Ninja Ryuukenden - OVA (1991)

1991 was the year that saw the most Ninja Gaiden releases ever. Not only Ninja Gaiden III, but also the Game Boy and Game Gear games came out that same year, and, by the end of the year, the first and only Ninja Ryuukenden OVA was available via Pack-In-Video in Japan. It was in development at the same time as Ninja Gaiden III, so it shares bits of its theme about biological experiments, though it tries to link it with events from the first two games.

I guess an anime hero whose face is disguised most of the time was a no-go at the time, and so Ryu doesn't wear his face mask. But the anime differs not only on a cosmetic level, also the characters have been changed a lot. Irene has been degraded from tough CIA agent to an anxious damsel in distress, and Robert, who has been thought dead at the end of Ninja Gaiden II, makes his return. Although with what is given in that game, this is not entirely impossible, the anime doesn't explain his comeback at all, and never takes continuity with the games too seriously.

Especially in the first half of the approximately 49 minutes of running time, the overall tone is more light-hearted, and Robert, together with his friend Jeffrey, the cowardly mercenary, and his girlfriend Sarah, a reporter and close friend of Irene, often serves as a comical relief. That isn't to say the film isn't ultra-violent. There's still plenty of action scenes, and most of the villains die in a bloody mess.

Though the movie isn't quite a package bursting of fan service, it's nonetheless a fairly entertaining piece of animation, if rather typical and uninventive, bound to the conventions these kind of work often followed at that time. The action is good, the dialogues entertaining (there's a fan sub floating around the internet) and the story isn't too stupid and can almost compare with the games. Though it certainly isn't a must-see even for Ninja Gaiden fans, it's also nothing you'll have to regret, so if you have access to it, give it a try!

Anyone who is into watching animes in Japanese might have heard some of the voices before, they've been quite busy in the business:

Dead or Alive (1996-2006)

When Tecmo created the Dead or Alive series during the mid 90s, they found one character suitable for a fighting game already in their catalog: Ryu. Usually referred to by his family name, Hayabusa, he assumes more the role of a supporting character, being friends with the main ninja heroes of the game. One of them is Ayane, who in turn supports Ryu in the newer Ninja Gaiden games. He's also rarely to be seen on the games' covers, the only two being DoA Ultimate and DoA 4 (but there's almost everyone on the cover of 4).

The very first game still mentioned Irene in Hayabusa's background story and arcade ending (although her name is misspelled "Aileen" in the English manual), but in later installments, Tecmo avoided to establish any storyline connections between the two franchises, and Ryu is now stated to be the owner of a curiosity shop in the DoA series, very much like in the anime.

He also originally had different costumes for each series, but starting with Dead or Alive Ultimate, his modern black Ninja Gaiden suit became his standard attire in all subsequent games, and most of his other Ninja Gaiden costumes can be unlocked as bonus costumes in that game, too. Those of Ryu's trademark moves that don't require a weapon, like the Guillotine Throw and Izuna Drop, can also be executed in Dead or Alive.

Other than the exchange of Ryu and Ayane, there's also some more cameos to be found in the latest games of each series. Muramasa appears in a story sequence for Bass in DOA 4, while you can spot a DOATec HQ in New York during the third chapter of Ninja Gaiden II on the Xbox360. Last but not least, Kasumi makes a few very short, mysterious cameo appearances in Sigma 2.

Back in the day, two soundtrack CDs to Ninja Gaiden games were released in Japan. The first one was the OST to Ninja Gaiden I - the NES version as well as the arcade game. Despite the fact that most tracks have been extended with new melody voices (that would later be used for the SNES port), most tracks from the NES game are all much too short. The Arcade game tracks are longer, but sadly they're not very exciting to begin with. Later, there was an arranged sound track to Ninja Gaiden II, which contains a vocal remix as its first track. Most of the songs sound like generic old J-Pop, though, nothing spectacular.

Here are a few sample tracks from the CDs. Consider that this is not an average impression but rather some the best tracks of each CD.

Ninja Gaiden OST MP3s: Download here

Rebirth of the Dragon Sword Legend (Ninja Ryukenden Arrange Version)
A Decision ~Fathers Letter~
The Ninja Dragon
689, Everybody Likes... Sukiyaki? (Game Clear Ending)

Ninja Gaiden 2 AST MP3s: Download here

Tecmo already launched a bigger merchandise campaign when the first Xbox game came out, and even the classic Ninja Gaiden got some love with t-shirts and trucker hats. The coolest product out of the bunch was probably the Ninja Gaiden airbrushed Xbox controller by Nuby.

