Anyway, the game came out in Japan as The Ninja Warriors Again, and it's a chronological sequel to the arcade original. They took the "Again" out when they released it the West. In Europe, the game was called Ninja Warriors: The New Generation, and ran at a slower speed than the NTSC versions from both America and Japan. In the West, the European and American version are treated as a re-telling rather than an actual sequel.
It should also be noted that in the Japanese version, there's blood! It's still green, but it's there. Also, there are female enemies, and they're pretty fun to fight.
Stage 1
There are three characters to choose from. The Ninja is slow and can barely jump, but is very powerful. The Kunoichi is the middle-of-the-road character, while the Kamaitachi is the weakest but is pretty fast, although the Kamaitachi takes some practice to play with and cannot throw enemies. I'm using the Ninja, because the Ninja gave me the best results.
That robot is too tall and too heavy to be a ninja...or is it?
Anyway, you'll be running to the right and destroying everything in your way. You'll be punching. You'll be slicing. You'll be throwing. You'll be blocking. You'll be duck walking. You'll be flying (somewhat) in the air and kicking people on the way down. And nunchaku will be tossed around. Yes. Nunchaku.
Besides using Y to hit your basic combo (which can be done while standing or crouching), you can move into enemies to grab at them. From there, you can hold forward on the Control Pad. and press Y to throw enemies forward, hold up and Y for another throw, or hold Down and Y for a third type of throw.
Holding Y allows you to block. From there, you can hold away and B to do a backflip.
As the Ninja, you cannot jump (unlike the other two characters). As a result, B lets you hover for a while, and pressing it again lets you float even higher for a second before you return to the ground. Pressing Y while hovering allows you to do a spin attack. Holding Down and pressing B lets you do a stomp attack.
The other two characters just have regular jumping attacks.
Also as the Ninja. holding forward on the Control Pad and pressing B lets you dash. Running into an enemy hits a shoulder attack, but you can press Y before then to hit a dashing kick.
There are three sizes of energy canisters. The small ones give you 1/6 of an energy bar back, the medium ones give you 1/3 of a bar, and the large one gives you a complete refill.
Halfway through the level, you'll be seeing missiles rising in the background and falling from the sky on your side of the city. Remember where they are and walk around accordingly. They fall at regular intervals, but they can immediately knock you down, which can be annoying.
The soldier guys are nothing, but the guys with the berets have strong punches and can knock you down with a sweep kick.
The kunoichi will jump around and slash at you with their swords. They are very vulnerable when they jump, as you can anticipate where they land and grab them immediately to throw them. I usually hit them with an atomic drop.
The guys with the guns aren't really good shots. Just like in the original, you can simply duck (and duck walk) past their shots and get away undamaged. Just watch out if they duck; they can throw a grenade at you.
The boss here is some huge robot guy with a red mohawk that's taller than even the ninja. Since he'll always block your attacks, throw those soldiers that show up at him. Using a dashing kick also works. If your blaster energy is full, press X to use a screen-clearing bomb that destroys all normal enemies on the screen and does a good amount of damage to the boss. This uses all your blaster energy, so be careful.
Stage 2
Remember, if you're surrounded by enemies, use the blaster. It slowly refills on its own as you beat up one enemy as a time, so use it when you need to. To use it, hold Up and press Y after the first two hits of a standing or crouching combo. This uses a little bit of your blaster energy, and while it can be quickly refilled, make sure not to get hit before then, or else you'll lose all that energy and you'll have to do a full recharge.
The blaster energy fills up quickly, but starts filling up more slowly when you near maximum capacity.
The kabuki guys take multiple hits, but they just stab at you like the soldier guys. Big whoop. Also, one of the taller soldier guys looks like Gordon Freeman, and he can pack a punch. I'm not kidding.
The robot in the middle of the stage either has to be thrown or have something thrown into it. Punches are ineffective. It also shoots a laser at the ground, so don't let it stand around doing nothing. If you can somehow get behind it, you'll be able to hit it with your combo from behind.
In the second section, you'll see blue variations of the red gun guys. They're the same as the red ones, they just take more damage. Also, wait for the rotor blades to stop spinning before you walk through them, otherwise you'll take a lot of damage.
