The Trilogy (1988-1991 & 1995)

Ninja Ryuukenden (忍者龍剣伝) / Ninja Gaiden / Shadow Warriors - NES / PC Engine / SNES / Mobile / XBox (1988)

The story in the very first home version to Ninja Gaiden is simple and rather stereotypical - a young Ninja goes out to seek revenge for the killing of his father, while the Jaquio's evil plot to gain access to an ancient demonic power unfolds. But it is the style in which it is told that makes it so great. After watching the breathtaking intro (which is still fantastic all these years later) and starting the game, you'll soon notice that Tecmo once again didn't reinvent the wheel. This time, the obvious role model was Castlevania. The most striking resemblance might be the reoccurring scene of the hero gazing at a (usually crumbling) castle from a faraway platform. (But then again, that might just be the dramatically most effective way to gaze at a crumbling castle, who knows. The Super Shinobi games, too, contain very similar scenes.) But there are also many corresponding enemy types, especially in the beginning, with the stupid birds being the most annoying. The secondary weapon system is also quite similar - each level is filled with various icons (lamps, spider webs, other random stuff) that are just like the candles in Castlevania, and dispense new weapons, ninjitsu point to use these weapons, and other power-ups. These are activated, of course, by pressing Up + Attack.

Contrary to the rather mediocre arcade game, Ninja Gaiden on the NES actually does a lot of things even better than Castlevania itself. First, it's a very fast game, as there aren't many instances where you can just hold your position or slowly approach your enemies. Instead you have to jump over them, constantly move to get a good position against them, and smartly use your secondary weapons. Most of the weapons' effects, too, seem borrowed from Castlevania - most of the time you'll be using shurikens, especially the boomerang-esque Windmill Shuriken. This one is extremely useful, since you can avoid it to make it fly around the screen multiple times. Then you've got the Art of the Fire Wheel, which, much like Castlevania's axe, is used to attack enemies above you. A new innovation is the Jump & Slash, which makes for a really cool spinning air attack, useful against enemies defending a platform you have to jump to. While it can completely murder bosses, it quickly draws your weapon points, since it will replace your standard jumping attack, and isn't used separately with Up + Attack like the other weapons.

The wall jump, as explained in the manual.

Every weapon use costs 3 or 5 of your weapon points, from a maximum of 99 points. Though you also get 5 or 10 points for every "Spiritual Strength" item you collect, you can quickly run out of ammo, a stark contrast to Castlevania, where you can spam weapons continously and defeat a good number of the bosses using only those. The last weapon is the Invincible Fire Wheel, which, as the name implies, makes you invincible for a certain time, with the drawback of deleting your current extra weapon. Other than weapons, there are also items for bonus points, life recharge, and a time stopping hour glass to be found inside the candles.

But all the weapons and special items aside, Ninja Gaiden's greatest specialty once again is Ryu's agility as a ninja. By jumping against a wall, you will cling on to it - unless there's a ladder, you can't climb directly up or downwards. Instead you have to jump off, and, if there's another wall facing the first one, climb up by wall-jumping alternately. This wall bouncing technique has since become a staple of awesome action games everywhere.

Regardless of all these abilities, Ninja Gaiden still is a very hard game. As you move back and forth, enemies constantly respawn based on your position. If you happen to stand on the wrong spot, the same enemy will attack you again and again, until you move on. This is especially dangerous when this spot happens to be the edge of a platform. Jumping carelessly will get you hit, and since every enemy hit throws you back, you'll usually get tossed into a pit. If you're clinging to a wall, you won't get knocked off, but in turn, you're a sitting duck for enemy attacks. If you don't know where the enemies spawn before you see them, it will often be already too late for you to react properly, so prepare yourself for a lot of memorization. At least almost all the normal enemies die from a single hit, so you don't have to think about your following retreat while attacking. Thankfully, you've also got a limitless number of credits at your disposal, so, unless you turn the game off out of frustration (or toss it out the window), the farthest you'll get ever thrown back is the beginning of a stage, which is never too far away.

Until you reach Act 6, that is. This last part of the game consist of three long stages, all of them insanely difficult, especially the legendary Stage 6-2. After that, you have to fight three (!) bosses, the last two without any extra weapons. And the best thing: If you lose any one of these three battles, you're starting right back at the beginning of Stage 6-1. That's right, no matter if you have to use a credit or 9 lives left, you can go through all three levels of hell again. And lose you will. Dozens of times. And even though the game memorizes which bosses you already beat (e.g. if you beat the first and lose to the second, on your next run you don't need to fight the first one anymore), this last chapter has got to be one of the hardest fricking challenges in any video game ever, and it's the only occasion where any game in the series gets just downright unfair.