Who does not remember having one or two (or more) Tiger handhelds as a child? In the late 80's / early 90's, everything was turned into a Tiger Handheld. This is all the more true for video games. Hell, Tiger went even out of their way to port Super Street Fighter 2 and Castlevania: Symphony of the night. So it doesn't come as a surprise at all that all three NES Ninja Gaiden games got their respective LCD version.

Tiger isn't really famous for the same quality standard Nintendo held to their Game&Watch series, but they at times really pushed the boundaries to what complexity those games could be taken. Ninja Gaiden, too, featured multiple types of enemies, weapons, even bosses. On top, Ninja Gaiden 2 came with the "Game Talk" line, so it also featured digitized voices. Of course, the games had to cope with the limitations of the technology, so there's not much to expect in terms of variety, animations or the like.

Other than most Tiger handhelds, who are still available at cheap price from several sources, the Ninja Gaiden series seems to have turned into collector's items. They're quite hard to find, and not seldom asked triple digits for. As it seems, the first game was also released in wrist watch format, but given its rarity, it's hard to find out whether it was the same game as the handheld.

Worlds of Power was a children's book series based on several 8-bit video games, created by Seth Godin to get 10-year-old video game junkies to read a book once in a while. He chose the pseudonym F.X. Nine, so that the books could be found next to "Nintendo" in book stores, although none of them were officially licensed and thus all are based off third party games. All the books show this same pseudonym, but they were written by different authors, this one by Peter Lerangis, under yet another pen name called A.L. Singer.

The book to Ninja Gaiden followed the plot of the first game rather faithfully, but as the series was aimed to young children, no one was allowed to die. Furthermore, as with most books in the series, Ryu's weapon was edited out on the cover image, which makes him look rather stupid. There's also one major plot change because Ryu's father also stays alive in the book. No boy should have to grow up without his father, right? This kind of supposed protection of children's innocent minds seems quite unnecessary and hypocritical in this case. After all, if the target audience wasn't the kids who had played the games, where the hero was killing his enemies by the dozens, then who was?

Needless to say, the book has not been considered canon by Tecmo, but it is widely recognized to be a fairly good read for children.

While Ninja Gaiden itself was heavily inspired by Castlevania, with the wall climbing / jumping it introduced an important new element into the action genre. Technically, the Sega Master System port of Rastan Saga was the first game to feature a wall jump, but it is not probable that the developers copied the feature from that one. Not only lies less than a year between the two games' releases, the SMS Rastan was also never available in Japan, making it questionable whether it had any impact at all on the industry there. During the late 80s and early 90s, there appeared a number of platformers using that or a similar feature, but due to close release dates and differences in the implementation, it's not easy to tell who was inspired by whom, or even if there's any connection at all.

In early 1989, Capcom released Strider Hiryu in the arcades, strikingly also a somewhat ninja themed game, but it featured far more flexible controls. Hiryu was the first free climbing video game hero, who may have actually influenced Ninja Gaiden's further development together with the aforementioned Shadow of the Ninja (Strider, as well as its spiritual successor, Osman, even has the copies following the hero that were later adopted for Ninja Gaiden II, though none of them executes that feature very well. You can even play through Strider without ever finding that power-up).

Other notable titles are the licensed NES games Batman (1989) and Darkman (1991), who both feature masked, dark, ninja-like heroes. While Batman went for a wall-jump relying on timing like the later SMS Ninja Gaiden, the climbing in Darkman works just the same as in Ninja Gaiden III, only more glitchy. Sega didn't introduce such abilities into their very own Shinobi series until 1993, when they released Super Shinobi 2 (or Shinobi 3 in the west), possibly inspired by their sojourn into the Ninja Gaiden series. The endings in both Super Shinobi games are also suspiciously similar to cut scenes from Tecmo's series.

Not a ninja, but just as agile: Sky Blazer (SNES)

There where a lot of games foreign to the ninja theme that used similar abilities, like Gargoyle's Quest (1990), Contra 3 (1992), Megaman X (1993), Sky Blazer (1994), or Gargoyles (1995), but their possible ties to Ninja Gaiden are even more uncertain. Less ambiguous are two NES games that don't feature wall jump mechanics, but bathe in Ninja Gaiden aesthetics: Vice: Project Doom and the unreleased but leaked Time Diver Eon Man.

