Ninja Gaiden is an incredibly frustrating game, but also incredibly fun. It's one of those old school games that push you to be better and understand the rules in order to overcome them. And when you do, you feel incredible. Getting better at the game makes the game more fun and makes you want to play it over and over to keep getting better (or at least I did).

A lot of the challenge does come from unfairness caused by poor programming (most notably the respawning enemies and dying to the final boss sends you back to the beginning of the last level). While that is unfortunate and keeps me from giving it a perfect score, the game functions in its most important features, such as hitboxes, controls and movement.

And I think it's that paradox of being both incredibly unfair and incredibly fair that hits a sweet spot for an incredibly engaging title, worthy of being considered a classic. While rough around the edges, Ninja Gaiden is well worth playing even to this day.