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The animation isn't particularly good even for the NES, but what makes the visuals stand out (besides the awesome cutscenes) are its beautiful levels. They're displayed in a slight angle, which gives a nice feeling of depth to the visuals. You'll visit a lof of different locations, like a rainforest, mountains or the downtown of a city, only in the end it gets a bit monotonous with the last two acts mainly consisting of temple ruins.

The game was ported to the PC Engine only in Japan in 1992, but contains English screen text as well as Chinese, selectable through a code (which makes sense when taking into account that the actual development of the port took place at a Chinese company). Visually, this version is simultaneously better and worse than the original game, while also strangely being easier but harder at the same time. The art direction is completely different from the NES game, sometimes looking awesome, but in other occasions somewhat cheaply drawn, despite the superior technology. The worst offenders are the new parallax scrolling backgrounds. Not only is their scrolling choppy as hell, it was done wrong, with the far background passing faster than the close one. But it also had some cool new effects, like the screen turning gray when you stop time. There are some slight adjustments to the weapons system, so now you can keep your weapon during invincibility and after completing an act. On the other side of the coin, collision detection is much more unforgiving, especially with bosses, and being caught by certain bosses while clinging on a wall can almost be regarded an instant kill. The last boss has become insanely difficult, with much more projectiles and really hard to predict behavior. Oh, and I wouldn't recommend trying the Jump & Slash boss trick in this version. The soundtrack has also been completely changed, and the new music isn't nearly as good.

Like all three NES games, Ninja Gaiden was altered once again for the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy on the SNES, though this time, the changes are much more subtle. The graphical enhancements are limited to a wider color palette, which made the cut scenes look great, but the gameplay graphics themselves, especially the 2-frame animations, don't stand up to any other SNES game and are technically disappointing. Besides that, there's also some subtle censorship - there are some depictions of a Star of David that were probably intended to be pentagrams in the first place, which have been edited out (this is missing in the PCE port too, but not due to censorship but because of the overall graphical changes. There also was a much larger and more recognizable pentagram added at another position). Also deleted in all three games were the end credits, which of course led to the loss of the corresponding music tracks, too. The music itself is arguably superior to the NES version, with the extended tracks from the OST CDs, but purists may prefer the original mixes. The timing of the controls doesn't seem to exactly match the NES version, but again, it's much closer than the PC Engine port was. The best change was that now all the games provide a password system, so you don't have to start from the beginning after every time you turn the game off.

The "Malice Four" from the manual.

In 2004, the game was shortened and re-arranged for another version on mobile phones, split into four episodes that had to be bought separately. The first episode consists of Ninja Gaiden's Act 1, with two expanded stages added before the boss to extend this very short portion of the original game. It controls quite poorly, as one would imagine. You use the special weapons by pressing down, making it impossible to duck. Tecmo still advertises it on their official home page, but it seems as if this project never came to fruition, so there's no trace of any English episodes from two to four.

There's an odd bit of trivia about the Wii Virtual Console release: when you lose all your lives on the NES version and it's Game Over, the screen starts flickering in weird color schemes. As a result of the epilepsy incident that caused a lot of kids to have seizures while watching an episode of the Pokémon animated series, this was toned down for the Virtual Console, which otherwise are usually just unchanged emulations of the classics.

When Ninja Ryuukenden was first previewed in the Japanese gaming magazine "Famimaga" during 1988, their screenshots showed different early prototypes for the game. The level layout seems to have differed vastly between versions (one screenshot shows a fight against boss from stage 3 in the bar at the beginning). In some versions, Ryu's suit has even been colored red, like the player 2 character in the arcade game. The font and the icons for special weapons had undergone some transitions, as well (thanks go to Chris Covell for this discovery).

Prototype screenshot, note the font and Ryu's color.

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Act 1-1: The Ninja Dragon (NES) (SNES) (PC-Engine)
Act 2-1: Heroism - The Approaching Evil (NES)
Act 4-2: Ryu's Determination (SNES)

Ninja Ryuukenden II: Ankoku no Jashinken (忍者龍剣伝II 暗黒の邪神剣) / Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos / Shadow Warriors II - NES / DOS / Amiga / SNES / XBox (1990)

Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos takes place shortly after the events of the first game. Ryu has defeated the Jaquio, but soon the next threat arises in form of the Emperor of Darkness, Ashtar, who wields the sword of chaos and has Irene kidnapped. Of course, Ryu is on his feet and to the rescue immediately.

This time, Tecmo was finished genre shifting - the basic game play stays untouched from the first NES game. Yet there are a dozen small tweaks that make Ninja Gaiden II much more enjoyable. You now can use your extra attacks while climbing and climb up or down freely, though you still have to do wall jumps to get on the top of a platform. The ladders are still there, only this time they lead you to the next section of the stage. The jumping speed is also a bit slower and floatier, but easier to control.

