Ninja Gaiden (NES) Review

This was one of the games I got with my NES back in '89 or '90. I was never able to beat it without a Game Genie back then. I just got sick of having to play through the entirety of Act 6 every time I lost to any of the 3 end bosses. I utilized the save states available on the Classic Edition in Act 6 to get through it this time. I'm very confident I could beat it without the save states, so maybe I'll give it a go again on my cartridge sometime soon. Other than the Act 6 annoyance (I never felt inclined to try to beat it legitimately after using the Game Genie because of this, and this is actually the first time I've played it again in around 30 years), the major things that bring this down for me are the instant respawning of enemies and hitboxes that are anything but pixel-perfect. I also really dislike how you'll be moving right, get hit by an enemy moving right, and then bounce to the left, which seems to be a common convention in games of this type during the 8- and 16-bit eras. Since I'd experienced all the cutscenes, I skipped through them this time, but I do remember really liking them 30+ years ago. Really, just get rid of that one shot at the end boss, then back to the beginning of Act 6 if you fail, and this would be a truly great game in my eyes.

Dates played: Apr. 21, 2021
Playtime: 1h 57m
Date reviewed: Apr. 21, 2021
Date posted: Feb. 21, 2023
Rating: 8/10

This time on my NES cartridge. Only took me 3 attempts at Jaquio and then I actually defeated the final boss on my first try with just the sword thanks to getting a fortunate spray pattern of its little mini-aliens (or whatever) it spews out to where I didn't really have to move around much to avoid them. I was thinking that the reason to send you all the way back to 6-1 instead of 6-3 after a defeat was so you could build up a full amount of "spiritual strength", but you can get that to the max 99 just from 6-3.