Ah, weary traveler, for what reason have you come so far as to visit one such as I? You wish to defeat...Ninja Gaiden on NES? You seek....guidance? That is quite the mountain to climb. It will not be easy...

The journey may seem frightening at first, but believe in me for it is not quite as bad as the tales would tell. To help Ryu Hayabusa on his quest to seek revenge for his father's murder, you must channel all of your ninja know-how and master the hitbox of your blade. Timing is of utmost importance! You must be light on your feet, and be as swift as the wind! Your enemy however is quite formidable, the Jaquio is not one to take lightly! For they do not fight fair with the placement of their army of henchpeople and henchanimals! You will need to maintain a good rhythm and flow to your movement if you wish to keep up progress, as the Jaquio's minions will not hesitate to warp back onto the field as soon as they are decimated by you!

On top of that, you must also maintain proper ninja balance. What is a ninja without their ninja balance? A dead ninja. The Jaquio knows this! That's why they hired the entire NFL to run at Hayabusa and tackle him into the ground! What good will Ryu be at exacting his revenge if he's been sacked on fourth down?! No good at all!

While you indeed do have your mystical dragon sword and your ninja sub-weapons, there is also another unseen magic that you must keep mind of. That which can be barely seen from your view of the screen, the void of the edge of the CRT monitor. The fourth dimension one could say. Utilization of this can be instrumental in making certain sections of your adventure easier. The Jaquio's minions may be able to warp themselves back onto screen, but sometimes the warp tubes backfire and transport them to another stage entirely. A big break for you! Sword throwing Larry will be busy throwing his swords elsewhere!

Step by step, inch by inch, you can ascend this mountain with the help of your endless continues. Ninja Hayabusa is never a quitter, and the journey's checkpoints can be surprisingly forgiving at times. Well....except when you finally confront Jaquio themselves, whom will inevitably bamboozle you with their fiendish side-to-side movement and homing fireballs. They do not fight fair, I've mention this! Jaquio loves trap doors! They can't get enough of them, and will not hesitate to send you back to stage 6-1! Be patient, and be precise with your approach against the scoundrel! Of course, as always you may attempt to fight dirty as well against Jaquio. You may utilize the art of save stating or time rewind, and would you be less of a person to me if I saw you stoop to his level?

Eh, I don't judge. Just remember to never give up, and always think to yourself...

Finish the story.
FINISH THE STORY.
FINISH THE FUCKIN' STORY!

Personally though, I do believe there is something to climbing the mountain from bottom to top constantly, and acquiring mastery of all of it's paths and tricks. Knowing every nook and cranny of where an avian fiend will rear their ugly head, and being prepared for any football player attempting to make you another number to their season statistics. Your rhythm becoming greater and preparing you for your next attempt at the climb. Maybe you don't agree, maybe you do. Regardless, one day maybe you'll see why I adore this adventure as much as I do and meet me at the top of the mountain.

It's quite pretty.

soul crushing at points, but one of the best 2d platformers ever made nonetheless. boasts some especially well-thought-out level design and enemy placement that does not get NEARLY the credit it deserves

i feel the respawning enemies (especially the priests) are ridiculously overhyped by people who fail to understand that this is ultimately a game about constantly moving forward. like, you aren't supposed to slash at them mindlessly and hope that they just stop appearing - you gotta jump INTO and slice THROUGH those motherfuckers

oh and just so we're clear: this is about the nes game. not the arcade one. no more funny business, aight, igdb?

Playing Tenchu earlier this month got me in the mood to revisit Ninja Gaiden. Picked it up on the Switch's NES app, and hoo boy.

The music is amazing, and I LOVE the cutscenes. I didn't remember the story very well, so it was a nice surprise to watch it unfold all over again. The controls are super tight as well, which feels real good once you master it.

