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One of the games that shows that the NES isn't just an outdated machine.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.

Capcom always does the best Number 2's.

To put it simply, 2nd Impact is an improved New Generation. I love New Generation, so I fucking adored this one.

So, what's new? Firstly, there are an additional 4 characters (which don't matter, since you're going to be picking Sean), there's an additional stage, Gill is now the penultimate boss instead of the final one, the combat is alot smoother.. that's all that comes to mind right now, but trust me, you can feel the difference.

Also, if you hate how good Sean is in this game, you just hate fun. It really makes me wish 3rd Strike had an intensely OP character. Well, i'm OK sticking with my boy Ken.

As much as I love 3rd Strike, there's something these first 2 editions have that it doesn't. Pretty damn good game, all things considered.

This rating is for Episode 4, Thy Flesh Consumed, not the full game.
Not as good as the first 3 episodes, but it's still alright. The main design philosophy here seems to be getting mauled by enemies from all angles at all times. E4 M2 is also really overrated in terms of difficulty, Personally, I think M6 and M8 were harder. Also, idk why they decided to make you go through a whole level before fighting the spider-mastermind.

Glad to finally have this off my chest, but if I ever revisit Doom, I am NOT playing this episode again.

What the hell? 2.1 average score? This game was great, even to the point where I would say I preferred it over Mega Man 4 and 5! Its short, easy (passwords make the lack of continues not matter) and fun. There's also a hard mode, which i'll definitely come back to one of these days.

Yeah, the screen crunch is pretty awful, and it can cause some trial and error with spike placements, but the better looking sprites sort of make it up to me.

The hate isn't deserved. Plus, what more do you guys want out of a portable Mega Man game??