Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[FinalBaton]

Ninja Gaiden is incredible. Nothing compares to that high-octane killing spree and crazy wall-jumping. No games on the platform give me a rush of adrenaline like that one. Level design is great too. And it is also the most satisfying sword slashing on the NES as far as I'm concerned. So lots of things going for it. Sure it's full of "cheap" tactics, but become a student of the game and you'll realise there is a safe way around EACH and EVERY one of those occurences.

This is my fave game to play on the NES bar none.

[Shoryukev]

Ninja Gaiden is incredible. Nothing compares to that high-octane killing spree and crazy wall-jumping. No games on the platform give me a rush of adrenaline like that one. Level design is great too. And it is also the most satisfying sword slashing on the NES as far as I'm concerned. So lots of things going for it. Sure it's full of "cheap" tactics, but become a student of the game and you'll realise there is a safe way around EACH and EVERY one of those occurences.

This is my fave game to play on the NES bar none.

It certainly is a fantastic game, and rewards a good player for the things they do correctly. It just feels so satisfying once you get better at it and start handling each enemy encounter with precision. In the beginning it feels like the game is playing you, but once you put in the time you turn the tables and become the master. It truly encapsulates the feeling of being a machine of death and destruction, which is the definition of a ninja in my book. It also really shines light on how hard a ninja must train to achieve that level of badassery.

I've always seen NG1's gameplay as a very interesting tweaked version of Castlevania 1. It adds a lot of speed and twitch reflex, and changes things up enough to be it's own entity. The game blew my mind as a child with it's impressive cutscenes, excellent music and graphics, and punishing difficulty. The difficulty curve is pretty balanced as well, which engages a beginner and makes them want to play it again and again.....which again just points to a terrific game. It was epic then and it's still epic now!

PS - Sorry I've been a bit vacant lately, work has been busy! lol

[FinalBaton]

It certainly is a fantastic game, and rewards a good player for the things they do correctly. It just feels so satisfying once you get better at it and start handling each enemy encounter with precision. In the beginning it feels like the game is playing you, but once you put in the time you turn the tables and become the master. It truly encapsulates the feeling of being a machine of death and destruction, which is the definition of a ninja in my book. It also really shines light on how hard a ninja must train to achieve that level of badassery.

Couldn't have said it better kev. That paragraph I quoted, in particular, is fucking beautiful *cries of joy*

[Shoryukev]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day right? lol

It's hard to explain but it just feels good playing NG1 with even a moderate level of competence. The infamous act 6 loop is a bit brutal while you're getting your mind wrapped around the end of the game, but having it in there only makes seeing Jaquio fall that much more rewarding. I ninja only accepts complete victory.

[Sumez]

Oh yeah, as already pointed out, the game gets almost trivial once you have sufficient experience with it. But knowing that even losing one life against the final boss will mean the ultimate humiliation of your run makes sure the stakes are always high during the final battle.
I actually feel like more games should have something similar, even if not implemented in the same manner.

[kitten]

Of course, it is very likely that titles you would pick out are ones that I have already heard from on multiple occasions. An obvious example are the Shinobi games. Shinobi 3 especially, I have delved into a lot, completed it on hard, and still feel completely unable to see why people appreciate it as much as they do.

how much have you played revenge? i used to like it a whole lot but wasn't feeling it on a replay. 3 i adamantly believe is a mediocre game - INCREDIBLY strong presentation, but design falls apart to poor gimmicks as it goes on, becomes a mess. first couple of stages are seriously great, it just can't keep that strength as it keeps going. i feel like the part where it has decidedly fallen apart is when you battle that giant bio-mass monster in the sewers, and that's preeeetty early in.

there's a funny interview with the key designer behind revenge where he goes back and plays it and does absolutely abysmally at the game he also plays with the megadrive controller on a flat surface, treating it almost like an arcade pad, which i was surprised to see a designer doing.

Ftr, I like Gun-Dec, but I gave up kinda halfway into it because the level design felt kinda half-assed and "random" (again, not random as in RNG, but as in random actions by the designers ). I feel like it is not even close to the level of the Ninja Gaidens, but that is just an "early impression", it honestly deserves a second full body cavity search before I can truly judge it. I got it around the same time as Shatterhand which was a first sight love story for me.

this is about how i feel about ninja gaiden, and i've played it through, twice. again, when i get a capture rig, i might attempt a no miss and see if i still dislike it so strongly. my last play was within the last half a year, though, which does not bode well for even a no miss redeeming this game, to me.

