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Retro|Spective 093: Ninja Gaiden

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    Retro|Spective 093: Ninja Gaiden

    Striking from the shadows...




    Mainline Entry 01 - Ninja Gaiden
    Formats:
    Arcade, Lynx
    Mainline Entry 02 - Ninja Gaiden
    Formats:
    NES
    A walk along beat em up, the arcade original and the NES version released the same year but are separate games with only passing similarities. The game had two ninja's travelling through the streets of five US cities as they battled waves of enemies and smashed up objects in the streets. Also know as Shadow Warriors, the home version more specifically focused on Ryu Hayabusa as he set out to avenge the death of his father. Working through 20 levels Ryu, the story focused approach won the home version plaudits and is primarily the version responsible for the legacy that followed.



    Mainline Entry 03 - Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
    Formats:
    NES, Super NES and Amiga
    Two years later saw the release of the direct sequel. Taking place a year on from the previous game, the sequel continued in a similar vein with some added moves and was again well received, it helping to cement a reputation for the series hard difficulties.



    Mainline Entry 04 - Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
    Formats:
    NES, Super NES, Lynx
    Taking place between the first and second game and took on a more sci-fi look in an attempt to make the experience seem fresh. The game was most notable for how the western version was more difficult than the Japanese version rather than the inverse.



    Spin Off Entry 01 - Ninja Gaiden
    Formats:
    Game Gear
    Spin Off Entry 02 - Ninja Gaiden Shadows
    Formats: Game Boy
    Spin Off Entry 03 - Ninja Gaiden
    Formats:
    Master System
    Mainline Entry 05 - Ninja Gaiden
    Formats:
    Xbox, Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita
    A reboot of the series, the new version retained the difficulty of the past games but translated the entire experience into a 3D action game that took advantage of the host systems power. Team Ninja focused hard on appealing to western audiences which worked well for them as the Xbox and the game weren't popular in that territory. Across 16 chapters, the game offered a wide range of moves and weapons to dispatch enemies with and the precise yet brutal action proved a huge hit with fans and critics leading to one of the Xbox's most acclaimed titles. It received several reworks with each release.



    Spin Off Entry 04 - Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword
    Formats:
    Nintendo DS
    Mainline Entry 06 - Ninja Gaiden II
    Formats:
    Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita
    A new combat system for the sequel introduced dismemberment moves for Ryu, these severed limbs affecting the attack abilities of your enemies. Action was delivered in a similar manner to the previous game which meant fans were quick to take to it but it did receive some criticism for how little it advanced over the previous game.



    Mainline Entry 07 - Ninja Gaiden III: Razor's Edge
    Formats:
    Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U
    A change in staffing met the third and final mainline entry and with that came another attempt to try and set the game apart from its predecessors. A slow motion move showing bone cutting was added along with some new and altered moves for Ryu. Aimed to be a simpler, streamlined affair this ended up hurting the games received reactions with criticism going towards technical issues and how this simpler approach dated the experience.



    Spin Off Entry 05 - Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z
    Formats:
    Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC
    This spin off closed out the franchise, this cel shaded hack and slash entry mixed in a score multiplier and paved an awkward path for the series, pleasing neither casual fans or those honed on the main series most recent entries. Between the poor response of this title and the weak reaction to NG3, the series has remained shelved ever since.



    Share your thoughts and memories of Ninja Gaiden

    #2
    I remember the Xbox version being quite amazing back in the day. I got quite a way into it, but got fed up with the punishing difficulty. After that, I didn't play any of the later games. I need to properly play the NES games.

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      #3
      The arcade version has just been released on ACA.
      Kept you waiting, huh?

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        #4
        I didn't know what ACA was, but I have several search engines available, thanks for the heads-up, despite this being a rival franchise, J0e Musashi!

        I remember the first game looking amazing in the arcades and totally up my street as an 11-year-old.

        Ninjas were still all the rage and this was jam-packed with great imagery from the ninja on the boat riding under the Golden Gate Bridge, smashing through the window as the game starts to that terrifying image of the sawblade slowly descending on the continue screen.







