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Ninja Gaiden
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NES - Tecmo - Action - N/A - 1 Player
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| Castlevania. With ninjas. Am I the only one who sees something very right with that? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Originally a brawler in the same vein as Final Fight, Ninja Gaiden received a serious overhaul in making its way over to the NES. Much like the NES ‘ports' of Rygar and Strider, Ninja Gaiden has little to do with its coin-op counterpart. Instead, Tecmo transformed Ninja Gaiden into one of the finer action titles ever to be released for the platform. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Though similar in many ways to Konami's Castlevania, there are a few fundamental differences between the two. The first, and probably most obvious, is the pace at which the game moves along. Going from Castlevania to Ninja Gaiden is almost like making the jump to SF2 Turbo from The World Warriors. It's that big of a deal. Secondly, Ryu (the games protagonist) is a great deal more maneuverable than the son of Belmont, what with being a ninja and all. And thirdly, the theme and setting of the two are drastically different. Again, we're talking about ninjas. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| And besides, this whole Ninja Gaiden / Castlevania thing has gone on long enough. Sure, Ninja Gaiden might have copied Castlevania's sub weapon system and some of its basic play mechanics, but as I've come to understand, Castlevania's been aping Nintendo's Metroid pretty hard these past few years. So let's drop it. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| One reason why Ninja Gaiden is remembered so fondly by gamers (besides being so bad ass) is because it introduced the world to the first ever videogame cut scene. Depicting such heartfelt and memorable moments such as the pink ninja getting smote by the gray one, and featuring such moving and profound dialogue like "Ryu, be always brave..." it's no wonder that Tecmo's classic has touched the hearts and minds of so many impressionable youths. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| In all seriousness, though a bit silly and even contrived, Nina Gaiden's plot does remain somewhat compelling throughout the duration of the game. And you can definitely chalk that up to the games numerous and well drawn cut scenes. Definitely a step in the right direction in terms of getting the story off the back of the box and into the actual game. But the absolute best thing about these scenes is that they are completely optional and don't intrude upon the gameplay experience at all. Amazing that so many developers sill manage to *$%@ this up, considering that Tecmo got it right close to 15 years ago. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| However, I'm positive that even without the inclusion of cut scenes, Ninja Gaiden would still be remembered as a classic. The gameplay is just too solid for it not to be. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Ninja Gaiden proves that the whole idea of ninjas being stealthy assassins is just a common western misconception. Stealth is for girly men. Taking on entire armies of thugs, lizard men, those guys in cloaks that throw the dinner utensils, enemy ninja, and eagle hell spawn, you'll traverse each stage and it's numerous pits and pitfalls. Locations range from street corners and factories to jungles and the tops of mountains. Weapon selection ranges from your ever present dragon sword to projectile wheels of fire and a Sonic the Hedgehog-esque spin attack. Any questions? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| A common topic of discussion these days among older gamers is how , to quote GameFan, ‘little-bus easy' games of the current console generation are. Apparently they've never played Ikaruga. In any event, said game players will continuously prattle off about how much harder games used to be. As much as I hate to admit it, in this particular case they have a point. I didn't have Ninja Gaiden as a kid, so my initial difficulty with the game wasn't due to ineptness stemming from youth. In fact, I purchased Ninja Gaiden relatively recently and it still gave me a hell of a fight. At the time of this writing, I have not cleared the sixth stage. You know the one of which I speak. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| But it's a good kind of challenge, one that doesn't stem from shoddy design or poor control. Rather, the challenge is a product of the games sometimes ingenious level design. And I think that's one of the reasons why Ninja Gaiden continues to be so engaging. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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