The guys with the claws jump around a lot. Punch them whenever you can, even if you can get only one shot on him at a time while doing so. Throwing other enemies into them works great, but the best way to take them down is with a ducking combo.
The boss here is a guy with a shogun's helmet, cargo pants, an apron and a chainsaw. Be sure to duck whenever you can, and punch at him whenever you're in range. Throwing enemies into him and dashing kicks work too.
Stage 3
No sooner do you start the stage that you'll face a new enemy. He looks like Ken from Street Fighter, except he has spiky shoulder pads, he breathes fire and he can teleport. Fun. You'll also have to fight four kabuki guys at the same time at the end of this section.
In the second section, you'll face another huge dude (he's a new guy) and two more kabuki guys. If you throw the kabuki guys into the big guy, the big guy isn't much of a problem. You'll then face two kunoichi. Not much else here.
As you make your way through the third section, you'll face guys in white suits that can throw and sweep kick you. Why in the world do they look like Neo from The Matrix? Why?!? As always, any crowd control strategies you have will work against these guys. They will show up in different colors throughout the game, and the darker the color of their suits, the more damage they take before they fall.
The boss is some sort of weird skeletal guy. He'll climb on the video wall and toss bombs at you, but if you stay right in front of him, they'll miss. If he throws the bombs, stay under the boss and wait for the bombs to explode before coming after him. If you have to, get in a blocking position and walk backwards to the side. He also turns invisible for a short while, but thankfully you can still see him (kind of). Dashing kicks from the far side of a room work best here, too,
Stage 4
When you finally make it back out into the open, you'll see missiles coming down from the sky. Avoid the missiles and get out of there as soon as possible, and watch the shadows so you can see the missiles coming. Once you're back indoors, a tank comes out along with a robot and an endless supply of soldiers. Use these soldiers to take care of the robot.
You'll then be in an indoor parking lot in the city. You'll see a helicopter, but it won't be a menace to you yet. You'll also see a big guy wearing pink that's just like the guy you saw in Stage 2. In Nintendo games, wearing pink makes you more menacing. I'm still trying to figure out why. Midway through this section, the helicopter comes back. Duck in front of the car and the helicopter's machine gun won't be able to get you. You'll then be fighting bad guys and avoiding the helicopter's firepower at the same time. If you alternate between the left and right sides of the screen here, you won't have to worry about the gun. Just like the fan blades from Stage 2, the gun fire from the Gatling gun on the helicopter can also damage enemies.
After this, you'll fight two more guys in white suits, followed by a brown palette swap of the same guy. Fun.
The boss here is some guy with a purple beret and a cane. That black thing he's carrying is a wireless phone. He'll run away and have soldiers come after you. Throw the soldiers at him, since it's pretty hard to get close to this guy without being whacked three times with a wooden cane (unless you block). He'll also leap on top of the gray wall on the foreground. Sometimes he'll stand on it and talk into his phone. When that happens, a red laser will be pointed at the ground. Run away from it - it sends a superlaser at you that can knock you down and prove very annoying.
Stage 5
You'll be fighting some more guys at the beginning of the stage, until you reach the door to the inside of this nice house. When this happens, you'll fight a white version of the first boss with a pink mohawk. Yes, he blows up when he explodes. Once again, throw, throw, throw.
You'll also meet a small, white robot that tries to shoot at you, but if you keep throwing other enemies at it, you shouldn't have much of a problem.
The second section is another floor of this building. You'll soon enter what looks like a conservative Japanese house, complete with rice paper walls. You'll be fighting a lot of those little guys with the claws as well as what looks like kabuki-masked guys in white bathrobes before you meet the boss: some martial artist.
He teleports behind you a lot, and he even sends two big guys to back him up. Thankfully, their higher amounts of HP lets you use them as weapons a little more often. When he glows red, watch the floor and stay away from the green geysers of fire that come up out of it. If you can get between them shortly after they show up, you should be okay.
Don't expect to combo him, since he'll block your attacks after about two punches. Use dashing shoulder rams, dashing kicks and also combo into your blaster in order to get the jump on this guy.
