PrinceWatercress plays Ninja Gaiden for Sega Master System - Part 1 of 8

After seeing ProtonJon play this game all these years ago, it's my turn. Surprisingly, I ended up liking this one.

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The plot, according to Wikipedia:

"Ryu Hayabusa is a member of the Dragon Ninja clan, who have protected Japan for generations. One day 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 finding 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. He embarks on a trip to regain the Sacred Scroll of Bushido from the hands of the evil Shogun of Darkness and his minions."

Chapter 1: Escape In A Forest

The Control Pad lets you move around, Button 2 lets you jump and Button 1 lets you swing your sword. By holding Up in mid-air, you can grab ledges from underneath. Holding Down and pressing 2 on a ledge lets you drop down and grab the underside again. Down lets you crouch, and Down-Left and Down-Right let you duck walk. Holding Up and pressing 1 lets you use your special weapon, but that costs ninjutsu. Up and Down lets you climb ladders, and pressing Left or Right on a ladder lets you stand on it.

Unlike other games in the series, you cannot climb walls; you can only wall jump by holding the Control Pad towards a nearby wall and pressing 2. This ability would later show up in the 3D games.

The HUD has your score, your ninjutsu (which you'll need to use your special weapons), your current amount of lives and your time. To the right of all that is your current special weapon, and to the right of that is your current health and the chapter boss' current health. When you take damage, you'll usually lose only one unit of health, meaning that Ryu can take a bit of a beating before losing a life.

You only have so much time in a level, so get a move on.

The scrolls contain power-ups, and by striking the scrolls with your sword, you can get these power-ups.

The white sparkle is a shuriken that travels forward and hits any enemy in its path. The bigger white star

The light-blue Japanese symbol is ninjutsu. Collect it to get 50 ninjutsu. Believe it or not, you can have more than 999 ninjutsu, even though the game cannot display anything past that number. The red symbol will give you 100. 

The fire spiral gives you a shield that moves around and destroys enemies.

The white spiral gives you a four-way shot.

The white Japanese symbol gives you points.

The four fireballs gives you four homing fireballs that move towards any enemies on the screen. This weapon is useful and perhaps the best one in the game.

Enemies and hazards include green ninjas that slowly move forward, green ninjas that jump in and out to throw shurikens at you, bamboo spikes, bombs that blow up when you get near unless you hit them with your sword.

There are some walls you can go through shortly after beginning.

To beat the sumo wrestler, get up to him and hit him two or three times, then jump onto the ledges in the trees to avoid his charge attack. When he hits the wall, red ninjas will drop down. Avoid them and hit the sumo two or three more times. Repeat until he goes down. Be sure to come to this battle with as much time as possible, because the amount of time you have applies to the entire chapter.

After beating the sumo wrestler, he will tell you to go to Tokyo before he is suddenly killed and can say more.