Despite being developed by Core Design in the UK, Ninja: Shadow of Darkness (1998) almost seems like a missing link in the Ninja Gaiden series. The game, a mix between beat 'em up and 3D platformer, stars a ninja in a purplish-blue suit who of course is totally not Ryu Hayabusa, fighting other ninjas, samurais and demons. There's no wall jumping or the like (kinda odd for a Ninja Gaiden clone by the Tomb Raider company), but ninja magic, smoke bombs and a selection of weapons. It's also just as hard as Tecmo's games.

Ryu... I mean the nameless ninja vs Marbus... erm, the nameless demon (PSX)

What's most interesting is the fact that it's almost more similar to the new Ninja Gaiden, which only came out six years later. Special moves are executed by charging the attack button, just like Ninja Gaiden's UTs, items are bought at some old geezer's store, and there's treasure chests with traps inside (a habit both games share with Capcom's classic Ghouls 'n Ghosts series). The bat enemies behave quite the same, and some bosses resemble fiends from the 2004 Xbox game. There's one scene in particular that would be just too much of a coincidence. At some points in the game, you're sent to an arena in hell, where a devil sitting high on a throne summons enemies for you to fight, just as Marbus does in Ninja Gaiden. After seeing that, it's hard to believe Team Ninja was oblivious about this underdog, as unlikely as the claim that Japanese developers drew inspiration from a British niche title, that wasn't even released there, initially sounds.

It's hard to say whether there are any modern action games that rip off the new Ninja Gaiden series, since most of its elements were well approved already before it saw the light of day. The God of War games have a very similar system of colored essences, though. Also, both games share the importance of blocking and dodging enemies' attacks more than any other action game. As mentioned earlier, Team Ninja returned the favor by copying Kratos' main weapons into Ninja Gaiden II.

Kratos swings his Blades in God of War 2 (PS2)

When Ninja Blade by From Software (of Tenchu fame) was first announced for the Xbox360, everyone expected it to be a blatant Ninja Gaiden clone. A modern ninja fighting demons in a city, with cheesy dialogue and a ridiculous story - sounded quite like Tecmo's well known action series. However, when the game was released it became clear that the similarities ended there, except both being 3rd person action games, of course. Instead, Ninja Blade's combat plays much more like a Devil May Cry clone, and it also copies the inclination to forced attempts of coolness Capcom's series is famous for. That doesn't mean it shies away from getting inspired by God of War, as well (swords on a chain). A good portion of the game takes place in lengthy, over-the-top Quick Time Events, whose pacing tends to make one feel more of a spectator than a player at times.

Links
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Official Japanese Homepage Tecmo Japan's site for the latest release.
Ninja Gaiden 2 Official Japanese Homepage Site for Ninja Gaiden II.
Ninja Gaiden DS Official Japanese Homepage Site for Ninja Gaiden DS.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma Official Japanese Homepage Site for Ninja Gaiden Sigma.
Official English Site English site for the newer Games.
Ninja Gaiden Hayabusa Sendangan Choutokkyuu Japanese fan page on the older Tecmo games.
Iberian's NG realm Karma run videos from the newer Games.
Screw Attack Ninja Gaiden Review Screw Attack's take on the first NES game.
Seanbaby Ninja Gaiden Review How Seanbaby and his co-reviewers see it.
Ninja Ryuukenden 2 and 3 Japanese TV commercials at Retrojunk.
Video Footage of Ninja Gaiden X A walkthrough video to the Japan-only mobile game.
About Worlds of Power On the children's book series that also spawned a Ninja Gaiden novel.
gdri An interesting BLOG with valuable information concerning actual developers of the minor ports and outsourced projects.
Disgruntled Designer Rare prototype screenshots from old Japanese magazines, discovered by Chris Covell.

Interviews
Ninja Gaiden (Xbox) Interview from 2003, with Tomonobu Itagaki.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma Interview with Yosuke Hayashi.
Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword Interview with Yosuke Hayashi.
Ninja Gaiden II Inverview with Tomonobu Itagaki.
Another Ninja Gaiden II Inverview with Tomonobu Itagaki.
Yet another Ninja Gaiden II Inverview with Tomonobu Itagaki.
Miscellaneous questions to the second most Interviewed game designer right next to Peter Molineux.