SHINOBI - MASTERTRONIC PLUS ENJOY FRANTIC oriental action in this Ninja beat-em-up. Search for kidnapped children and dispose of marauding thugs with blows from feet, fists and shuriken stars. Classic SEGA coin-op thrills! ENGLISH: Loading Instructions SPECTRUM: Put your machine into 48k mode. Type LOAD "" and press ENTER. Program will load and run Controls: UP - jump up DOWN - crouch LEFT/RIGHT - turn left (and then walk left/right) FIRE - hurl current weapon or kick/punch FIRE and UP/ FIRE and DOWN - leap between the ground and higher platforms SPACEBAR - activates Ninja Magic P - pause FOO, WHAT A SCORCHER! One hot summer's day, everything began to go wrong. As the most famous graduate of a secret oriental Ninja school, you had been invited back to the annual graduation ceremony and prize-giving. Having enthralled the junior classes at the assembly with your tales of international ninjiing, you were just about to move on to handing out prizes to the seniors when there was a flash of Dark Ninja Magic and Bwah Foo made an unscheduled appearance. Few of the pupils realised who Bwah Foo was, but within a ninja-second you had identified him and realised that this once-illustrious graduate of the Ninja school had turned to the Dark Ways. Transfixed by Bwah Foo's Holding Magic, you were unable to move a muscle oven twitch a tendon as Bwah's henchmen led away the entire junior class. Then the evil Foo issued his personal challenge to you. With one mighty bound he somersaulted onto the speech-giving platform and thrust his face in front of yours. "Why if it's not Joe Musashi", he sneered, "Old Goody - Two Shurikens himself. Well, well, well." (Clearly the quality of teaching on the Dark Side has slipped abominably, you thought to yourself, as Bwash Foo ranted on in clipped baddie-speak, the like of which was normally reserved for second-rate pantomimes is seaside towns.) "... well, well, well. It's gold I want", Foo continued, "all the gold in the School's coffers. And if I don't get my gold by Wednesday evening I'll kill every last member of the Junior Class and THEN you'll be sorry." And with a maniac crackle and a flash of green Ninja Magic, he was gone. FOO'D FOR THOUGHT It took a few hours for the Holding Magic to wear off - clearly the magicians on the Dark Side were much more skilled than the speechwriters. While you were held in the clutches of Bwah Foo's magic, your finely-tuned Ninja mind began turning over. Obviously the dastardly fellow had taken the kidnapped children to his hideaway, and clearly he meant business. The school was going to have to dip into its coffers and make with the gold - or face the wrath of some very angry parents ... But then you'd shared a tea-ceremony with the school principal and his favourite concubine just before the speech-giving - and hadn't the principal bemoaned the fact that the school was nearly out of gold? That's right! An appeal for funds was about to be launched to the Old Boys - and if past graduates didn't cough up, then the school would almost certainly have to close. Or at the very least merge ignominiously with the Samurai School at the other end of the island, "and you can imagine how the parents would like that", the principal had sighed. "Oh Well" you sigh, "there's only one thing for it", you thought as the Holding Magic began to wear off, "It look's like it's up to me to get those children back". FOO'D FIGHT Now Wednesday evening is drawing close and with it the deadline set by Bwah Foo for the delivery of the ransom. You have found his hideout, and it's time to put those ninja skills to good use on the side of truth, beauty and justice. In order to reach Bwah Foo's lair you must fight your way through five missions. Each mission is divided into three or four stages, packed with highly-mobile henchpersons, a handful of the kidnapped Ninja children and one of Bwah's big bosses who must be defeated before you can pass onto the next mission. The rescue has to be achieved before Bwah Foo's deadline expires, so there's a time limit in which a section has to be completed. All the children found in a mission has to be rescued before you can confront the boss at the end of each mission. Just walk past the kids and your Ninja Magic causes them to be beamed back to Mummy and Daddy. Then you must defeat the boss in a fight to the death and you can move to the next mission, with time left on the clock converted to useful points. Saving Ninja children earns the eternal gratitude of the parents, but more importantly also confers points. Rescue several sprogs, and you earn a power-up weapon that is more deadly than the shuriken. Use these weapons well and remember that when the going gets really tough you can call on the power of the Ninja Magic once per level - use it wisely! Produced by The Sales Curve for Virgin Mastertronic (c) 1989 Virgin Mastertronic Ltd., 16 Portland Road, London W11 4LA 'SEGA(tm)' and 'SEGA(R)' are trademarks of Sega Enterprises Ltd. (c) 1991 Sega Enterprises Ltd