excellent music and graphics

music, i kind of agree, graphics, hellllll no. if you were to remove the cutscenes from the game (which are genuinely not that impressive), ninja gaiden is honestly kind of ugly and extremely well behind top-tier visual games of its year of release. the original ryukenden came out at the very end of 88, and that was well after many significantly better looking games. its release was only a week before the mind-blowingly good-looking gradius II and 10 months - nearly an entire year - after the famicom contra. mega man 2 came out in the same month, as well, and super mario bros. 3 was a couple months earlier, and they both indisputably blow ryukenden out of the water. if ryukenden had come out in 87 i would be a bit more forgiving, but 88 was the year that serious visual standards were set for the console and it absolutely did not so much as get near the bar set by these powerhouses.

ryukenden has drab color palettes, poor usage of color contrasts, a total lack of animated background elements, highly repetitive tilework, enemies with only two frames of animation and poor spritework, etc. the original akumajou dracula was working on far less space and managed to be a prettier looking game (thanks to extremely clever tile usage, great color contrasts, and iconic sprite work) more than 2 full years before ninja ryukenden, too. a lot of times i see someone talk about graphics in this game, it's someone with little frame of reference for release dates for fc stuff, but putting it into context seriously shows that ryukenden was behind the curve and not anywhere close to being one of that year's remarkable titles form a visual standpoint.

[evil_ash_xero]

Speaking of annoying mutated frogs, horeh sheeeit!

I love this game. I'm just not very good at it.

[Sumez]

music, i kind of agree, graphics, hellllll no. if you were to remove the cutscenes from the game (which are genuinely not that impressive), ninja gaiden is honestly kind of ugly and extremely well behind top-tier visual games of its year of release. the original ryukenden came out at the very end of 88, and that was well after many significantly better looking games. its release was only a week before the mind-blowingly good-looking gradius II and 10 months - nearly an entire year - after the famicom contra. mega man 2 came out in the same month, as well, and super mario bros. 3 was a couple months earlier, and they both indisputably blow ryukenden out of the water. if ryukenden had come out in 87 i would be a bit more forgiving, but 88 was the year that serious visual standards were set for the console and it absolutely did not so much as get near the bar set by these powerhouses.

ryukenden has drab color palettes, poor usage of color contrasts, a total lack of animated background elements, highly repetitive tilework, enemies with only two frames of animation and poor spritework, etc. the original akumajou dracula was working on far less space and managed to be a prettier looking game (thanks to extremely clever tile usage, great color contrasts, and iconic sprite work) more than 2 full years before ninja ryukenden, too. a lot of times i see someone talk about graphics in this game, it's someone with little frame of reference for release dates for fc stuff, but putting it into context seriously shows that ryukenden was behind the curve and not anywhere close to being one of that year's remarkable titles form a visual standpoint.

We're on the same wavelength here - I never considered the first Ninja Gaiden a good looking game. It's serviceable, and that's enough for me. (I feel the same way about Castlevania though)
The NG graphics ROM is big enough to fit 16 full pages of graphics data, which could have been used for sprawling variation in the in-game graphics, but instead they opted to use it for cut-scenes. I have no love for Ninja Gaiden's cinematics, but I have to admit that they turned out to be pretty influential on how storytelling in 8bit games would be remembered, even if I would hesitate to call it revolutionary in any way.
The second game was more thoughtful about its art direction, and looks better simply because the stages have more character and use the colors well. Ninja Gaiden 3 is a god damn beautiful game though! It's one of my favourite NES games purely in terms of visual style.

[Obscura]

I'm surprised to see anyone call Ninja Gaiden particularly memo-heavy; it can be played a lot more improvisationally than, say, Castlevania III or an early Mega Man.

(Also, Castlevania 6-2 checkpoint isn't as evil as it's being given credit for -- the key to the eagle-tower is to drop off the left side of the gears going down instead of trying to take the stairs. That damn bridge is a different story.)

EDIT: Also, Contra and Super C are easier no-misses than Ninja Gaiden, IMO.

[FinalBaton]

I'm surprised to see anyone call Ninja Gaiden particularly memo-heavy;

Really? Ninja Gaiden is exactly that ; memo-heavy. If you wanna do great at the game then you have to know exactly how to dispatch enemies in each situations. I don't call the game Memorization Gaiden for nothing!

the cutscenes from the game (which are genuinely not that impressive)

: O
You take that back son! The cutscenes were mindblowing back then. There was just not much else like it. Nothing as well fleshed out and epic. Have you played Ninja Gaiden when it came out?

