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 from Natsume's Shatterhand and Capcom's Strider series too. The protagonist's look, for instance, is noticeably similar to the Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes' redesign of Strider Hiryu, and sword slashes in the game also feature that incredible, over-the-top effect we're used to seeing in Strider games.
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 you want to support the project.