        Stuff like the rain lashing down on the attract screen, the big posters for other games, the crazy round clear scenes (gambling in a casino surrounded by Bunny Girls) and the crazy moving neon signs were all really eye-popping.

        The game itself was hella tough at the time and those meaty Voorhees clones always used to beat the hell out of me.
        You could use the lampposts to hang from and kick, but it just seemed to turn me into a punch bag for the Jasons.
        The wall run was also a neat move, but I normally ended up landing in the enemies' laps or missing and running down a hole.

        I played it later in life on MAME and learned the cartwheel throw, but found I could get to the platforming section, but couldn't jump down.

        I lost interest after that, preferring feeling more badass in Shinobi, Shadow Dancer, Revenge of Shinobi, Ninja Spirits, Ninja Kids and Bad Dudes.
        The limited move list just didn't cut the wasabi.

        It's interesting to think that ninjas were a Japanese idea, getting popular in America and a Japanese game company making a game to tap that American interest.

        Like Sega re-doing their arcades differently for the home consoles, Tecmo had different versions, but they were developed at the same time by Strong Shima (Gemini Wing, Tecmo Knight) in the arcade and Hideo Yoshizawa (Klonoa) at home.

        Some nice articles:
        Ninja Gaiden developer reunion
        Why Ninja Gaiden's Surreal Arcade Version Is Worth Revisiting
        Ninja Gaiden (Arcade)

        Comment


          #5
          For the sake of posterity, the arcade original was ported to the major 8-bit and 16-bit computers of the time, but renamed as Shadow Warriors. Ninjas were illegal over here back then.

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            #6
            Also, there appears to be a port of Ninja Warriors Shadow (the Gameboy spinoff) on the Speccy! Looks great other than the fact it appears to be a pixel-by-pixel port so the gameplay is in a window.

            Comment


              #7
              Never gave a monkeys about the arcade game or the newer releases but the NES games are some of my favourite games of all time. Playing Castlevania after Ninja Gaiden I was like... wtf is this? It didn't even compare. The first game in particular has some of the finest music to ever grace a system.

              The Master System release is a bit of a let down sadly. Too floaty and just not as tight but tbf it was done by SEGA instead of Temco as far as I know. Playing Shadow Warrior on my NES and Ninja Gaiden on my friend's SMS I felt like a right little detective figuring out they were from the same series by checking the small copyright info on the back of the boxes as a kid.

              Originally posted by samanosuke View Post
              Also, there appears to be a port of Ninja Warriors Shadow (the Gameboy spinoff) on the Speccy! Looks great other than the fact it appears to be a pixel-by-pixel port so the gameplay is in a window.

              The Speccy seems to have a lot of impressive ports and releases like this. I remember seeing the Castlevania release and even a cool looking Zelda clone previously.

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Cepp View Post

                The Speccy seems to have a lot of impressive ports and releases like this. I remember seeing the Castlevania release and even a cool looking Zelda clone previously.
                It's interesting how modern indie devs make Spectrum games that are similar standard to what you'd get the Game Boy but with some nice colours. It's great how really talented people make the hardware sing.



                The Speccy version of Mighty Final Fight is also brilliant.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Clue for 094 - "On the way there we'll grab a bite to eat at Snuckey's"

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Oh yeah, a couple of other titles worth mentioning was the unreleased Mega Drive version that was heavily channelling Streets of Rage:


                    "Sega even had a third Ninja Gaiden project running, this time for the Mega Drive. Once again, the development was done by a third party. This time it seems to have been the mostly unknown developer called Opus, as in-game art and the sound engine used indicate. This game was never released, probably due to quality issues, but a beta copy was leaked and can be played on emulators nowadays. The game tries to build upon the concept of the original arcade game, but feels more like a very bad approach to the Streets of Rage school of beat-em-ups. It is obvious that it either was in a rather early development stage (an EGM preview for November 1992 labeled it 60% complete, but it’s unknown if that was the version that got dumped), or Sega did right to pull the plug on this botched mess.