... But that enemy placement man, god damn. From Stage 5 onwards, there are times where you'll be bombarded with birds, machinegun dudes, flying ninjas and hairless ape guys all in one go. Since Ryu can only slash in front of him, these sections are BRUTALLY difficult. Also that final boss lmao

Overall, a good game, but a bit too hard to just pick up and play imo. AND THIS IS THE EASY ONE IN THE TRILOGY!

Finished playing ninja gaiden.
Yeah i'm sorry i did not have a great time with this game. First of all the gameplay was pretty fun, the movement was fast and it was cool to see cutscenes on an NES game but sadly that's pretty much where the positives end for me. As many people know this game is hard like very hard but not in a good way. The difficulty is mainly because of poorly placed enemies that respawn (fuck dem birds) and the unnecessarily strong knockback. Thank god i played this with save states because whenever you die you get sent back at the beginning of a level and that probably would've made me lose my marbles. The bosses yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh their not good 😬 especially the last 3 bosses holy fuck they are so bad. So yea i personally did not like this game but hey summoning salt made a great videos about the world record speedruns so ig that's something. 5/10

Enquanto estava jogando Ninja Gaiden, eu o tempo todo me perguntava... o que estou fazendo da minha vida? será que isso tudo vale a pena? porque CARALHO ESSE JOGO É TÃO FILHA DA PU-

Ninja Gaiden... nem sei como começar. Tive a brilhante ideia de jogar ele sem save state e bem... foi uma das piores experiências que tive com vídeo games.

Antes de jogo, o jogo é muito bonito, tem músicas boas e um inicio legal, agora de resto VAI TOMAR NO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.

Esse jogo é top coisas mais sacanas já feitas na história, os desafios são injustos ao extremo, o espaço pros inimigos reaparecerem é ridículo, as plataformas, a posição dos inimigos, nada, nada desse jogo se salva.

Melhor que isso, os checkpoints, por causa deles eu NÃO CONSEGUI ZERAR ISSO SEM SAVE STATE. As últimas fases são terríveis e as piores do jogo, passei 1 hora só nelas. E no boss final, tem a melhor ideia de todas, se tu morrer nele, você não volta pro checkpoint próximo, PORRA NENHUMA, VOCE VOLTA AS 3 FASES TUDO.

E ISSO É COMPLETAMENTE DE GRAÇA, e isso me tirou do sério, tive que usar save no início do boss porque essa ideia já era palhaçada... e eu era o palhaço que estava jogando isso sem trapacear.

Alongside the original arcade title, Ninja Gaiden was also released on the NES, not as a beat 'em up, but as a 2D platformer, and thank god for that too, as the series would never have gone as far as it did if it stuck to the original formula. So, as the TRUE start to the franchise, this is a great game, with many different advancements in video games for the time, while also providing familar gameplay most are familiar with.

The story is actually fairly complex, helped with the use of cutscenes, which, believe it or not, was a new thing for games at the time, and the cutscenes themselves are very good. The graphics are very nice and appealing, the music is fantastic, the control is extremely responsive, the movement is fast and frantic, which is amazing for this type of game, and speaking of which, the gameplay is fun, fast, and frantic, keeping you on your toes the entire time.

If I had some complaints about this game, I would say that it has the usual NES hardships you would expect, with the biggest example being the difficulty, primarily caused by cheap enemy placement throughout. I'm sure anyone that has played knows about the fucking birds that would give you so much trouble. Another complaint is throughout the game, whenever you get a game over, you start at the beginning of the level you were on, but in Act 6, you start back at the beginning of the act. It's not that big of a deal, but considering how hard it is, it gets annoying.

Overall though, this is a fantastic first installment in Ninja Gaiden series, and a certified classic for the NES. It may have problems, but it is still extremely fun to play to this day.

Game #26

People ate good in the NES era, I'll tell you, I can see myself playing this game almost everyday trying every single time to beat the final gauntlet, as I tried during this month. Despite its age, Ninja Gaiden controls incredibly well and the wall jumping adds a lot of strategy and cool factor to the platforming. I'll just say that some enemies' placements feel unfair and the knockback is frustrating, but once you get used to it and know the lay of the land, it's not that bad. It's not an issue when they respawn if you never get hit and get out of there as soon as possible.

