Every once in a while, we'll come across a short clip of a game on Twitter and see it immediately rise to the top of our most anticipated titles. The most recent example of this is the Metroidvania/Ninja-Gaiden homage Shattered Ninja, which caught our attention earlier today after its solo developer posted some amazing footage of the game's slick combat and new UI refresh.
The game's Japanese developer YangBin pitches Shattered Ninja as a homage to Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden games crossed with the structure of a Metroidvania, but looking at it, it's clear there's also a lot of influence taken from Capcom's Strider series too. This includes the protagonist's design, which looks noticeably similar to the Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes' redesign of Strider Hiryu, and the incredible, over-the-top sword effects.
We're not complaining though, as this just makes us even more excited to take a closer look.
Here's a (slightly edited) description of the story taken from the Steam page:
"The world fell into wasteland and chaos for unknown reasons. Rebirthed With Bio-Technology, Katana-007 will fight against evil mechanical lifeforms under the guidance of a master ninja, collecting the lost advanced ninjutsu. But deeper secrets of the ninja clan await for him to explore..."
Shattered Ninja is scheduled to release on May 24th, 2023, but you can wishlist it now on Steam, if it sounds like something you'd be interested in.