                    The game features a lot of cut scenes, all of them in the finest Engrish. The chapter titles are in Japanese, though. The story doesn’t make any sense, at least not in its presented state. Later in the game, you meet people you should know but don’t, and about halfway through the game you get to know that your goal from the beginning was to rescue Ryu’s kidnapped ninja lady friend.


                    The controls are odd, because you can’t walk straight forward – instead, you can only walk diagonally. This is completely absurd, because the screen isn’t viewed from an isometric angle. Not only is it difficult to line up attacks, but you’ll often end up double tapping the controller, which sends Ryu rolling all over the screen. Everything looks, feels, and sounds unnatural, especially when you’re trying to pummel someone.


                    Once again, Sega couldn’t resist to build in a desperation attack that consumes a quarter of your life. You’ll never need it though, since your enemies are dumb as hell. You retain your standard combo and Guillotine Throw from the arcade game, but there isn’t any climbing action. There are poles in some levels who look like they might have been intended for such a purpose, but at least in the surviving version, there is nothing to do with them.


                    A few stages are reminiscent of the arcade game, but there are no traps and they are as boring as the rest of the game. This title is much longer, though, and so the levels are filled up with not-so-exciting “innovations” like a bar stage, or a level that takes place on an elevator. In the beta, you can jump to any level you want by pausing the game and selecting the stage number, which is displayed in place of the remaining time, but you won’t find any decent stages, no matter how hard you look. There are actually a few visually well designed bosses, like the punk rock guitarist who constantly gives Ryu the finger, or the final boss monster with its long extending arm, but gameplay-wise, they’re just as stupid and boring as the rest.


                    There’s really nothing good about this game, and it stayed unreleased for a reason. Give it a wide berth. Follow-ups to the original arcade game just didn’t seem to get any luck. Reportedly, there was a Ninja Gaiden II for the arcades in development, on nothing less than Neo Geo hardware, and went as far as having location tests in July 1994, but it soon disappeared, barely leaving any traces at all. An old online profile of composer Takuya Hanaoka listed 6 BGM tracks for the Neo Geo Ninja Gaiden 2 among his portfolio."

                    Comment


                      #11




                      Last edited by QualityChimp; 05-06-2019, 10:42.

                      Comment


                        #12

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Renzhe Longjianzhuan (忍者龙剑传) – Mobile (ca. 2010)


                          "The Chinese mobile market always holds a lot of surprises in the form of officially licensed games, and among them is a remake of the first NES Ninja Gaiden. The in-game graphics are entirely new and look fairly pleasant, despite choppy animations. The cutscenes are a mixed bag – some of them are beautiful redrawn pieces, while others look like shoddily filtered NES graphics. The music is all midi renditions of the original game’s score.

                          If you can get over Ryu’s extremely floaty jumps, the game is surprisingly playable, considering that it is played with a cellphone keypad and most versions are for vertically oriented screens, neither of which makes much sense for this kind of game. There are at least a few versions with proper dimensions out there, but those lack in vertical viewing range due to the larger sprites. Finally, there are some super large versions for touch screen devices, which show enough in every direction, but have to be played with the virtual gamepad. To make things easier, Ryu has his improved climbing abilities from the sequels, so getting up walls is no problem. It seems all the extra weapons are there, although they’re not as evenly distributed. But what ultimately destroys this remake is the structure: The game has been split into several releases (at least two, possibly three, it seems) and each of them is bloated with a seemingly endless array of repetitive stages."


                          Comment


                            #14
                            The OG XBox game was amazing and I still remember how increabile it felt, when one download the new contant which added so much to the game and even changed the camera system; At the time it was quite somthing and all for free.

                            Ninja Gaiden II for me remains the best action game ever made, with the best combat and the gore and dismemberment systems is the best and has never been bettered. So sad to see Team Ninja never been able to build on that that .

                            Comment


                              #15
                              I've got Ninja Gaiden Black on the original XBox.

                              Such a solid looking game and I love the nunchuks, but it carries on the tradition of being really tough!

                              I don't remember Ninja Gaiden II being as frustratingly hard?
                              I do remember the last level where you're ascending steps and it threw so many enemies that it suffered from a bit of slowdown.

                              Amazing games, though.

                              I might have another go at these. Thanks Supes!

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