Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
System: NES
Release Date: August 1991
Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
Genre: Action
Ryu Hayabusa is back once again and needs to save the world in Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom! After defeating Jaquio and Ashtar, it seemed that life was good, but not all is as it seems. What are you doing to Irene? She’s… dead? Who is impersonating Ryu, and what’s their goal? There are seven stages for you to hack and slash your way through in order to figure out what’s going on. Do you have what it takes to save the day once again?
The gameplay is incredibly similar to the other two games in the series. My least favorite issue, enemy respawning based on tripping a certain pixel has been fixed. This means once you kill an enemy, it’s dead. This is a welcome addition. However, it’s not all happy and good, as the hit detection has fallen immensely. There were plenty of times it seemed like I should have hit an enemy well before they got to me, but the game thought differently. Lost in the third installment are the shadow Ryu powerups, which are replaced with a single sword powerup. Ryu also gets to hang from certain platforms and walk along them from beneath.
Ninja arts are back and can be useful. You begin with the windmill star equipped, which would normally be cool, but this time it falls off the screen way too easily. This makes the once awesome weapon feel neutered and useless. Instead, I found myself using the fire wheel or fire dragon balls to do my damage. Very rarely would I use the new vacuum wave art that attacks above and below. Again, there is a maximum amount of power you can hold and they can be increased with a scroll. Red ninja power fills you up to the max immediately.
Though the enemy issue was fixed, that does not mean the levels have become easy cakewalks. Many spawns happen while you’re jumping and paired with the sluggish hit detection become frustrating. I had a big problem in the first part of stage 3. Levels are pretty short if enemies weren’t such a problem. Once you’re done memorizing enemy placements and finally make a good run, it’s as if you’re done in a couple minutes. There are still cutscenes in between levels, but these seem less grandiose compared to what I expect, with an equally confusing storyline.
The end of each stage has a boss. You can use your ninja arts on them if you need to, but I got through them all with just the sword. It’s important to watch the patterns and avoid projectiles. Id you try to charge in and kill them quickly, you’ll die and get sent back to an earlier portion of the stage. If you need extra lives, you can max out at nine pretty easily in Stage 6 by grabbing the 1up and then backtracking. This gives you plenty of attempts on the multiple parts of the final boss.
Graphics: 3.5
It’s everything that you’ve come to expect from this series, though the cinematic scenes have less cool backgrounds.
Sound: 2.5
Music and sound effects are hit and miss. There’s a grunt every time Ryu swings the sword, which gets annoying. Music is mostly decent, but seems of lower quality.
Gameplay: 3.0
Ryu’s sword seems to hit later than it should and this makes life less smooth. Being able to hang from certain platforms is a neat addition.
Difficulty: 2.5
Enemy placements require some preknowledge in order to get past. You only get 5 continues instead of infinite, so get good.
Fun Factor: 3.0
It’s still a good time, but I can’t say it’s an improvement over the last title.
Overall Rating: 2.9
Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom earns a B. This is a let down compared to Ninja Gaiden II. Everything feels derivative and just not as polished. Play it, but be prepared.