(full disclosure, i broke a small personal rule of mine with this one and played this game’s remake, ninja warriors: once again, before the original release. in the end they were closer than i expected, but i figured it’d be important to share my position upfront as subtle biases are inevitable)

Kinda torn between a hard 3 and a soft 4 with this one, but don’t let my indecision fool you - this is quite an excellent 2D beat 'em up. At this point I’m close to saying the shortcut to making an enjoyable beat 'em up is to just add a million moves to the game, but Natsume’s approach to Ninja Warriors was a bit more thoughtful than that. There’s usually a good reason to pick one move over another in combat, which is mighty impressive for a game with popcorn enemies that die in just a few hits, and selecting a new character feels tantamount to switching the game cartridge entirely. Take Kunoichi and Ninja, the two characters I’ve played through the game with at the point of writing. When I heard that Ninja lacked a proper jump in a genre I had previously perceived as overly simple, I foolishly disregarded him for Kunoichi on my first run of Once Again, but in retrospect he honestly might be my favorite character in the game. While the main difference between basic combos may be nothing more than range and damage, every other layer makes the two feel anything but similar, even when they share a similar template in a general sense. Kunoichi’s jump vs Ninja’s dash, her rebounding air attacks vs his short offensive hop attack, the fact that Ninja can move while holding an enemy while Kunoichi cannot, etc. I could go on but the little details really add up and break up the experience of playing the game quite nicely. It admittedly sounds pretty basic on paper, but the suffocating waves of enemies and sharp boss design counter-balance the relatively simple mechanics to ensure every run feels fresh in some way regardless of which character you end up using. It's some really smart stuff.

Where I actually hit a bit of a snag was surprisingly with the meter management, and here’s where I have to unfairly compare the game to its remake that came out 25 years after the original. Since you only have two ways to spend meter here, and any second spent without a full bar puts you at risk of losing the whole thing in an instant, I found myself instinctually playing safe and holding onto my meter for longer stretches of time, until eventually using a bomb as a free escape tool when I inevitably but myself in a nasty situation. Maybe it’s my previous experience with Once Again talking here, but I was surprised at how much the loss of a cheap ranged attack affected the way I viewed and utilized the meter. In the remake each character has a ranged attack for a fraction of your meter (from what I can recall it has roughly the same cost as a metered combo ender), and while it can’t be understated how powerful these moves can be, I mostly find them compelling for how it shifts your perspective on every element of play. In both versions, a knockdown with a partially filled energy bar is enough to drain it, so no matter what you’re putting yourself at some risk by not filling the bar asap. However, since your metered options are far stronger in Once Again, the temptation to spend meter more frequently grows exponentially. Ranged attacks are simultaneously easy to burn thanks to their strength and relatively low cost, while still having a bit of long term risk associated with it every time you spend that meter, and this small addition leads to a hectic flow where you’re spending meter frequently to clear rooms efficiently while still being punished later on for poor meter management.

To clear the air, I don’t want to imply that one version of this system is a flat improvement over the other. JohnHarrleson made an excellent case for how the original game’s implementation of meter usage can be just as engaging in his review of the game, and Once Again owes most of its success to the excellent foundation laid by the SNES classic that preceded it anyway, but in presenting two games that are similar on the surface yet exceedingly different in execution, it’s only natural for everyone to develop their own preferences. Ultimately I think the most impressive thing about this pair of titles is how natural the evolution to Ninja Warriors and Once Again was, how tenderly changes were applied to the core game without completely morphing its identity. If I could change one thing about the remake it would be to include the original ROM on the disc, because while I ended up preferring Once Again on the whole, I don’t really think you’re missing out on a dramatically better experience by picking it over this. At this point Natsume has more than sold me on their personal flavor of arcadey game design and their ability to expertly reevaluate their old work in a new light, so I’m extremely excited to keep exploring their library and see what else has been slowly forgotten by the public over time.