The weapons system underwent some changes, too. Now every weapon use draws much more points, and you also get them faster - there's even an item which fills your gauge completely. This time you start out with a maximum of 40 weapon points, though it can extended by collecting scrolls, which are hidden sporadically throughout the game, usually in difficult locations. This way, the game encourages you to use special weapons even more, since hoarding your ammunition has become useless. The game provides you now with the ordinary shuriken and 10 points at every start, thus making you not as helpless after dying in a difficult section as the first one did. Also, in that case, your weapon points don't get cut into half anymore, instead you keep all of them, unless you have to use a credit. There's also a new weapon available - it's the opposite of the Magic Fire Wheel, a flame that fires downwards. They ditched the unbalanced special air attack and the out-of-place time stops, while the Invincible Fire Wheel has become a "normal", if expensive, special attack.

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The biggest addition is the "Phantom Shadow" technique. By collecting this item, you summon up to two copies of Ryu, who shadow your every movement. They're invincible, but can still damage enemies. They also stay floating in mid-air after you jump, so it's possible to position them strategically to take down bosses easily. It even triples your special weapon power, since each of Ryu's duplicates launches them, too. While they are cool to have, they provide very cheap methods to beat most of the bosses, and are a bare necessity for some of the others, therefore throwing off the game's balancing.

As compared to the first Ninja Gaiden, which kept things plain and simple, the enviroments are much more varied. It was all pits and platforms in the predecessor, but now you have to cope with strong winds, dark passages only illuminated sporadically through lightning, flowing water, spikes and the like. The boss battles have also improved and now almost all of them require a certain strategy, though a few can be rendered useless through the aforementioned copies.

The graphics are basically on par with the original, although the power-up items are all encased in floating orbs, giving the game a more consistent look. New are the weather effects. Most notably, there's a part in Stage 3-2 that takes place mostly in darkness, and you have to wait until lightning flashes so you can see where you're going. The lightning still flashes even when you've paused the game, which makes it much easier if you have the patience. The music is easily as good as the first NES game, although the drum samples have changed, so it has a pretty different sound to it. Overall, the difficulty has been toned down too, and there's nothing nearly as frustrating as the first game's last stage. There is also an extremely cool sound test called the "Musicruise", which shows super deformed versions of Ryu and Irene, along with the track names and a display of the sound channels.

The manual shows advanced techniques.

This time, Manley & Associates Inc. developed ports for IBM PCs and the Commodore Amiga, which where published by Gametek. Similar to the original Ninja Gaiden on the PC Engine, the graphics received a major overhaul, now leading to a look that is in tune with many contemporary western home computer games. At some parts, it looks better than the NES version due to the computers' hardware power, but the overall art quality is definitely inferior.

In the end, everything this versions could have going for them is destroyed by an atrociously low frame rate, that makes them virtually unplayable. It has to be about 2 FPS, or at least it feels this way. But even if it wasn't for this huge handicap, there would still remain enough problems to make this game not worthwhile. Ryu switched colors with his copies so he's red now. In principle just a cosmetic change, but slightly annoying when you've played another version before. The collision detection is messed up, so now you die from a downfall long before you reach the bottom of the screen (annoying), it takes forever to wait for the lightning in stage 3-1 (very annoying), you get thrown back from a hit even when you are clung to a wall (extraordinarily annoying) and, while you get thrown back, you're turned around the other direction all the time (extremely annoying) and if you make the mistake to push "up" together with "forward" while jumping to a wall to immediately climb up as you reach it, you stop jumping forward and fall in to a pit, a whole damn centimeter before you reach the end of the screen. And if your system of choice is the Amiga, you get a nice, overly complicated 1-button control scheme free of charge. Did I mention loading times? Do not play!

Of course, this episode is also part of the Trilogy for the SNES and received the same treatment as the first game. Again, there's some slight censorship, and the darkness & lightning effects in stage 3-1 got removed. At first, I wanted to complain about that, but after going back to the NES version (not to mention the unspeakable PC port), one can say it's really a good change. The password system applies here, too, but from now on, using passwords comes with a serious drawback: the amount of scrolls you picked up to increase your maximal ammo isn't contained in the password, you will have essentially less weapon points on your disposal than you get with a single run.

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Act 2-1: Thunderstorm (NES)
Act 2-2: Overdrive (SNES)
Act 3-2: The Parasprinter (NES)
Act 5-1: Unlimited Movement (SNES)
Ending Credits (NES)

Ninja Ryuukenden III: Yomi no Hakobune (忍者龍剣伝III 黄泉の方船) / Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom - NES / Lynx / SNES / Xbox (1991)

The third and final installment of the NES trilogy brought a few greater changes regarding the theme as well as aesthetics. In the intro to this final episode, you watch Irene being killed by...Ryu Hayabusa? But, no wait, it was a clone. The plot is a tad more detached than in the first two games, and now instead of humans, animals and demons, your enemies are machines and biomutations. The graphical style has changed to a flat perspective in contrast to the slightly isometric view that the previous games featured, but overall the visuals have vastly improved, with bigger and more various enemies, vertical scrolling and awesome looking backgrounds with quite a few parallax and lighting effects. The cover art now took the same style as the Ninja Gaiden anime, at least on the Japanese box. A lot of tasks were shifted from the creator of the series, Sakurazaki (real name Yoshizawa Hideo) to former artist & cutscene creator Runmal (Katou Masato), with Sakurazaki only staying the game's executive producer, and you can tell from playing the game that someone else was in charge.