The perfect game to speedrun or just casually enjoy, it may be on the hard side but its story sections, levels and music make it all worth in the end: easy to play, hard to master, it feels incredible to beat.

For a game/series notorious for its difficulty, it's striking that the original Ninja Gaiden doesn't really get difficult until the tail end. Like it's never easy, but it doesn't get really hard until Stage 5-2/5-3 or so. Of course, the game then gets downright dickish with 6-2 and completely cruel with 6-4, so the game's reputation is well-earned. I just think it's neat that the player is most of the way into the game before the gloves come off. Gives the sense that you can do it, you've already come this far, you just have to rise to the occasion.

(For the record, the only time I called B.S. is having to restart a loop after botching a run on the final boss. Though, I think it's an interesting concession that the game remembers what phase you were on with the final boss between loops. My solution was to savestate at the end of 6-3, reload saves until I cleared a phase, then redo the loop, saving again at the end of 6-3. You can insist I did not beat the god damn game if you must, but that seemed the fairest compromise that still let me feel some of the intended effect.)

Nah, Ninja Gaiden represents probably the closest you could come to a spectacle platformer on the NES. In a lot of ways, Ninja Gaiden feels like a counterpart to the original Castlevania: same brutality, same subweapon system, same love of mean flying enemies, same way of encouraging the player to try again with endless continues. The main difference of course being that Ninja Gaiden is a FAST game, with Ryu Hayabusa being ridiculously agile in sharp contrast to Simon Belmont's plodding slowness.

But while Castlevania merely wears its love for movies on its sleeve, Ninja Gaiden is an early adopter of video game cutscenes. It's not the first - Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man predate it, of course. But you have to love how proud TECMO was of what they were doing, judging by the manual boasting of the game's unique "Cinema Display" system. Plus you gotta love stuff like Ryu dismissing Irene with "Just a girl. Get out of here!", only for Irene to immediately tranq him.

There's a lot of great tonality and presentation to Ninja Gaiden, too. A lot of it is genre work familiar to ninja movies - though, again, seeing any of that in this era is pretty cool - but there's a good amount baked into the cadence of the gameplay. The sheer focus on game world continuity through its level design - how every level starting with Stage 4-1 flows into the next, down to it all being visible in that one shot of Ryu looking at the far-off mountain - is cool.

Plus, there's the striking choice of the game's main theme - "Unbreakable Determination" - first appearing in Stage 4-2, long after most games introduce and iterate upon their leitmotifs. Really gives the sense that everything to that point was prelude, and the real adventure begins there. Considering that's also around when the game starts getting harder, it's justified.

Famously, the game is as hard as it is because the developers got too familiar with it, and kept spicing it up to keep themselves challenged. But I think that also goes to show the sheer confidence and respect the team had for what they were doing. Very much a game worth playing and studying, even today.

Ninja Gaiden can be an excellent post-Castlevania NES action game, turning up the speed just so to forge its fast identity that would carry through for decades. Where Trevor Belmont plods his way towards Dracula's castle, and his whip attacks require a comparatively long wind up, Ryu Hayabusa dashes and flips fluidly through levels and whips his katana out with lightning speed—though, crucially, not instantly. In its best moments the level design supports and drives this speed, but too often, and especially as you get deeper into the game, enemies are placed directly where you would flip into them, brutally disrupting the flow. Most of the time these obstacle enemies only spawn as you get to the edge of a platform, when, if you're playing speedily, you've already jumped, so it feels especially unfair and punishing. You're forced to pause and wait for the enemy to move over, batting away enemy hawks in the meantime; it just doesn't really feel good. But the moment to moment action outside of this is a lot of fun and feels snappy.

The bosses are more merciful experiences, tests of your patience and problem solving more than they are your pure action skills, though they can require power-ups to make them at all bearable. They're fine and satisfying, but they don't feel necessarily of one with the speed that makes the levels so fun. Looking forward to playing the sequels.