Also, saw you talking about Shinobi up there : I hope you won't be talking smack about the best of the three GEN/MD games, Shadow Dancer, because if you do then I am going to SLAY you

[Sumez]

Coincidentally, I just got Shadow Dancer and am very much looking forward to it. It looks more similar to the original arcade Shinobi, which I really like. I'm not a big fan of the Super Shinobis, especially not the first. But we discussed that some pages back, I could probably dig up the posts.

Regarding memorization, I think there's a huge difference between games that require memorization and those where your performance simply benefits from it (which goes for almost any game to some extent). Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania are definitely in the latter category, but very heavily so - memorization in these games makes them almost trivial, but never to the point where they stop being fun. Ninja Gaiden is still fast paced enough for every bit of execution to feel rewarding.

The Mega Man games are probably the least memorization reliant games mentioned here though, I don't get why those are brought up in that context.

[FinalBaton]

Coincidentally, I just got Shadow Dancer and is very much looking forward to it. It looks more similar to the original arcade Shinobi, which I really like. I'm not a big fan of the Super Shinobis, especially not the first. But we discussed that some pages back, I could probably dig up the posts.

Yes it's real arcadey, that's why I love it

[BIL]

i still maintain that it feels deeply counterintuitive. imagine that i see a bird spawn, pause only momentarily, and then jump and slash it - this is what i would consider elegant and skillful play, but i could be punished with another one spawning. imagine it spawns behind me as i'm moving forward and i don't have the room to jump over it - provided i don't have whirlwind slash, i'm then demanded to pause and take care of it for a moment, which could get me into a pickle with what's ahead of me. there are multiple moments like that in the final stage, there's one for example.

First example - the obvious solution is to move forward and defuse the eagle's spawn point, rather than letting it come to you. The latter's a luxury you don't have. I like that. ;3

Second example - bad example. It's not behind you, it's above you, and naturally is going to take a relatively long while to connect (given their acceleration and momentum properties). In general, Eagles aren't a problem when they spawn, it's when they've picked up some speed. That particular one can't get going before it's descended into the sword range of a leaping player - jumping over it's not a good idea at all, at best you'll miss and leave it circling, at worst you won't clear it and take 3HP damage.

there are solutions that become clear as you play more, yes, but they're not at all obvious at first in some of the tougher instances. enemy spawn points need to be precisely understood in many circumstances and memorized in others, and forgetting where another enemy will show up can mean that your behavior moments earlier could lead to your death. during the 6-2 jump, not only is it important to know that the cross tossing enemy will be on that platform, but where on the platform they'll spawn as you scroll and where you can safely hit them without them reappearing, provided you don't have whirlwind. this requires understanding a very poorly relayed and highly ambiguous quirk of the spawning system and fits the definition of "unintuitive" to a t. many people abuse or advise abuse of the spawn system here to despawn the guy. despite there being a lot of quick and reactive action in ninja gaiden, i feel like the crux of the game's design relies on being proactive and memorizing some very, very specific-to-this-game nuance.

6-2 is an infamously brutal difficulty spike, with an infamy to match it. It's no microcosm of the game at large - I've no idea where these other points you claim to be comparable are?

i use backloggery, and most people will mark their no miss clears (should they have done any) with a special modifier that makes it easy to find when you're browsing their page. i browse a lot of people's pages and examine their taste and commentary, and have observed ninja gaiden to be one of the most common action game no miss clears, and frequently a person's only no miss in their entire library. i firmly believe this is not because it's easy, but because it's so memorization intensive (and hailed as some sort of legendarily impossible game to get people motivated) to beat it that by the time one is through, they begin to see it as no longer being a tremendous leap.

This angle bores me, sorry. Leaving aside the impossibility of knowing what's in these people's minds, I don't care how total strangers play their action games. See the start of this thread for a classic example of a frustrated player treating NG1 like a brick wall to be demolished with his forehead. There's a lot more of those in the world than there are more observant players with non-pulverised foreheads. Doesn't mean they have any particularly valuable insights on the game, other than maybe how not to approach it.

edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrODauyuMgY&t=10m17s this timestamp has two jumps in a row where, without whirlwind, you're going to be jumping into someone. the first one spawning that soldier in mid-air (perhaps you jump under the soldier as you jump, but look me in the eye and tell me that is highly counter-intuitive) and then a second one where you land on a soldier (if your brain went "oh no an enemy, better hold back," here, you bounce off the front of him instead of the back and into a pit).

Every spawn in that section appears before you jump. I regularly do it without jumpslash (actually, I like to grab the firewheel from the floor immediately below and mow through the lot), but regardless, nothing's going to pop up before you've left terra firma. That final ledge-guarding machinegunner? Just wait until he's approached the ledge and jump over his head. Same thing happens at the end of Act 3 with the machete guy guarding the exit.

