I've never ever been good at Shinobi . I tried it on the SEGA Genesis and the SEGA collections that followed, but ducking at the right time and hitting enemies with shurikens has never been a strong suit of mine. Shinobi 3DS isn't the same game from back in the arcades thanks to pretty visuals and a bunch of bells and whistles, but it continues the tradition of making me feel like an inept ninja.

Go,+ninja.+Go,+ninja.+Go.

If you need to picture Shinobi 3DS, a brand new game from Griptonite, imagine the 2D Shinobi games of the past but totally slick and graphic novel looking. You still crouch and jump before hurling throwing stars and swinging your katana, but now you can parry, juggle and call in special "ninja magic" attacks from the touch screen.But wait -- that's not all. This modern take on the franchise tosses in 60 achievements, unlockables such as weapons and characters, and StreetPass functionality. There are anime cutscenes, and you can even save replays of levels to SD cards.How does it play? Well, it plays like Shinobi. I used the analog nub to move and watched enemies explode into blood spots as I took'em down. Hurling stars and landing blows without getting hit built up my multiplier and helped me bank more points. At points I had to monkey bar climb over fires, but most of the time I was just marching ahead and beating things up. More often than not, I was screwing up when to jump and getting hit by bad guys.So, you know, it was Shinobi. I wasn't blown away, but I was never a huge fan of the original. This one ran well, looked pretty and sounds like it has a lot to do if you're a fan of ninja stuff. I still suck at this franchise. Oh, and you play as the dad of the original ninja in Shinobi, so if you want to understand where the original character came from, you're going to have to scope these anime cutscenes come September.