Ninja Gaiden is honestly a pretty cool game for the time in which it came out, I liked the foundations of the game, however, the reason why I have given it 3/5 as a rating is because although the gameplay is pretty good, the sloppy level design (especially in the last level) ruins the experience a bit, to the point of making the game unfinishable unless you are a complete Ninja or use save states.

Talking about the things I liked, the gameplay is one of them as I said before. At first glance it keeps a huge similarity with Castlevania, only the approach is different by having a character that has a better and faster mobility, with the price that we have an attack with a fairly limited range and that requires a high precision to hit the enemies, which makes the game very difficult, but the good side is that it gives enough satisfaction to beat the enemies easily once we have a little mastered our character, especially the birds. Another thing that makes the game less frustrating in the first 5 levels is the fact of having infinite Continues, so to overcome them only requires perseverance and memorization of the design of these and the positioning of enemies as well. And finally, a very cool aspect and why I think this game is partly appreciated, is the fact that Ninja Gaiden has a somewhat elaborate story, not really good, but for the time is to admire the ambition they took in this section, wanting to turn it almost like a movie, its strong point is certainly the scenes to be told through pixel art portraits of a very good quality even today.

But well, finishing talking about this game, although it has things that connect with my tastes in terms of NES games, despite that, I can not say that I liked Ninja Gaiden, because in general, the level design is not good, especially in the last two levels. There are absurd things like the fact that if you lose against the last 2 bosses, even if you have two lives, you will be returned to the beginning of the level, or absurd things like if you have the spiral attack equipped you can beat the enemies too easily. I also found annoying the fact that there are enemies that reappear instantly after defeating them, not like in other NES games, where they only reappear if you get out of the field of view and go back to where they initially appeared.

Conclusion
Comparing it to other games released before, it really feels too unfair to me even with the infinite Continues. It's much easier to beat the first Super Mario Bros. without taking the trick of infinite lives or shortcuts. Games like Castlevania, Mega Man or the first Contra are also beatable without cheats, even I dare to say that Super Mario Bros. 2 (Japanese) is more beatable than this game. And the example of the previous games I say it because those are difficult games, but they are a little fair (except SMB2). I don't really care if a game is too difficult, as long as it's fair I can tolerate it, and as I've already made clear, Ninja Gaiden is not the case.

It's no secret to anybody who has even heard of this game, that Ninja Gaiden on the NES is a very tough game.

After playing it, I feel very conflicted on it.
The controls are solid, and I really like how fast-paced this game can be.

The story, while nothing too amazing, is nice to see unfold, and this was also one of the few NES games to have cutscenes, so that's also neat!

The music is really good! There are a lot of memorable tunes, and gets you excited for the action ahead.

The biggest sticking point, in my opinion, is the level design, more especifically, the enemy placement.
At first, it's rather simple and you won't really have much trouble, but the more you progress, the more punishing it gets, as the game just throws more and more enemies at you, nonstop!
And the enemies also constantly respawn, which makes matters even worse.

By the end of the game, I was just tired of all of the shit it threw at me, and combined with a final boss who throws projectiles at you that are very hard to dodge, this game drained me by the end.

It's not a bad game, but I really wish Ninja Gaiden's method of giving you a hard time wasn't by spamming enemies left and right.

do you guys know this is the actual platformer Ninja Gaiden on backloggd? the other one (with 2.3k plays) is the beat 'em up for Arcade. lmao.

it started as a castlevania (1987) reskin, 1 minute later i was like "ok this is ninja gaiden. i'm sold."

and it ended like... this is artificial difficulty in its apex holy shit act V is kinda bad but act VI though??????? it's TERRIBLE

still, a fantastic experiment with great ideas, OST, storytelling, and even... challenges! the artificial difficulty can be good sometimes. enemies are limited per screen with infinite respawns so you can't even come up with a gameplan without failing so badly because of the projectile and enemy spam -- now I like the 3D games even more.

