Ninja Gaiden (NES)

Ninja Gaiden Box Art

Ninja Gaiden

System: NES

Release Date: March 1989

Developer: Tecmo

Publisher: Tecmo

Genre: Action

Tecmo frontloaded 1989 with three titles and will finish their year with Ninja Gaiden. Oh what a finish it is! You are Ryu Hayabusa, ninja. Your father has gone away to fight a duel, but hasn’t returned. You must find out what happened to your father through Tecmo’s Cinema Display, which plays out between stages. There are six stages that you will traverse through the game.

Ryu is equipped with a sword that he can slash at enemies to defeat them. He can also jump to avoid them if necessary. This is a game of pretty precise timing and requires wired reflexes. You’ll be doing a lot of wall jumping, which is even more satisfying now that I’ve realized that I can just hold the A Button down and press left and right to climb. I used to time pressing the jump button with the d-pad. Silly me…

Across the levels will be things such as lamps that can be destroyed to reveal items to help Ryu on his journey. There are red and blue bonus items that increase your score. Red and Blue spiritual strength items. A time freeze, which comes in handy, stopping enemies for a few seconds. A restore potion, which gives back six bars of life. The rare, but exciting 1-Up. And an invincible fire-wheel, which grants Ryu destructive immunity for a few seconds.

Also found in the destroyable objects are special ninja weapons that can be used to attack enemies from afar. In order to be able to use the ninja weapons, you must have enough spiritual strength, so gathering as much as possible is typically a good idea. The plain Throwing Star does enough damage to kill most normal enemies in one hit and only costs 3 spiritual strength. The Windmill Throwing Star travels back and forth, killing enemies it hits, as long as it doesn’t touch Ryu. The Fire Wheel shoots three fire rings in an upward diagonal fashion, which is helpful for those high up enemies. The Jump and Slash Technique turns Ryu into a whirlwind when he attacks in mid air. There are a few spots where this is invaluable, as it kills an enemy that occupies a small platform. Each of these ninja weapons are useful in specific areas and can also be nice to injure certain bosses.

Ninja Gaiden is a twitchy platformer dream. Enemies spawn when Ryu reaches a certain point on the screen. If you kill an enemy by moving backward, it will appear again as you progress. This sets you up for a ton of deaths that you couldn’t avoid the first time because you don’t know the spawn points. The most egregious of these are birds, which flap on screen and act like the Windmill Throwing Star, swooping left and right to attack until you either kill them or run them off screen. You will also run into problems when you clear a platform in front of you and the enemy respawns as you jump ahead. People with less patience will probably give up by the time they reach the fifth stage.

Bosses are mostly easy to begin with. As long as you stay out of the range of their weapons, you won’t find yourself having any issues slashing away. In fact, that’s pretty much the strategy for every boss. Close the distance, slash away, dart off when they start to move again. Even if you find yourelf having trouble, there are infinite continues, so you can learn the spawn points on the levels and learn the patterns of the bosses. Keep in mind, however, that if you die on the last boss, you won’t get sent to the beginning of the level (6-3), but will be sent all the way back to the beginning of the stage (6-1)! You’ll probably want to give up in frustration, but as long as you aren’t playing on the original hardware, you can always create a nice save state so you don’t have to go through the extremely busy and difficult Stage 6 again. When fighting the big bad, I found to hold back on using my spiritual strength until I damaged half his health away.

Graphics: 4.0

Level graphics, sprite graphics, and animations are all very well done. Add in the awesomeness of the Cinema Display and you have some top notch work.

Sound: 4.0

All the music is good, sets a frantic pace for the gameplay, and delivers the mood when needed. Sound effects are all pleasant and not shrill and annoying.

Gameplay: 3.5

Ryu controls well and has plenty of powers at his disposal to make you feel powerful. Having a life bar instead of one hit deaths make this game extremely playable.

Difficulty: 3.0

Unlimited continues temper the extreme difficulty of most levels. Constantly respawning enemies will feel cheap until you realize how to avoid them. Being sent back to the beginning of Stage 6 if you die on any of the boss forms is not cool.

Fun Factor: 3.5

Ninja Gaiden is a very fun game. There are points of massive frustration, though. I suppose once you overcome them, you get that dopamine hit you’re looking for, but be prepared to swear in anger.

Overall Grade: 3.6

Ninja Gaiden earns an A-. This is one of the NES’s top tier games. It needs to be on your list of games to play. Seriously, play it right now.

Ninja Gaiden Video Review on YouTube