| paleface [sys=NES; cat=Platformer; reg=UC] |
| | | I remember buying this game back in the day and it felt like a big deal. Ninjas! Good music! It seemed really cool! But it was so hard! I never got very far in it. ^ _^
From Hardcore Gaming 101 and MobyGames, the original writer/director, Hideo Yoshizawa, did Ninja Gaiden I and II, but was only executive producer on III. Those were all on the NES. |
|
|
| | | I had been resisting re-acquiring this here in my platforming renaissance because it has what I was thinking of as wall jumping--but after playing Shinobi III--see entry 972--which definitely has wall-jumping I didn't like, and happening to look at the Ninja Gaiden NES games again, I realize the wall jumping here is a two-stage affair: you fasten firmly onto the wall, then jump off at your leisure--which I think I don't particularly mind; that's in contrast to what seems to have become the predominate form of wall-jumping since, where you actively have to push off a wall in mid-jump, or fall.
(Giant Bomb calls the Ninja Gaiden version a "wall cling" https://www.giantbomb.com/wall-jump/3015-5/ .) |
|
|
| | |
Starting out in Ninja Gaiden for NES, played in Mesen with Infinite Lives and Infinite Time (that cheat, SXVYGYVG, wasn't in Mesen--got it from https://gamehacking.org/game/30421).
I forgot to account for the rather wide aspect ratio once I'd cut off the game's bottom and especially large top black border, so the right side of the screen got cut off slightly! Not only that, I was in such a rush that I also forgot to check to see if the game should run in the square-pixels aspect in which most games were drawn, or the slightly wider NTSC aspect in which it would have displayed on its audience's TVs! Here, the O in "TECMO" at the beginning, and most of the sprites during gameplay, look more correctly proportioned in NTSC aspect, but occasional things like the big moon in the intro cinematic are definitely better proportioned in square pixels! But probably gotta go with NTSC overall; I'd left this on square pixels, so not only was it too narrow 'cause I forgot to adjust the aspect after cutting off the top and bottom black bars, it was FURTHER too narrow 'cause I wasn't displaying the pixels wide enough! Er anyway that'll all be straightened or stretched out next episode = oo
Got Infinite Lives on but the stages are pretty long and I don't think they tend to have checkpoints so I just started save scumming anyway. ; D
Wikipedia: 'The series was originally known as Ninja Ryukenden (忍者龍剣伝, Ninja Ryūkenden, "Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword") in Japan. The word "gaiden" in the North American Ninja Gaiden title means "side story" in Japanese.'
'Since the game's title was deemed too difficult for English audiences to read, it was renamed when it was released in Western markets.[26] In early 1988 advertisements from Nintendo Fun Club News, Tecmo used Ninja Dragon as a tentative title for the U.S. release.[34] They decided to use the title Ninja Gaiden (its original working title) when the game was released in the U.S. in March 1989.[35] The title literally means "Ninja Side-Story", but the game was not intended as a spin-off of any prior work.[26] According to an interview with developer Masato Kato, when deciding how to translate "Ryukenden" into English, the staff chose Ninja Gaiden "because it sounded cool".'
'the gameplay was modeled after Konami's Castlevania'
Man I'm really annoyed with myself for totally boning up the capture dimensions. I did a test capture first but was too rushed/out-of-it to notice. 8 P |
|
|
| | |
Wasn't at all clear what to even do vs the final boss, but still, pretty darn classic game, pure hard platforming with lovely presentation--and I appreciate how most of the bosses were actually pretty easy; heck even the last ones are probably quite easy once you work out the simple pattern necessary to evade their attacks, which at first seem nigh unavoidable.
Feels like Ryu's sword swing--but not his movement--has a slight delay built in, so you gotta anticipate your target a little; was smashing my face into swiftly-closing foes for a while until I started to realize that! |
|
|
| | |