Stage 6
Yes, you can destroy the statuettes in the background. It takes a bit of doing, but it can be done.
You'll meet the small white robots here again. When you reach the end of the stage, you'll meet up with two robots...one is the gold one you've been seeing throughout the game, while the second one is a crimson recolor of the gold one.
This section isn't very long at all, as you'll fight the bosses soon afterwards. You'll see Benglar, but he'll run away and leave you with two bodyguards of his. They look like the first boss, but they have an even more robotic appearance to them. One is blue, the other is gold.
If these guys aren't jumping around and trying to punch you, they'll usually try to surround you at any given time. Comboing into your blaster power-up is a must here, since the chances are about 50-50 that they'll block your regular combo attack. They also have a nasty slide attack that can not only take you off guard but also works as an embarrassing way of taking your blaster power all the way down if you get hit while it's less than full. If you can stay at one side of the screen and fend these two guys off at the same time, you'll have a much easier time as they won't be able to get behind you. Doing a Down+Y throw on one of them works well if you can do it, but if you can throw one into the other, that's good enough. As long as you play it smart, do crowd control and throw everything you've got at them, you'll beat them.
Stage 7
Apparently the red and blue guys also have a white-clad cousin. At least he looks interesting, since he almost blends into the snow and looks like one of those guys from the Battle of Hoth.
You'll also meet a white version of the robot. Nothing much interesting here, except you have two motorcycles you can throw at it to make destroying it easier. By this point, you'll see missiles falling from the sky...again. It won't be long until you come across another base, where you'll fight off some more robots as well as more big guys.
In the next section, you'll meet a new enemy: some red-headed alien people in yellow spandex. As you fight them, they'll turn a bright white, which keeps you from putting them in a throw attack. They'll try to knee you and rush straight at you with a sliding kick.
You'll then fight four robots at once afterwards. Throw one into the other for your best bet at survival. If you can somehow get them to accidentally destroy one another with their lasers, that's great.
After taking down the four robots, you'll be making your way onto a freight elevator, where you'll be fighting enemies on your way through the horizontal shaft. You'll then be making your way towards another elevator, where you'll face some more enemies (including a few purple-jumpsuited aliens) and a big ugly green guy in a mechanical onesie who serves as the next boss.
He'll jump onto the roof of the escalator and bring it all the way down. If you stand under him, you'll be primed to get the first strike on the guy. He has a two-punches-followed-by-a-lunging low kick combo, an extending arm, and a nasty standing low spin kick. If you can fill up your blaster, do that and use it on everyone on screen. The more damage you can do on this guy at any possible time, the better. Of course, if he's blocking a lot of your attacks, don't be afraid to combo into your blaster.
Your air attacks will work quite well here, as well, since he'll try to move and/or jump towards you.
He sends a lot of henchmen after you, including the robots and the aliens. Throw people into him, combo into your blaster, use your full screen attack...whatever you can. Why? Because this guy's nuts.
Final Stage
Go to the right at the beginning, because you can't go left unless you want harder enemies. Derp. Beat everyone up and you'll go to the next section.
At the end of the second section, you'll fight four big guys at the same time. If you stay at the right side of the screen here and combo into your blaster, you shouldn't have a hard time at all.
The third section is a control center with a jet in the background. After fighting a bunch of enemies, you'll fight two burly guys and two large robots. Take down the large robots first by throwing the burly guys into the robots.
After beating those guys up, you'll be doing some more fighting before you fight another clone of the Stage 1 boss.
Once you finish him off, you'll be in the next section...and so will Benglar! He'll run away again, so go towards the crate and destroy it for a full power-up. You'd better take it before you destroy the last normal enemy, otherwise you won't be able to have access to it.
The boss battle is Benglar. He'll be in some sort of battle mechanism in the forthcoming elevator. Throw the enemies into him, and watch out for the lasers that come out of the ceiling panels next to him. There are three on each side, and you can easily tell where the lasers are coming from. It's always center, right, left. After three laser attacks, all six lasers will fire at the same time, so either stay right under him or walk all the way to the nearest wall before they all fire!
When you knock Banglar off of that machine, you did it! Enjoy the ending, which I'd rather not spoil for you!
