Guest Throw Back Review: Ninja Gaiden Master System

August 21, 2012 | by Ninja-Butler | Reviews

Ninja Gaiden on Master System was released as a stand alone title in 1992 in the dying days of the console when some truly great titles were coming out. In it you still play as Ryu Hayabusa of the Dragon Clan, and this time he comes back home from a mission to find his whole village has been destroyed by evil forces and their most precious and only true artifact the Bushido has been stolen. Ryu finds the last survivor of the village dying and gets all the information he can, then heads to the forest to hunt down the scum responsible.

This game is a typical 2D side scrolling platformer as was normal for the day, but gameplay wise there is nothing typical about it. The controls are incredibly responsive, as they need to be to get you out of many tricky situations the game throws at you, including shifting platforms, enemies that follow you, hard to reach obstacles and rock hard enemies. Ninja Gaiden is set over 7 levels that are split into 3 sections each, and the last stage is a 2 stage boss fight. These levels are very varied, they range from cities to forests to waterfalls to dark castles, each level is unique in its own way, and they all have unique to that level enemies, ones that fly, ones that jump, ones that walk from side to side and shoot, and ones that throw or swing weapons at you, but how will Ryu cope with these, well he has his trusty sword at the ready always.

His suicide flash attack and of course, the arts of ninja magic, he has of course the generic shurikens, but he also has a flame shield, 4 way shurikens and tracking fireballs to blaze through any enemy. These all require magic or Ninpo as it is also known, this can be collected all over all the levels, and when you save up to get 999 magic points, your magic becomes infinite, meaning if you have the fireball tracker magic, you can make the game much easier for yourself.

This game is a dream to play, the motion is very fast considering it’s 8 bit, the enemies are all varied and some are down right dangerous, you have to really think about all of your moves before you make them, if you move too fast or jump without thinking you could take damage or be knocked into a hole before you can even react. So overall, this game is a very good experience, the great features are the graphics, gameplay, and creativity, but there are a few flaws, like the endless surprise attacks, the difficulty of some of the bosses, traps in levels that are near impossible to get past and a lack of good magic powers. But if you are a good gamer there are very few games on Master System that can top this one, it is a great challenge and an all round fun game. It isn’t as hard as the ones on NES, but that makes it a more user friendly title, it is doable, it’s only as hard as you make it. To find copies of this game is tricky however, for a cart only copy expect to pay £5, box and cart about £8 and anything up to £20 for a complete collectors condition copy, but it is worth every penny I promise you. This post was a guest article by our friend Ninja Butler, check out his blog here!

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