Developer: Taito Publisher: Taito Release: 03/12/93 Genre: Action
Taito stumbled on to something great with its triple monitor setup in Darius. For a shooter being able to see enemies coming in advance to plan ahead is a god send. The game also took advantage of it with massive bosses that gave the game a level of spectacle not common in the arcade at the time. Unfortunately they tried to apply that same formula to a side scrolling beat em up to mediocre results. The Ninja Warriors was not an especially notable title outside of using three screens yet somehow received a number of home ports. The Mega CD version is the best of all of them but that is the equivalent of being the world’s tallest midget. This one wisely stayed in Japan.
The wacky story sees Banglar, the President of the United States, declare martial law. A group of scientists oppose this idea and create robotic ninja to fight against the government in their stead. The Mega CD version adds narration to the silent arcade intro and it is in English to boot. Not that the plot is important of course but surprisingly almost the entire game is in English. This would make it an easy import. The problem is the game is simply not good so why even bother.
Mechanically Ninja Warriors is simple. You have a limited number of shuriken for long distance and a kunai for melee. You can hold the attack button to block ranged fire and certain attacks but it is unreliable. While blocking you can also perform a somersault. This is purely a defensive move as it has invincibility frames and there is no platforming in the game. For the home port you can map jump to a button rather than pressing up. Not that it makes much of a difference but it is a nice addition.
And that is about it. The simple gameplay extends to the overall game design. Ninja Warriors is as basic a beat em up as they come. You walk in a straight line and slash at generic enemies in levels that drag on far too long. There is no platforming or anything else to break up the monotony. The limited enemy variety makes this even worse. For the majority of the game you will face brain dead soldiers who bum rush you. The few stronger enemies like the snipers and ninjas are more annoying than exciting to face. A deeper move set or even the basic platforming would have done wonders to spice up the action. As it is the game is plodding and boring.
Ninja Warriors stays true to its arcade roots in its difficulty. You have a single life and only three credits to reach the end. There are no power-ups either. You can replenish your stock of shuriken by defeating the tougher ninjas but that is it. With no way to replenish health aside from finishing a level which is tough. You would think walking in a straight line would make it easy. But the sheer number of enemies makes walking more than a few steps without taking damage hard. The best course of action in most cases is to run away, especially against ninjas. The boss battles follow the beat em up standard of cheap hits and damage and are frustrating as all get out. It does not feel satisfying winning against them; it is aggravating knowing that you tolerating their bullshit so long. But that describes the game overall.
Even though it had to be paired back the graphics stack up to the arcade pretty well. The resolution is lower and the screen is letter boxed to better frame the action. The sprites are nearly the same size and despite the reduction in color it is not glaring. The game throws around a lot of medium sized sprites with no slowdown. The animation is robotic and stiff unfortunately but you can’t have everything. The true star of the game is the bitching rock soundtrack, presented in red book audio for your listening pleasure. While the game is repetitive as hell at least the great music relieves some of that tedium.
In Closing
The Ninja Warriors is a solid port of the arcade game. The problem is this was not a good game in the arcade to begin with. The only thing it had going for it was the spectacle of using three monitors to display its graphics. Without that you are left with a repetitive, mediocre action game that cannot hold your attention for long. The SNES remake is what this game wishes it could have been.