And yeah, I'd definitely assume jumping under that runner, killing the ledge-guarder in the same sweep, is the way to go. His height beats mine by an unassailable degree - why wouldn't I use that to slip under him?

what about the eagle i linked in my last post? does that one not require triggering him and then just a moment of hesitation?

It doesn't require that at all - his position is calibrated according to Ryu's jump height, leaving him outside of lethal range. You can easily jump onto the ladder, then kill him (without a subweapon) as he circles back around and down to you - again, Eagles do badly without momentum.

Simpler to jumpslash him en route, but it's not at all critical to survival. What you can't do from the safety of the ledge is kill him, then make the jump - you need to do it in one sweep, or reach the wall before killing him. Aggression and proaction are generally the best solutions in NG1.

provided it doesn't, is it not a bizarre intuition to develop to just jump off platforms when you don't remember what is there?

No, it spawns before you jump. Believe me, I've gone over the game with a fine-toothed comb looking for these fabled murderspawns bad players tend to conjure up from memory - they're vanishingly rare.

what you mention here as a safe behavior is something you built over playing the game, not a natural intuition. i'll agree the instances are not so bad when you've learned them, but i feel they're bad at teaching you behavior you need to take into other situations and most of the rest of the game. mild when memorized, but a very weird lump in the learning process. it's very easy to look at what to do during these points with hindsight of having successfully gotten through them more than once.

My natural intuition is to look before leaping, just like looking both ways before crossing the street.

Seriously, as far as cheap shot game design goes, a pest spawning as you near a pit and obligingly wafting its way over to you seems oddly benevolent if anything. As for the rare ones that spawn while you're making a jump, again, they're uniformly calibrated to not connect before you hit the ground.

when playing, i'll often have lapses where i forget if this is the ledge i need to be preemptively spinning as i lurch off of it or if i instead need to be ready to hit an enemy who happens to be near the landing point. many enemies in the game come at you quickly, and it goes against what i've learned in so many other games to have to push into them to not see them respawn. if a runner comes at me in a game, i feel like the natural, intuitive response is to pause to prepare to attack and then strike. in ninja gaiden, it's more important to know he'll be coming and then play a bit of chicken with him so that when he dies, you aren't punished with another. the timestamp i linked earlier in this post is a great example of what i'm talking about, here. you're being attacked from every direction and then asked to jump back and forth up a couple of platforms to go up, which iirc respawns some enemies. that bit confuses the shit out of me as to what the hell spawn triggers i'm activating.

It sounds like you should stop judging NG1 by other games, and adopt a more aggressive approach. Again, it's overwhelmingly the surest option. Bar one exceedingly rare type, enemies die to a single hit, and can't respawn once you've moved past their spawn point. You're also fast and agile. Use that instead of playing it like Castlevania.

this might be something fun for me to play when i get my capture rig. i've long wanted to get a no miss in this game just to have better criticisms, but both times i've played and beaten it, i've just hated playing it so much i've never done it.

if i somehow realize i was being a total scrub and start liking the game in the process, i will absolutely hold no stubbornness and admit such to you. if i don't, i will silently erase all the goodwill the TNWA recommendation bought you >;O

(naw i promise i won't lol)

I'd rather you l2p SF2010 first, tbh. >;3

[Sumez]

Wait, what enemy takes more than one hit in Ninja Gaiden? Sure you're not thinking of a boss?

[BIL]

Chakram chuckers, the bald buff dudes in their briefs.

[Immryr]

NG doesn't feel memorisation heavy to me. The main things that trouble me are jumping to a lower platform with an unpredictable enemy patrolling, and hammer bros. but as I said this is because I am a scrub.

[FinalBaton]

those where your performance simply benefits from it (which goes for almost any game to some extent). Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania are definitely in the latter category, but very heavily so - memorization in these games makes them almost trivial, but never to the point where they stop being fun. Ninja Gaiden is still fast paced enough for every bit of execution to feel rewarding.

Hmm... I can get behind that. I definitely was talking about MASTERING the game.

[Blinge]

I am scared to try NG1

There I said it.

[BrianC]

I am scared to try NG1

There I said it.

Then prepare for death by sawblade!

Spoiler

Oops. Wrong Ninja Gaiden 1!

[BIL]

have you played and how would you compare it to gun-dec? i'm curious.

this goes for anyone else who wants to answer, too. i'd like to be able to see if you like similar things about both games or like ninja gaiden and dislike gun-dec, somehow. i think this would give me a better picture if it's something i could somehow eventually enjoy or if my strong dislike of it is more or less immutable.