the balancing is really bad but one thing i found to be... (surprisingly) underwhelming was the combat!!! i know this is the platformer one but, i mean, they straight up cloned castlevania combat system but with not-so-interesting subweapons and the balancing ruins everything. (and this game is the biggest proof that flying swallow is OP in every fucking title)

but overall, i didn't mind the combat too much. the movement maneuvers and the walljump inclusion were the highlights of the game to me.

lastly, one could say that the fusion between platforming and action worked way better in the first castlevania... and i'd say that the disharmony between them is what makes Ninja Gaiden so special.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2LF2t4YlBI

For my entire life, i've never fully gave Ninja Gaiden a try. One time, I got up to Act 4, said "nah" and stopped playing. Just a few months ago, I tried the Special edition on NSO, got destroyed by the masked devil, then tried 6-1 and ALSO got destroyed (for some reason, my dumbass was trying to outrun the enemies, so no shit I couldn't do it) then said "nah" and once again quit. Recently, i've been playing some games people would label 'NES hard' like Castlevania, Mega Man 1, Ghosts n Goblins etc. I always saw Ninja Gaiden mentioned when people talked about hard games, so I thought, why not just put an effort in? If it gets too hard and I lose motivation, I could just use save states (which I didn't end up needing to use).
Now, after finishing it a few minutes ago, I want to beat the shit out of my old self.

I ADORE this game. The controls, the music, the special weapons, the level design, its all nearly flawless. Alot of peoples main problem however, was the difficultly.

Now, i'm not gonna try to say this game isn't hard, since I would be disrespecting my 7 hours of playtime, but what I can say is that 5 of those hours were in Act 6, which is really where the complaints of difficulty come from.

The game does start showing signs of bullshit at Act 5, but really shows its insides at Act 6, which is ridiculously hard, on your first few tries atleast. If you don't know, dying on any of the last 3 bosses sends you back to the start of 6-1, and makes you do the whole act over. Its one of the most infamous fuck you's in all of gaming.

However, I don't hate that feature as much as others. The first time, it was soul crushing, but over time, I practiced Act 6, every-time i would note something new to do on a boss or enemy. Using that special weapon there, or jumping over an enemy instead of attacking, it became like nirvana.

Obviously, there are still bullshit like Jaquio, which is one of the hardest bosses on the entire system, but he can be by-passed with spin-slash, one more thing, if you killed one of the last three bosses, but die to the next, you don't have to re-fight it.

The game is extremely generous overall, when you game over, you're sent back to the start of the stage instead of the act, plus spin-slash can kill nearly all bosses with one use.

I just love this game, I even love the flaws.
One of the games that shows that the NES isn't just an outdated machine.

just a note, while searching up how to kill jaquio, i found a post on a forum saying "how do i kill myself painlessly?" and honestly bro? until i got the spin-slash, same.

Muito do jogo é claramente um clone do primeiro Castlevania, porém, tem um charme muito próprio que os Ninja Gaiden da Team Ninja posteriormente transportaram pro 3D, e como alguém que gosta muito deles, eu me senti em casa jogando isso. Sim, são estilos completamente diferentes, e isso pode parecer só muito idiota, mas passar denovo por frustrações parecidas... foi estranhamente satisfatório? Eu sempre achei que parte da graça de Ninja Gaiden Black, era como a experiência era uma grande montanha russa, subitamente variando entre "isso é muito divertido" e "isso é uma das coisas mais estúpidas que já vi na minha vida", enquanto a obra coloca um ninja em uma situação que normalmente não se espera desse tipo de fantasia, misturando ninjas, samurais, demônios, militares, cidades modernas, sci-fi... qualquer coisa que parecer minimamente legal. Isso não necessariamente é um mérito, porém, no meu caso, me fez valorizar mais os acertos do jogo e também me marcaram de uma forma esquisita, hoje lembro de momentos frustrantes que tive durante a experiência com um certo carinho, já que esses momentos me irritavam de verdade e nunca me deixavam só entediada. E bom, esse Ninja Gaiden me trouxe algo parecido, é completamente estúpido, e tá tudo bem.

