The Ninja (Sega Master System Review)

The Ninja
Platform: Sega Master System
Released November 8, 1986
Developed by Sega
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

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The Ninja is one of the most generic titles a game could possibly have. It didn’t have to be that way. Based on the coin-op Sega Ninja, which was known in Japan as Ninja Princess, this port swaps a female protagonist for a male one, presumably because in the 80s, game consoles were primarily sold in toy stores and toy stores had distinct sections for boys and girls products. Even though video games should have logically been as gender-neutral as board games, manufacturers had no choice but to choose whether they wanted whatever it was you were selling to be mostly seen by boys or girls. Even when games got their own aisles, the marketing was always based around appealing to boys. In my own experience, I know that when I went to a place like Toys ‘R Us, the video games were always on one far end of the store, directly across from the board games, with action figures and “boys’ toys” on the next aisle, then there would usually be multiple aisles of buffer before you got to “girls’ toys” like Barbies or dolls. It is what it is, but in the case of The Ninja, retaining the female character sprite might have been the type of thing to stand out in an otherwise crowded field of ninja-based games. Mind you, this is before the TMNT craze.

It’s often said the Master System has better graphics than the NES. That might be true on a technical basis, but I find most of the early SMS games look really generic compared to big NES games. Something about the style just doesn’t appeal to me.

The Ninja is one of those games in the mold of Commando or Ikari Warriors, and in fact, the coin-op came out before either of those games. Just replace bullets with unlimited throwing knives and the lone power-up, unlimited shurikens and you’ll get the idea. It’s a very basic game for the most part. Just waves of enemies that act as cannon fodder. You have a relatively big character sprite for a relatively cramped playfield, making dodging enemy projectiles somewhat tricky. Thankfully, unlike Commando or Ikari Warrior, you have a very effective dodge move. By pressing buttons 1 & 2 at the same time, you vanish in a puff of smoke for a second or two. The offensive game is as savvy as the defensive one. Non twin-stick shooters struggle with aiming because you have to walk in the direction you’re facing, but The Ninja gives you a second option: button 2 always shoots upwards. That was smart, especially since most of the stages are strictly vertical scrolling. Since enemies don’t respawn, there’s no time limit, and you can scroll backwards, the logical strategy is to retreat downward while firing upward until you have a clear path to move on. This even works on bosses, none of whom are spongy. So, all is well and good, right? I got to the final level, beat the final boss, and had a decent if unspectacular time.

Oh.

Yea, The Ninja is one of those games that gates you from the true finale unless you collect all the hidden macguffins. In the case of The Ninja, it’s five green scrolls hidden in semi-abstract locations among the first nine levels of the game. In my first playthrough, I only found one, which is the first. It’s all but automatic, at least assuming you kill every enemy, and what’s the point of playing this style of game if you don’t want to kill all the enemies? The others are a little more tricky, but after I looked up how to find the second, I did manage to find the other three without the use of a guide. Once I got into the mindset of the logic of where the scrolls would be hidden, it wasn’t THAT hard to logic it out. Only the final scroll was a little bit more tricky and I wasn’t even entirely sure how I activated it until I looked it up in the guide and realized I didn’t really do anything except move into the right spot, which was the case with a couple other scrolls. The fifth scroll uniquely ends the stage immediately, without having to defeat the boss. The five scrolls provide you with the more complex instructions for how to locate and activate the passage to the true final stage of the game, instructions that would have otherwise been so specific that nobody could possibly do it by accident. All credit to Sega for this one. Usually, I hate it when games hide stuff arbitrarily (see my review of Vs. The Goonies) but it works here because it’s never THAT complicated and it actually was satisfying to find them.

The final level is TOUGH, but in a good way.

The Ninja isn’t spectacular or anything, but the combat is decent enough. I wish there was a bigger variety of weapons or power-ups. The only upgrades are one-at-a-time blue scrolls that speed you up and the red scroll, which turns your throwing knives into shurikens, which cut through all enemies instead of stopping at just the one you hit. All enemies AND YOU are one-hit kills, except for bosses, so a well-thrown shuriken is damn satisfying. There’s only two types of bosses (though their attack might change), but the strategy is the same: scratch-out a distance, then turn and shoot. While the game’s lack of fun stage themes is quite disappointing, with graphics and landscapes that are as bland as tofu, The Ninja is actually a decent overall game.

This is a pretty neat idea. You’re not exactly crossing the river. I think you just have to kill X amount of enemies to force the boss to spawn, then kill him. Still, it made for a nice change-up from the typical scroll upward level design.

It even utilizes three auto-scrolling set-pieces that work well. One has you dodging boulders, the next horses, and finally there’s one that’s basically Frogger with ninjas. Even with the changes of pace, and even though I was forced to replay and find the hidden scrolls, The Ninja is a short game. If you know the locations of the scrolls, it should take you a half-hour to finish, if that. But as someone who has never cared much for Commando or Ikari Warriors, yea, this is pretty dang okay. It’s okay for a game to be just “okay.” If not for the okay games, being great would be meaningless, right? Besides, after three straight NO!s for Sega Master System August, a game finally getting a YES! put a smile on my face. My only question is “if they had kept the Ninja Princess name, would this game be remembered more than it is now, which is barely at all?” I don’t know the answer to that. I know they needed to come up with something better than “THE NINJA.” It’s so uninspired. A generic name for a generic game, but hey, sometimes the generic items are better than the name brand.
Verdict: YES!

Bill, you will be missed. RIP my friend.

“Until she found out she was supposed to be the star of the game.”