powerful MegaCorp, Teaser Industries, headed by it's lead CEO, a man named Wong. But Wong had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for wealth and power, with his armies of cyborgs and monsters dominating entire cities, and it's up to four heroes to stop him.
One notable feature in this game is that players, regardless which of the four characters chosen, have the ability to convert themselves into "souls" depending on their power levels, allowing them to possess and control enemies. As such, the game offers an extremely wide range of potentials to explore, with a really, really high replayability value.
The four playable ninja:
- Kai, The Hero from the ancient Iga Clan, who wields a rokushakubo in combat. The Jack of All Stats and main character of the game.
- Blunet, the sole kunoichi of the team, who Dual Wield swords, can attack with lightning-speed (at the cost of having lower health).
- Tengu, who, despite his name... he isn't actually a tengu, but rather he's a Cyborg whose appearance is based on one. The Big Guy of the four who fights with his fists and can deal heavy damage with his bare hands, but with slightly less speed than the others.
- Coyote, a Beast Man who Was Once a Man before he was converted into a werebeast by the Teaser Corporation. He's now on a quest for revenge on Wong and Teaser Corp. over what they did to him. The Lightning Bruiser of the team who lacks ninja abilities and power-ups (save for possessing foes) but can deal serious damage with his claws.
Possess and Conquer:
- The Assimilator: An example where the heroes does it. You can pull off a special move transforming your hero souls capable of possessing a weakened enemy, taking over their bodies and forcing the captured mook to attack his ex-comrades.
- Bald of Evil: Mr. Wong, the main villain, who seems to be based on Sigma.
- Beast Man: Besides one of the four heroes, Coyote, some of the enemies are beast-people too, showing up in the underground caves stage. They appear to be victims of circumstance much like Coyote, who failed to escape.
- Big Red Devil: Lucifer, the one and only, who shows up after Wong is defeated for the first time by emerging from Wong's unconscious body. He looks exactly like the traditional depictions of the devil - red skin, large horns, massive claws...
- Blade on a Rope: The Sickle enemy wields kusarigamas, allowing them to hit you from a distance. You can possess them and gain their weapons for your own benefits.
- Blob Monster: The Experimental Amoeba are green blob puddles which lacks weapons of their own, but has the ability to leap all over the screen before attaching themselves to your characters. When it does, it transforms into a green clone of your character and attacks you.
- Company Cameo: In the first stage, there's a billboard for Technos Corp in the background featuring Kunio-kun.
- Contractual Boss Immunity: Your ability to possess enemies, taking over control of their bodies, doesn't work on bosses, regardless how much damage you inflicted.
- Convenient Color Change: Whenever your character transform into "souls" and possess any weakened enemy, allowing you to control them into attacking other mooks, the possessed enemy will swap into unique colours to tell them apart.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Wong, the game's Big Bad, is a leading CEO of Teaser Industries whose factory and facilities created cyborgs and monsters to Take Over the World, besides making a Deal with the Devil for ultimate power.
- Crate Expectations: Multiple crates shows up in the game, for the players to throw at their enemies or smash up for bonuses.
- Cutscene Incompetence: As soon as you defeat Lucifer, you are then treated to a cutscene where the demon taunts you that it isn't over yet, you haven't experienced his full power once he swallows you... and Lucifer did exactly just that. Your character(s) just stood still and allow themselves to be Swallowed Whole by the demon, leading to the Womb Level final stage.
- Cyber Ninja: Kai and Blunet are both cybernetically-enhanced ninja warriors in the future. The ninja-themed enemies appear to be modified by technology from Teaser Industries as well.
- Cyborg: Tengu, and several of the mooks in the factory level, are cybernetically-enhanced humans.
- Death from Above: The first stage is set on the rooftops of Tokyo near abuilding under construction, and the villains will try to impede your progress by dropping steel I-beams all over the place (which takes off a large chunk of health if hit). The fight against the first boss, Oni, also have a massive girder attached to a crane dropping into the area regularly to squash you flat, though Oni and his mooks can suffer the same fate.
- Degraded Boss: The Amoeba Clones begin as a Dual Boss consisting of two or four (depending if you're on one-player or two-player mode) blobs assimilating into you and turning into your clones to attack. Later on lesser Amoeba Clones appear as regular mooks.