+ Game teaches you to get good
+ Designed to be fast paced
+ Challenging, but fair
+ Music/sound complements gameplay
~ Cinematic NES story
~ Amazing NES Graphics
- Dying during boss sends you back to the beginning
- Wall clinging mechanics can ruin runs/ get annoying.

Esse jogo é insano.

Inimigos spawnam na sua frente só pra te matar, vc dá um passinho pro lado na tela e eles respawnam, as vezes ficam spawnando infinitamente, qualquer golpezinho já te joga num buraco, as vezes o ninja dá um golpe e não acerta, simplesmente passa pelos inimigos como se fosse ar, posicionamento insano dos inimigos feito pra te foder, jogo absolutamente insano.

Você tem só duas vidas e quando perde as duas tem que voltar no começo do estágio, a não ser que esteja no final boss, ai mesmo que tenha 10 vidas, volta 5 estágios atrás kkkkkk te fode, esse jogo é um lixo insano, sem dúvida o pior jogo já feito em todos os tempos.

Just as every 11-year-old boy has a deeply felt TikTok-informed take on the long-term decline of Family Guy, every early 20s gamer has a peak-Channel-Awesome-era YouTube-approved opinion on the legacy of cult NES platformers. My experiences are universal.

It's funny to cite him as a vaunted academic of a past era (though with how few people treated video games as art worth genuine discussion ~15 years ago, he kind of is), especially with the dated comedy of the ninja character and their, uh, 'dubious' accent in the video, but AngryVideoGameNerd kinda nailed it on this one.

This IS glorious B-movie cheese. The nonsensical and poorly translated story IS spectacular in its embracing of film noir, samurai iconography and the most awesomest cutscenes ever to this point (look at those camera pans, Toby Fox eat your heart out). It IS one of the tightest platformers ever made, with a sick as fuck look and sound to match. And it IS nearly ruined by a late-game difficulty spike (in large part caused by a bug they intentionally left in, Dear Lord) so intense it feels impossible. The man was on the money!

I'm not here to nitpick my predecessors, but there is one major element of the game Rolfe didn't touch on enough (though you have to remember, he only had 15 minutes for the video and at least 20 of those were dedicated to quasi-racist ninja jokes so it's a miracle he crammed in as much analysis as he did really). The level design is super weird and constantly shooting itself in the foot. This game has a deeply compelling interplay between yourself and the edge of the screen. The speed enemies spawn in and out makes despawning them at the sides (and moving at maximum pace forward) far more effective than direct engagements. People (the Nerd included) complain about the rapid respawns this causes as an unfair or aggravating mistake in the game's design. For me, it's one of the best things about the game. It adds a unique layer to combat / movement and keeps the whole thing moving deliriously quickly. The devs, however, have a limited view of how this quirk can be weaponised as an obstacle. When this game turns into 'jumping over a pit onto an empty platform, oh wait an enemy spawned in while I was in mid-air and has knocked me into the pit' the movie, which it does frequently, I can't help but roll my eyes. This one note gets played billions of times, and my ears start getting sore. I struggle with artificial difficulty as a concept. What I do believe in is boring difficulty. It's the sole thing the game throws at you that I'd call actively uncompelling. It can't stop this from being dope as hell, but it does stop it from rising to the top of my favourites. Thems the breaks.

Just for posterity, I played with save states. Call me a poser, call it a skill issue, call it 'I live a human life in the real world and cannot spend the next 35 years of my existence trying to beat stage 6 legitimately.' I have no shame. I remember what happened at the end of the video. Even the ninja couldn't beat this shit. Save states are God's gift to gamers who enjoy beating 80s games with evil checkpoint systems during their natural lifespans.

No points if you beat this legit. I don't seek to reward evangelical ideologues on self-endangering moral quests. Go back to the Crusades.