Sunday, December 30, 2012

ProtonJonSA plays Ninja Gaiden for Master System - Chapter 1

I really wanted to do a walkthrough for this after seeing this series. I really wished to. But as soon as I saw how different this was from the NES trilogy, I felt compelled to do my own play-by-play "thoughts" on the game.

First of all, the game is much different from the NES trilogy. It's not hard from the get-go like the fabled series we know and love; instead, it's kinda easy. It's developed by Sega under license from Tecmo, meaning that Tecmo had nothing to do with the development of this game whatsoever. Plus, this was never released in America; instead, this was only purchasable in Australia, Brazil and Europe as the Master System had been discontinued in America because the NES was kicking its butt.

I also found some story details from Wikipedia:

Ryu Hayabusa is a member of the Dragon Ninja clan, who have protected Japan for generations. One day, while he is away from home, he receives a message that the Dragon Village, home of the Dragon clan, has been brutally massacred.

He rushes home only to find that all but one of the village members have been killed. The last survivor of the village tells Ryu with his dying breath that the sacred Bushido scroll has been stolen. The Bushido is a scroll of power so strong that its owner can control the world.

As the last Ninja of the Dragon clan, the fate of the world is in its hands, and he must embark on a trip to regain the Sacred Scroll of Bushido from the hands of the evil Shogun of Darkness and his minions.

There are two versions of the game that exist. The first version tells the story through the eyes of Ryu himself, explaining his experiences in great detail. The second version is narrated from an outside source, but some details of the plot are not explained as much.

To make a long story short: if Ryu never left Japan, this is probably what he'd be doing.

You can hold more than 99 units of Ninjitsu power this time, which is something I'm sure many people other than myself have wished for on occasion while playing the trilogy. And when you die this time, that number doesn't get chopped in half and you don't lose your special power in the process! Yes!

Boss battles are a little weird. The bosses seem normal and not as wacky in comparison to the characters that fans are used to in the NES trilogy. Instead, you start off fighting a...sumo wrestler. Yeah. Seems lame in comparison to the Stage 5 boss from the first Ninja Gaiden (NES), but still...could the bosses start being any more unoriginal than this?

Not to say that it's a bad game from what I've seen so far. From what I've seen, this game goes faster and looks better than the NES games ever did, due to the Master System having superior hardware over the NES. Wall climbing has been replaced with bouncing off the walls, similar to the XBox Ninja Gaiden series, and Ryu climbs ladders in this one. This one even allows for hidden walls, as you'll see early in the first level.

I've got gripes, though. For example, why are there bombs littered in a few places that hurt you unless you attack them with your sword, and why do the spikes kill you even if you still have that "invincibility flash" after you've taken a hit? The latter just brings back bad memories of the first Mega Man game. And when you hit a boss, they flash for a second before you can damage them again? It's off-putting at first play, but you get used to it.

Can't wait to see what else this game has in store, though...
- PrinceWatercress, 3/3/2011
2:48 - Here's the first opening cutscene of the game.
3:39 - This is where the game starts.
3:52 - If you press both buttons at the same time, you'll pull off some sort of ninja explosion that destroys all the enemies on the screen. It uses a few units of your health, though, so keeping your health as high as you can is even more crucial in this game than it is in the NES trilogy.

4:01 - Here's the first bomb. If you touch one, the bomb explodes half a second later. If you slash it with your sword or use a ninjistu technique on it, you can destroy it.

4:25 - Here's the first hidden wall. The second one will be in the next screen.
5:17 - Yes. That's right. Instant death spikes. Why it acts more like a pit is beyond me.
6:05 - Here's the first boss of the game: a sumo wrestler. Yes. That's right. A plain old boring sumo wrestler. I've never seen one so powerful that he can bash into a wall, cause an earthquake, and cause ninjas to drop sword/head-first into the ground in an attempt to destroy you. He flashes for a second before you can hit him again, which is really annoying either on first playthrough or if you're used to the NES trilogy. When you defeat him, he just stands in place and explodes. He doesn't even disappear.

6:53 - Just like the NES games, there's a cutscene at the beginning of every stage.

7:36 - The "Ninjya" in "Ninjya Gaiden" is really the Romani (read: English) translation of how ninja is pronounced in Japanese. But they spell the word "pursuit" wrong. "Pursit in Tokyo." I LOL'd.

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