Ninja Gaiden is probably the third hardest of all the NES games I played for this megareview and out of all of them, I’d argue that this was the most unfair thanks to two major flaws.
The first one is a massive oversight in the games respawn system that just has the enemies keep resurrecting themselves after dying and continue to do so until you reach a certain point on the screen. This is simply not fun and just adds hours of unnecessary busy work and just frustrating to play. This is not helped because of the constant need for precision jumping which is next to impossible when a green Santa Clause committing suicide over and over again while a priest fires crosses at me.
The second biggest problem is the wall climbing. This shouldn’t be a problem and could have been a cool feature. However, it’s screwed up because of the fact he constantly clings to things, even when it’s pointless. I kind of wish they just killed you when this happened because it’s just a waste of time.
As I hinted earlier, the graphics for this game are ugly with the exception of the cut scenes which just make me think that this game should have just been a manga or even a graphic novel rather than a video game. It’s hard to figure out what some of the people you are fighting even are, especially in the prison level.
Overall, just an ugly and overly complex game and is not recommended. Just stick to the modern ones.