Ninja Spirit

The Good
Every gamer who is a fan of shoot-em-ups would have played R-Type. Irem’s game was quite popular that the Japanese company made a sequel two years later. But before that, they made several games of different genres, and one of these was Ninja Spirit, an excellent game that was ported to popular home systems like the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and the Amiga, all of these ports have their ups and downs. For example, in the ZX Spectrum version of the game, you can’t see what you are doing. The Amiga version, meanwhile, has good music but poor gameplay. Ninja Spirit was also released for the TurboGrafx-16, and it makes these other ports look like shit.

In Ninja Spirit, you play the role of Tsukikage, a ninja set out to avenge his father’s death. The game plays like other platform games of the time – you go through the level left to right, shooting a whole lot of enemies that get in your way, and defeat a boss at the far end to advance to the next stage. What makes the game unique is the way you can gain a helping hand in the form of shadows that copy your every move. As far as I know, no other platform games offer this feature. You can also switch between four different weapons, with the possibility of getting more along the way.

There are a total of seven stages, and each stage has some nice touches. For instance, in the first stage alone, an enemy is seen underneath the platform you’re on, and he attempts to poke you with his spear. In the fifth stage, you have to climb up a series of platforms in order to reach the boss at the top. Speaking of bosses, they are huge, almost filling up the entire length of the screen.

Not only is it so faithful to the original coin-op version, but it also boasts two modes. In the “PC Engine mode’, you can take so many hits before you go down, while “Arcade mode” acts much the same way as the original; just one hit and you’re dead. The introduction is also quite different. You see Tsukikage’s master killed by some magic, and Tsukikage himself as a white wolf and howls at the site of his corpse.

The cover looks good. It has Tsukikage front and center, while his shadows appear on either side of him. In the background is one of the bosses looking sinister as hell. The title is stylized in a way that matches the cover for the other versions of the game.

Sound-wise, this howling Tsukikage makes sounds brilliant. During the game, both the music and the effects are on par with the arcade’s. The music on the first stage is missing the beats, but this gives it more of an oriental feel to it. My favorite has to be the first stage’s, even if the aforementioned beats are missing. You can listen to you favorite music through the sound test on the main menu.

The Bad
A bit more information should have been displayed on the main game screen, so that your current weapon is not restricted to a small window on the upper-left and found at the bottom of the screen like that in the coin-op version.

The Bottom Line
The TG-16 received an amazing port of Ninja Spirit. Graphics and sound are great, as is the overall gameplay. You might want to try it out if you are a fan of platformers.