Difficulty:

Hard

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Shadow Warriors (Ninja Gaiden) – NES review by Simon a.k.a. [TheDevilDweller]
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*****Review*****
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Shadow Warriors (also knew as "Ninja Gaiden") was developed by Tecmo, which was
First released in Japan back in 1988, North America a year later and finally Europe in 1991. It was also released on the Sega Master System a year later as well as other consoles. Although the same creators as these games did not make the Ninja Gaiden games we know today, Ninja Gaiden on the PlayStation and XBOX still follow the same concept.

The plot is that you play Ryu Hayabusa and you seek revenge for your father's death. Along his journey, he is possessed with a strange statue, which he later finds out that there are two statues and when both statues are together, a demon that has being asleep for 700 hounded years will awake. Ryu must stop whoever is trying to awake the demon, and finally get his revenge.

For the 8-bit NES, the graphics are quite good for it's time. One thing I find weird is that at the start of the game (before hitting start) you get a quick cut scene of two ninja's having a one on one fight. Before they start fighting they're standing in a field and the ground is moving from left to right while the ninja's are just standing in one stop. Yes I know it's meant to be grass moving in the wind, but I just thought it was kind of funny. That's what makes the NES a unique console. You need a good imagination to make out most of what is being represented on screen.

The controls are good and responsive but the gameplay itself can be quite challenging, much like Ninja Gaiden on the PlayStation and XBOX today. My main problem with the gameplay is that every time you get hit you fly back, which is okay, but it's not okay when the platforms you need to jump onto are so narrow with guy on them throwing crap at you, making the jump quite tricky to do without getting hit causing you to fly back and falling of the ledge. Unlike in most game where when you get hit you are partially invisible for a brief moment and don't take damage. In Shadow Warriors, once you get hit you have a fraction of a second to get your ass out of harms way otherwise you'll just keep taking hits. You health bar can take a good few hit but one wrong move and your life can grain faster than you can say WTF. Also, sometimes when you get hit and get sent flying back, Ryu sometimes grabs onto a side of a wall, which can be quite annoying especially when you fall of a ledge and Ryu grabs the side of the wall right at the bottom edge of the screen. What's the point? There's no way you can make it back up. Ryu just does that to give you the false impression that you can still make it, but you can't… *** hole. The level design is what you would expect for an 8-bit console. You move from one end of the screen (whether is starting from the left or right) and the main goal is to make it to the other end without dieing, and fighting a boss after every stage.

At stage 2-2 there is a part where you have to climb down a set of ladders in order to get to the lower ledge of the level, and when I say have to I mean you have to. If you jump down, which is what you naturally probably would do, you die, which is really stupid.

The boss fights are really easy to follow and can be quite simple. They move in a set path, which consists of you moving in, landing a few hit then backing off. Jumping over them can be quite tricky and the stages are quite linear, which make it easy to get hit a lot. The end boss is just ridiculously hard.

The enemy's reappear, which is very annoying. You kill an enemy and if you get knocked back or move back, the enemy you killed before reappear. Now why is that annoying? Well sometime when you get knock back by an enemy, the other enemy tends to reappear right behind you and they just gang up on you. It gets even more frustrating when you're trying to jump from ledge to ledge i.e. stage 3-1 you have to jump from ledge to ledge and there are eagles and other crap trying to kill you like guy with swords, as well as leopardess. Sometimes the enemies reappear right when you take a jump.

You have a time limit for every stage or level, which naturally, your in a hurry to make it to the end. It's kind of like Mario Bros except in Shadow Warriors (or Ninja Gaiden) you tend to forget there is a time limit. Unlike Mario where it gives you some kind of indication when you have so much time left, Shadow Warrior starts beeping when you have 10 seconds left, which isn't really helpful or fair, but you are given enough time to finish the level or stage without to much hassle.

You have a considerable amount of lives and when you loose all your lives, you start back at the beginning of the level, which is good. There are checkpoints along the way, but when all your lives are gone, you start the level again regardless. There is also no password system, which sucks because you'll have to play through the game in one sitting. There are 6 levels (or "Acts") to play through.

There are several ninja powers you have, which consists of you pressing the up button and B to do (The A Button it used to jump). The abilities include ninja starts, boomerang stars, and shoot fire things and so on. Your normal attack is your blade, which is a short-range weapon. Items are scattered throughout each level in jars and flying birds? Yeah birds that fly in one spot and when you hit them (like you would a jar) and item falls out of them… hmm.

Enemies, you have boxers, ninjas, guys with swords, guys with bazookas, guys that just run into you with backpacks that kind of look like parachutes or whatever, green guys with scary looking faces that throw sticks at you, kind of like the hammer brothers in Mario Bros, guys with baseball bats, guys that throw medieval spike ball chains, guys that throw axes, mime looking freaks that do spin kicks that can kick your *** in a matter of second, as well as the boss fights and other enemies. The most annoying enemies in the game are animals, which I really bloody hate. You have leopards, weird looking purple dog things, flying eagles and birds as well as bats.

Shadow Warriors is definitely one of the most frustrating games on the NES. I hate the fact how enemies or on very narrow platform which make the jump even more annoying to do. I'm not really a big fan of the Ninja Gaiden saga, however I do like the Dead or Alive series, but in all honesty the game is quite good for it's time and it is still playable, challenging and still worth checking out.

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FINAL OVERALL SCORE – 7/10
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Shadow Warriors (Ninja Gaiden) – NES review by Simon a.k.a. [TheDevilDweller]
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