Ninja Spirit/Saigo no Nindou (最後の忍道) - PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16

Ninjas and the late 1980's pair like Grilled Bavette of Bœuf and a 4 year old Merlot. So it's no wonder that a favorite gaming meal of the time was the Ninja Game. One of the best is Ninja Spirit. First released in Arcades, but perhaps best known for the fantastic TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine port.

At first glance, Ninja Spirit looks like a play-alike to the contemporary NES Ninja Gaiden game (released the same year). You're a ninja with a sword, you run left-to-right dispatching anything that moves. And while that's all true, the two games diverge radically from each other. I think an argument can be made that Ninja Spirit is the better game in some ways, particularly game mechanics and mood/setting. So much so that Ninja Gaiden went back and adopted some of the ideas from Ninja Spirit in later games.

Ninja Gaiden (NES)

In play, Ninja Spirit plays more like a much more polished, spiritual sequel to The Legend of Kage (LoK), which hit arcades about three years prior. With floaty jumps, throwing stars, certain enemies leave behind powerups, vertical and horizontal levels for variety and an unapologetic, very Japanese setting -- you could be forgiven for thinking these two games (made by different companies) were related somehow. (Note: LoK did in fact get an actual pseudo-sequel, Demon Sword and then a real sequel on the DS.).

What Ninja Spirit brings to the table is a greatly polished version of the basic LoK game mechanics. Jumping is toned down and under more control, your melee weapon is upgraded to a proper sword, you're given two more weapons, upgrades are more interesting, and the most notable game mechanic, "ghosts" are introduced.

While not the very first game to feature computer controlled ghosts that follow and mimic your player, Mickey Mousecapade did something very similar a year earlier, it's probably the first to both get it right and to use it as an upgrade. Pick up one upgrade and you get an invincible ghost clone that follows your exact movements slightly behind you, but attacks simultaneously. Pick up another upgrade and there are two of you. By carefully planning out where your clone trails  you, you can cover large areas of the screen with a single sword slash. Attacking screen filling bosses then become a matter of positioning your clones to attack from different parts of the screen. It's brilliant and has been copied many times since, notably in Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos. It's a single innovation that's left an indelible mark on video games.

The setting and atmosphere of Ninja Spirit is also notable. It's a mystical, ghost and demon filled setting. The color palette is dark and moody, you fight through ruins of old buildings, or cross a plain with voluminous dark ominous clouds slowly crossing the sky. Music crosses into some kind of dark, spooky Japanese electro synth jam and when it comes together it's awesome. Sound effects are designed to mesh well into this framework, the screen clearing power up emits a truly terrifying sound. 

While Ninja Spirit was ported to a number of different platforms, there's something about the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine port that makes it feel just as valid as the Arcade port. Ports to other systems feel like rush jobs and lose that spookiness that drives the arcade version. Reworked just enough to fit the console, every piece of artwork and music was lovingly recreated from scratch and looks like it could have arrived on the console independently.

Going back to the music. It was one of the things that really drew me to the game originally. The music from the first level reminds me of a downbeat version of the work Yuzo Koshiro did on The Revenge of Shinobi a year later. Not every track is fantastic, but the ones that are good really draw you into the mysterious and dark feeling the game is trying to evoke. Grounded in a modern Japanese take on traditional music, using synths to fill out and drive more traditional sounding instruments, it's still very listenable. The rework for the TurboGrafx-16 is quite good considering the limitations of the sound chip. It's clearly the best home version of the soundtrack. 

This game is also hard, old-school arcade hard. The enemies pour into the screen constantly. In later levels they come in as a flood -- without the refinement of later bullet hell concepts. Finding the right pace to proceed, in order to control the incoming enemies is part of the fairly deep strategy of this game. Bosses are likewise varied and difficult. More importantly, each level requires a slightly different approach to learn with the final level, a fall through a cloud of sword slashing ninjas is maddeningly difficult.

However, there's not a lot of game here. A virtuoso playthrough of the entire game is a shocking sub-20 minutes. Some of the difficulty and length is excusable being an arcade game, they're designed to make you feed in more money every couple minutes. But since the TurboGrafx port was so clearly reworked, why not go the extra mile and really rework it for the home market? I'm afraid this version suffers because of the old focus on "the arcade at home" rather then understanding that home consoles are not arcade games. 

Still it's a good game, and thankfully experiencing it won't take too long. I'd say playing the first 2 or 3 levels will give a player an appreciation for the game before the difficulty just turns your emotions into mush. It's worth it for the atmosphere and music at the very least. There's some really interesting ideas here that would be worth digging back up into a modern indie retro-style game.