Difficulty:

Very Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"All it's cracked up to be"

Ninja Gaiden III wraps up an engaging trilogy involving a ninja, a CIA agent, a whole lot of deceit, and stupidly-cheap demons. It's also every bit as challenging and difficult as its fore bearers, unforgiving in its stance and all the more willing to throw anything and everything at you as you plow your way against a sinister plot that once again threatens humanity.

Former CIA agent Irene Lew is dead, and Ryu Hayabusa has been linked to her murder. All the while evil forces are at work developing a series of super humans as a means of establishing a strangehold upon an unsuspecting world. As Ryu, your task is to seek the true element responsible for Irene's death, unravel the mystery surrounding the bionoids and take down a massive monolith known as Castle Rock Fortress. Hardly as easy as it sounds, and I use the term loosely. Just as it was with the previous games in the series, pleas from those who had hoped the franchise would be easier to bear have apparently fallen on closed ears. Gaiden III is tougher, meaner and far more challenging than it ever was. You still get knocked back every time you take damage. You are still returned to the beginning of a level every time you die, forcing you to wear your fingers to the bone to renegotiate difficult pratfalls you thought you had left behind. To make matters worse, the game only gives you five credits before you are forced to play the game from its beginning. Definately not for the faint of heart, but certainly every bit as satisfying to a masochist.

The production values of Gaiden III are quite impressive for a Nintendo game with some neat parallax scrolling and improved graphics. Ryu can now scale up and down any wall, and benefits from the use of some new items and weapons--like a new sword and life potions to restore lost energy. And, as always, emphasis on story was one of the major key elements of the games. Cut-scenes seem shorter this time around, but nonetheless, the story is well-told and decently written--replete with plot twists, shocking surprises (gasp!) and sinister Nintendo villainry.

Overall, if you enjoy a challenge that will no doubt send you into bouts of profanities, result in broken controllers and leave windows and walls shattered, there's a lot to like (and hate) about Ninja Gaiden III. Know what you're getting yourself into, and to quote the game manual for Ninja Gaiden II, "have a great time".