To me this is the game that showed me that games can tell a story. They are hard as heck, but man I love this trilogy so much. I remember with the first game, I really hated the Jaquio and that was because of the narrative. It’s not the best story told but man it was a blast getting through levels and seeing the story unravel.
I've always been a big fan of this trilogy! The games are hard as all hell but somehow you can't stop playing them. It'll beat your ass and have you wanting to fling your controllers across the room but you'll still be like thank you may i have another? The awesome music and seeing the story unfold through the cutscenes is what kept me going. I played them so much i can pretty much breeze through them now.
I remember Ninja gaiden 2 is actually the first videogame that made me tear up. That ending where Ryu thinks Irene is dead and then the dragon sword brings her back to life chokes me up every time.
@Truegamer79 I find it funny that the only time I've ever actually flung a controller at the wall was over a pretty easy game without much real consequence for failing.
Banana Prince for the NES.
I had a crappy weapon for the fourth boss, a dragon. I hit it every time it got into possible range, and it still wasn't enough. I just didn't like that I had been timer scammed!
... Though this was before I had started to play some Super Mario World ROM hacks, regularly having bad level designs end especially with strict time limits. Was fun to learn that especially with Wendy/Lemmy, you can still time up in the death animation (timer under 6 = still a time up).
LOL And then people say NES games like Zelda II, the first Fire Emblem, or even Mega Man 2 are unreasonable, clunky and unforgiving. If a game from the 1980s prided itself on truly capturing something of ninjitsu and Japanese history, overcoming clearly unfair "challenges" like Ninja Gaiden 1 (just try stage 6-2, I dare you) was part of the ethic.
Sometimes you overcome the most difficult of challenges simply because no one is around to tell you how impossible it is...
Mega Man 2 is a game I'm satisfied with having only finished the western's neutered "Normal" difficulty.
Funny though Ninja Gaiden III is a game that they lowered the difficulty on, but for the English version they quickly inflated it back up (adding double damage, limiting continues and removing the password save introduced in the Japanese version. The west wouldn't get passwords until the SNES port of the trilogy. Which was the way I experienced the game as a kid, so to me its distorted music is normal. I should've thought something was up when Tecmo didn't even change the buttons to the SNES standard, let alone maybe think to USE one of those extra buttons for the ninja magic! )
@Truegamer79 I always had the same feeling about Ninja Gaiden. For as hard as it is, the game just feels fun to control in a way that felt special. That's why I always liked it despite the difficulty. I figured I'd never beat the game, but I did just that a month ago. It felt really good. The key for me was to understand how to and when to de-spawn birds and other enemies, among a few other things. Sometimes, you're better of not attacking.
@KingMike Mega Man 2 on "Difficult" isn't too bad as long as you strictly follow the weakness chain, which means starting with Air Man since he has a secondary weakness to the base cannon. The only thing about starting with Air Man is you need to expect to take a bit of damage while getting right up next to him. It might be worth trying, but if you're satisfied, then that's all that matters. I'm not a pro and I have no shame in admitting that I like some games on easy difficulty. It depends on the game.
Through most of my childhood i was obsessed with anything Ninja or martial arts related. Ninja Turtles, Three ninjas, karate kid etc. If it was a Ninja videogame i was all over that!
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Topic: Ninja Gaiden NES trilogy
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