Reception
The character was received and remembered so well that he has continued to be often featured in retrospective top lists even many years after he had last starred in any title. As such, he was included in many top ten lists of the best video games ninja characters, including being ranked as second by CrunchGear in 2008, as fifth by Unreality in 2009, as eight by ScrewAttack and second by PC World in 2010, and as fifth by machinima.com and seventh by Cheat Code Central in 2011. Including him on their top ten list, Virgin Media called him "the quintessential video game ninja" of the early days of gaming; while according to the yet another top ten list by CraveOnline, "Joe Musashi is like the Jack Bauer of ninjas". He was also featured on by PLAY's 2011 list of top ten ninja characters for the PlayStation consoles, with a comment regretting his replacement for the 2002's Shinobi by "some berk called Hotsuma", and ranked as the fourth swiftest ninja by Complex in 2012.
In 2000, GameSpot's news editor Shahed Ahmed named Joe Musashi as his "unquestionably" favorite all-time video game character of any kind, adding that it was Musashi's "complex mix of subtle style and violent fury that was so appealing". In 2004, 1UP.com ranked Musashi as the number one video game ninja ever, adding: "Hotsuma who?". In 2008, GameDaily ranked him as the second top Sega character, behind only Sega's flagship character Sonic the Hedgehog. In 2009, GameDaily also listed "the badass ninja" as the fifth best video game archetype, citing Musashi as its epitome. In 2012, Complex included "Capcom vs. Sega" as sixth fighting game crossover they would like to see the most, imagining Joe Musashi clashing with Capcom's Strider Hiryu.
His popularity, however, appears to be fading as the time passes since his last title, especially among the new generations of gamers. In 2008, when readers of IGN voted on which of the two ninja would win in a Hero Showdown contest, Joe Musashi or Ryu Hayabusa of Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive series, Hayabusa won easily with 82% of the votes. As of November 2011, IGN has his profile page user-rated at only 6.2 with just 5 votes, as compared to Ryu's score of 9.6 with 168 votes. In 2010, GameSpot featured Musashi in the article discussing forgotten gaming mascots, but nevertheless calling him "one of the greatest video game ninjas of all time."
Read more about this topic: Joe Musashi
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)