Moments taking place outdoors are the best in the game, which isn’t so remarkable, but the previous games managed to make us feel the evil beauty of the indoor facilities as well. The backdrops are consistent with the switch to this cold, mechanical theme, and while the majority are well drawn, they are rarely worth mentioning. The game has a decidedly futuristic tilt, and as such, it's robots, robots, robots, with a good deal of alien weirdness thrown in for good measure. Sadly, there are no high-kicking Karatekas knocking you off cliffs, or afro wearing boxers doing the same. Most of the enemies are different naturally, and they’re a decent bunch, the mostly mindless menagerie comprised mainly of zombie types and robots. Worse yet, the tracks actually repeat themselves within the duration of the adventure.īut surely the game looks good? Ninja Gaiden 2 was as beautiful as NES platformers come! Well, understandably, Ryu hasn’t changed - his sprite is virtually identical in all three games. Every tune sounds like an amateur remix of a much better track from a previous game. Ninja Gaiden 3's programmers have managed to emulate the same sort of sound, but have managed to create absolutely no memorable tunes. Music was always a great strength in the series. Right away, our ears tell us that something is amiss. Now that we’re all caught up, we press Start and begin our mission to learn about Irene’s fate and about the Ancient Ship of Doom. As always, different types of magic can be earned by chopping icons down as you go, and power ups are needed to fuel them. Gone are the spirits or friendly doppelgangers from the second game, so we’ll have to make do with the sword and the ninja magic. He stumbles from seemingly random location to location, encountering people and learning too late in each instance what things mean. A corny character named Clancy appears, and if Ryu’s reactions to folks was bright-eyed and naïve in the first two adventures, now he’s downright dumb. But that wasn’t really Ryu, was it? As the real Ryu, we must enter the weird facility that Irene was investigating at the time of her demise so that we may discover the truth, and punish the evildoers at fault. In the opening scene, he appears to coax former friend Irene Lew into an untimely death. Presently, it seems as if our sword-slashing, ninja magic using young protagonist is a murderer. Upon stamping out this threat, Ryu witnessed another arise, years later: the threat of Ashtar, and his Dark Sword of Chaos, the evil counterpart to Ryu’s own Dragon Sword. He 'killed' Ryu’s father, and tried to do the same to Irene, one of Foster’s operatives who eventually grew close to Ryu. Ryu, wielder of the mighty Dragon Sword, was recruited early in his career by one Foster to help extinguish the thread of a madman named Jaquio, who planned to raise up a mysterious, all powerful Demon to unleash upon the world. Probably a quick account of what Ninja Gaiden is all about is in order. This third installment has none of the energy of the first, and has shaken off the refinement of the second, presenting itself as a sad rehash of both with half-baked ideas driving it. Tecmo’s first two games chronicling the troubled life of Ninja Ryu Hayabusa were exceedingly exciting, featuring menacing bad guys with insane yet plausible plots (insofar as a cosmic ninja game can be plausible). It’s a sad thing when a once proud franchise descends to the level of recycling itself, playing all the notes but misplacing the score, manifesting self-parody. ![]() " Ninja Gaiden 2 was as beautiful as NES platformers come! Well, understandably, Ryu hasn’t changed - his sprite is virtually identical in all three games. Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (NES) review
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