- Difficulty by Region: The U.S. version uses a complicated six-button control scheme, whereas the Japanese version has a simpler three-button control setup: the Hard Punch and Light Kick buttons were removed, and the "snatch" move (in which the player's character copies an enemy's appearance and abilities) is now performed by pressing punch and kick simultaneously instead of having a dedicated button. Both versions of the game also featured one-on-one versus segments between stages which forced players to drain each other's health, but these can be turned off in the Japanese version, whereas they're mandatory in the US release. A third version also exists that is entirely in English, but is much closer to the Japanese version in terms of gameplay.
- Doppelgänger Attack: Kai and Blunet has a special move that splits them into multiple clones across the screen, all of those clones attacking simultaneously taking down every onscreen mook, before they reform into the player a few seconds later.
- Extendable Arms: The S-Metal cyborg enemies in the factory can extend their fists to hit the heroes from a distance. Players who possess them can inherit their extendable fists as well.
- The Faceless: Come think about it, all the characters except Blunet. Kai is always seen with his ninja mask and hood, Tengu never drops his tengu mask, and Coyote's human form isn't shown at any point of the game.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: The factory's mobile computer system is a "Get Back Here!" Mini-Boss (lacking the usual Life Meter display in other boss battles but still a very tough opponent) - as you receive the orders to destroy it, the computer gains a life on it's own and starts moving away as it releases lesser cyborg mooks. Touching it will electrocute your character, and you'll need to pursue it all the way to the factory's exit and destroy it.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Tengu doesn't need any default weapons, since his fists gets the job done just as easily. Also among the enemies, the Bulldog mooks.
- Have a Nice Death: The game will taunt you if you run out of continues or give up. "It appears you don't have what it takes to be The Chosen One..."
- Keystone Army: After defeating the central computer, you are then suddenly surrounded by hordes and hordes of mooks in the factory... only for those mooks to all collectively explode. It turns out without said computer controlling them, the machines in the factory are going through their self-destruction process.
- Mirror Match: Whenever the game pits you against the Amoeba Clones, who can transform from a formless green blob to a green clone of anything it touches.
- Ms. Fanservice: Blunet, the sole female of the four playable heroes. If her Stripperiffic outfit isn't enough to convince you, finish the game with her and in the end credits she will show up in a white one-piece. Because even ninja heroines need to chill after saving the world, obviously
◊. - Player Versus Player: On two-player mode, at the end of each stage after defeating the respective bosses, the players are then treated to a short stage where they fight each other, not to the death, but just for the winner to get a higher score.
- Power Copying: The Amoeba enemies lack any means of attacking by themselves, but can attach themselves on the players, turning into green clones if they succeed. The clones have the exact same moveset and weapons as the player heroes.
- Power Floats: Wong's enforcers, Elite Mook-grade enemies, floats all over the place while launching ranged projectile attacks on the players. Them being hovering all the time makes hitting these enemies rather difficult.
- Shoryuken: The "Bulldog" enemies fights unarmed, but has the ability to uppercut your characters if given the chance. But then again, you can possess them and hijack their bodies to uppercut mooks too.
- Suplex Finisher: How Tengu choose to finish off his enemies. It deals plenty of damage on bosses, too.
- Sword Beam: Some of the katana-wielding mooks can release yellow crescent bolts of energy by swinging their weapons. Ditto for players who managed to possess them.
- True Final Boss: Wong? Nope. Lucifer? Nope. After defeating Lucifer, the demon then swallows your characters instantly, leading to a level set inside the demon's guts where you must defeat the actual Final Boss, a skeletal Eldritch Abomination called the Bio-Mother. If you win, you are then treated to a cutscene where you exit Lucifer's stomach as the demon fades away into nothingness.
- Unique Enemy: There's a mook enemy which is a gigantic spider with a human face, appearing only in two areas in the final level, and each time in scarce amounts. You might not even face these creatures the first time since you're beating up two Mook Maker organs in Lucifer's body who prefers creating either Bio-Man or Amoeba instead of the spiders, while the second time you fight just two of them at once.
- Wolverine Claws: The fast-moving Yaksa enemies wear gauntlets with fierce claws, capable of slashing large chunks of life from the players. The player can possess them as well, and use their claws on other mooks.
- Womb Level: After defeating Lucifer, the next stage is Lucifer's stomach.