So it's no wonder the gameplay underwent a few greater changes too, probably inspired by newer contemporary games like Strider and Shadow of the Ninja. The general pace of the action is slowed down, particularly because Ryu is given much more airtime during jumps, which sadly doesn't feel quite right. Also, the hand-over-hand climbing on bars from the arcade game is back, and you now can climb onto higher platforms directly without having to wall-jump.

Furthermore, a new major special item is introduced with the sword upgrade, which greatly enhances your range and makes it possible to hit small or lower enemies without ducking. The phantom shadow fighters are gone for good, as is the ordinary shuriken, so that you now start every stage with the powerful Windmill Shuriken equipped. The ability to shimmy below platforms goes along with a new weapon tailored for such situations - a pair of energy blades that attacks enemies immediately above and below yourself. The item orbs are now transparent, so there's no fear of accidentally collecting bad weapons anymore. The greatest novelty of them all - the enemies no longer respawn infinitely - makes for more tactical combat, since a retreat now actually can better your situation. Ninja Gaiden III is also the first game that provides a password system in the original release on the Japanese Famicom.

A page from the Japanese manual

If you think all this will make your life easier, you're on a completely wrong track. No respawning of enemies is made up by their sheer numbers and the levels are full of traps like quicksand, moving or collapsing platforms and slippery ground.

The Japanese version actually is a bit easier than the first two Ninja Gaidens, especially with the included password system. Fearing that longtime fans would be disgruntled (or perhaps just to prevent kids from beating it in a rental), the North American version was made considerably more difficult. Enemies' damage levels were raised, so that almost every enemy hit draws two points off your life bar from the very first stage on. Plus, the locations of extra weapons have been rearranged, and you get considerably fewer weapons. The Invincible Fire Wheel is very rare, and you have to hold out much longer without the sword upgrade on most stages. And if all the obstacles finally get the better of Ryu, you don't restart in that same area, but the beginning of the current stage. The password system is also gone, and now for the first time, you are limited to 5 credits. After that, it's time to start from scratch again. This makes it the hardest of all Ninja Gaiden games and quite frustrating, and I strongly advise to choose the Japanese or Trilogy version instead. Alas, this final game of the series never saw an European release. At that time, games tended to come out in Europe one or two years after the Japanese or American games, Ninja Gaiden II wasn't released before 1992, and before someone could even think about releasing its sequel, the NES was irrevocably dead.

With its port to the Atari Lynx, now every one of the NES games was ported to a different non-Nintendo platform. This one is actually the closest port of the three, which is also its biggest problem. The graphics are just scaled down to the handheld's lower resolution, which means you can hardly recognize anything. For some reason they switched around the attack and jump buttons. Although this doesn't do any actual change to how the game is played, it may prove confusing to players that are used to the regular button order used in the vast majority of 2D action platformers. Otherwise, it generally retains the good gameplay (though it is the tough, sometimes unfair gameplay of the North American version), so if you get eye cancer from playing it, you'll at least have had a good time.

The Trilogy port this time gets along without censorship (but there weren't any pentagrams/stars of David to begin with, thanks to the new theme), but otherwise it's the most retouched of the three games, and sadly not quite for the better. It's missing most of the graphical effects, the parallax-scrolling is completely gone (interestingly, it was still present in the Trilogy version of Ninja Gaiden II), as are a few lighting effects. At this time, they probably ran out of cartridge space or something like that, and so they took out at least two music tracks and replaced them with repetitions of other stages' tunes instead. Why the hell has a Super Nintendo game to be technically inferior to a NES game? As kind of a compensation, though, it sets the damage level of all the ordinary enemies back to a single point, making damage even lower than the original Japanese version. Unlimited credits and the password system are also back, of course (they should have fixed the last act of Ninja Gaiden I, while they were at it). In turn, for some reason they used the American NES version's arrangement of extra items and restart points, which actually made the game a bit harder for Japanese players in the end, while kindly relieving some of the hardships Western gamers had to endure.

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Act 1-1 (NES)
Act 3-2: The Watery Depths (NES)
Act 4-1: Inverted Catwalk (SNES)
Act 4-2: Castle Rock Entry Hall (NES)

Ninja Gaiden X - Mobile (2004)