Yep, day one (European) Vita and Shinobido 2 owner here. My feelings about Shinobido 2 are, as with the original PS2 game, very ambivalent. The game still obviously stems from the Tenchu creators, carries (at least to me) that certain Ninja-game flair (of old) and is a ray of light in today's draught of such games.
Almost every part of the game is, to me, a mixed bag. Gameplay wise, almost nothing has changed apart from a few new moves and other twists, and while it is the same engaging fun like in PS2 days, it just the same tends to start feeling arbitrary and repetitive. Apart from one new map, all locations are rehashed from the older games, which brings the game dangerously close to seeming like a cheap rehash-cash-in. Of course, the needy Ninja gamer won't really mind that much.
Sadly, there seem fewer cutscenes in the game, and moreover with somewhat disappointing voice work (English voice in my German version; cannot comment the original Japanese). Most of all, I miss one thing that really stood out to me in the original game's already mixed prese tation: the surprisingly good camera work in cutscenes. The story is itself is nothing special, with basically none of the characters being really interesting apart from looks or imaginations of the player.
Sound-wiss the game seems, again, to use the good old Ninja assets. Typical running, swooshing and swooping sounds sound familiar practically way back to Tenchu 1, though Tenchu 1 still holds the throne in one other aspect of sound: music. Shinobido is not in any way a series of inspiring game music, and that remains true on the Vita. Luckily, custom soundtracks are no problem on this console, and so I've been playing most of the time with good old Tenchu 1 music instead of the game's own insignificant background tunes.
Graphics wise the game shows the Vita's more powerful hardware, but only to some extent. Generally, textures are more high resultion than before (yay bigger RAM) and introduce a few new shaders (namely water), but otherwise it is really just a port from PS2 days. Most sadly to me, there still is no dynamic light and shadow of any kind(shadows in Ninja games should be oh so important, no?), just rough area shadows baked into the environment textures. The draw distance seems to have increased, with basically no fov of distance, which is both nice and somewhat lessening the nightly atmosphere. Occasionally, when knocking over several physics objects, the framerate will take a plunge, but otherwise it remains stable.
In the end, my verdict is probably the same as most other reviewers': if you like the series or this kind of games in general, you'll find enough self-motivation the enjoy the game. Otherwise, stay away until it is either cheap or you are more interested. Hit me up if you have any more questions.
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Any Vita owners yet?
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