Didn't see this before posting my reply to you. Adding onto it: I think if the relatively slack Gun-Dec is your favoured example of these games, and you also enjoy CV1's much more restrictive blueprint, yet outright detest the middle ground that is Ninja Gaiden - you may be approaching NG1 as something it's not. The twitch/method hybrid makes it something of a gordian knot. You can't methodically clomp your way through ala CV (it's too fast-moving), nor can you play on reflex alone ala GD (it's too unforgiving). You need to attack stages and situations with a particular focused aggression, breaking chokepoints outright rather than puzzling or improvising as in the other two benchmarks.

As the no-miss I recorded for dear Edmond (see OP) will attest, my NG1 playstyle is sloppy and reckless as hell. That's not a problem as long as I keep decisively destroying and moving past its various encounters. Slowing down or going too far off-script will get me killed quickly, and I like that. If you don't like that, then no matter how competently you might learn to play, it's probably not the sidescrolling action/platformer for you.

I am scared to try NG1

There I said it.

Then prepare for death by sawblade!

Spoiler

Oops. Wrong Ninja Gaiden 1!

Yeah that's this one. The noise at the end is truly startling.

[FinalBaton]

I am scared to try NG1

There I said it.

Mastering it is definitely daunting, lol. But if you're wiling to practice and practice and practice, then you will become great at it.

All right boys, here are the 3 rules of mastering Ninja Gaiden :


#1- NEVER GO BACK

#2- KNOW YOUR ENEMY

#3- DON'T BE AN EMULATOR FAGGOT


1- heading back even a little trrigers a respawn-a-looza festival, so never, EVER turn back.
2- practice a ton and you will find that there's a safe way to dispatch each and every enemy in the game. don't be afraid to experiment.
3- jokes aside, you can probably get away with playing on one of those great Sony LCDs with 8ms of lag and a lagless upscaler like the OSSC or the XRGB 1/2/3 in B0 mode, but I personally wouldn't go above that amount. The game is THAT twitch heavy and your sword swing is not effective for a lot of frames. So you'll definitely need a lagless -or close to it- setup if you want to master the game (and I'm not talking about merely getting by here; I'm talking about MASTERING it.

[BIL]

Oh lmao, I was wrong. You can kill 5-2 Guard Eagle from the safety of the ledge. Check it out, I took his fuckin eye out with my ninja star.

[Sumez]

Chakram chuckers, the bald buff dudes in their briefs.

I tend to take those guys in one hit. Sure you aren't hitting their weapon? Or maybe there's a difference between what weapon you use.

[Blinge]

#3- DON'T BE AN EMULATOR FAGGOT

Haha. I'm sent to my laggy grave.

[FinalBaton]

#3- DON'T BE AN EMULATOR FAGGOT

Haha. I'm sent to my laggy grave.

Haha I wasn't aiming you in particular
Just speaking from experience. Used to play from emulator unto a CRT monitor and even that was too much for me to be great at the game. I kept getting decimated. Wasn't until I switched to console direct into SD CRT that I got truly good.

There's still something you can do though : and that's learning the game. aka knowing your enemy. and you can still play it even though you won't be 1-life clearing it or anything

[BIL]

Chakram chuckers, the bald buff dudes in their briefs.

I tend to take those guys in one hit. Sure you aren't hitting their weapon? Or maybe there's a difference between what weapon you use.

Subweapons will kill them in one shot (a windmill star is a great way to obliterate them and their weapon alike), but they'll survive a couple slashes from the sword. One of the many, many little things the PCE remake completely fucked up en route to its death by a thousand scratches! (they're one-hit just like every other enemy, there)

[Sumez]

Blinge, judging by your 1cc list, you have absolutely nothing to fear from Ninja Gaiden

[BIL]

Yeah, NG1's not that hard provided you don't try to bullshit your way through it. It's tempting, with how flexible Ryu's handling is compared to something like CV1, but the last Act will brickwall pure improv.

[Sumez]

I actually have a ton of respect for games that are able to pull off enemies which all die in a single hit, while remaining well designed with a balanced difficulty. It's not an easy thing to do, but I feel the end result always feels more fair and ensures a great flow to the game, it is one of my favourite assets of Ninja Gaiden. If the player character at the same time manages to get through with only a single hit point, you know you got your hands on something good. Once again Rainbow Islands is a perfect example to prove my point. Aside from bosses, nothing in that game takes more than a single hit to obliterate.

[FinalBaton]

Blinge, judging by your 1cc list, you have absolutely nothing to fear from Ninja Gaiden

Agreed