Review: Arcade Archives Ninja Emaki (PS4|5 - Switch)

[Sturmvogel Prime]

PROJECT REVIEWER (PART XXI)
NINJA SURVIVE


PROJECT PROGRESSION

Spoiler

I: CROSSING THE CODE - (CrossCode)
II: THE LORD OF THE GUNS - (Gunlord X)
III: MASSIVE ISLAND DESTRUCTION - (Arcade Archives: Dig Dug II)
IV: A BIT OF THE COSMOS IS GOOD ENOUGH - (Cosmos Bit)
V: NON-STOP MOTORCYCLE FUN - (Super Night Riders)
VI: RAIDERS OF THE EARTH'S SATELLITE - (Moon Raider)
VII: LIGHT-UP PUZZLE FUN - (Cubic Figures 2)
VIII: MASTERING THE TETRIMINOS AGAIN - (Arcade Archives: Tetris The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 Plus)
IX: AND THEN ALL THOSE GHOSTS TURNED BLUE... - (Pac-Man Museum+)
X: LIGHT OUR FINEST HOUR - (Arcade Archives: Finest Hour)
XI: CORDIUM WARFARE - (Project Wingman)
XII: SKIDMARKS ON YOUR SOUL - (Arcade Archives: Pole Position)
XIII: SKIDMARKS ON THE SOUL...AGAIN - (Arcade Archives: Pole Position II)
XIV: PREHISTORIC ARACHNO-MIX UPS - (Spidersaurs)
XV: THE TIMELESS BRAWLER - (Arcade Archives: Double Dragon)
XVI: WARP AROUND: THE CHALLENGE OF TWO WORLDS - (Arcade Archives: Warp & Warp)
XVII: THIS IS CONTRA, DUDE (PART I: THE ARCADE ORIGIN) - (Arcade Archives: Contra)
XVIII: THIS IS CONTRA, DUDE (PART II: BILL AND LANCE'S SUPER ADVENTURE) - (Arcade Archives: Super Contra)
XIX: THIS IS CONTRA, DUDE (PART III: REINVENTION OF CONTRA) - (Contra: Operation Galuga)
XX: SIMON BELMONT GOES TO THE ARCADE (Arcade Archives: VS Castlevania)

Just when I was planning to write about Jackal and why it paled in comparison with the NES thanks to the "Contra Paradigma" (when the NES port is better than the Arcade like in Contra and Super C's case), Hamster decides not to release it on Mexico. Way to go Hamster, denying a customer willful to pay for a legal download for non-specified reasons AGAIN.
So, time to review another Nichibutsu game: Youma Ninpo Cho/Ninja Emaki.




Tell me the story, tell me the legend
Tell me the tales of wa-aaaaa-ar
Tell me just one time what it was liiike befooore, oh!

At first, Ninja Emaki seems to be a vertical scroll shmup, but that's the first impression since the first part of the game is pretty much like a shmup featuring auto-scrolling and enemies that move on shmup-like formations. But the first hint about this game's nature is the controls; your character can aim to all directions minus the "Jail Break/Contra aim lag", which is good enough as this game will require you to take the enemy from all possible directions. Also, when you push up, the screen scrolls faster, something unexpected on auto-scrolling shmups. While there's no power ups to upgrade your crossbow, there's one item that gives you control of 8 weapons and that's the Ninja Scroll. Throughout your mission the game will spawn Demon Statues which you have to shoot in order to make them drop the Ninja Scroll, these will unlock the 8 Ninja Magic attacks available at once for 20 seconds and you can switch through each one of them.

SHURIKEN: Throws Shurikens (Ninja Stars) to the sides, giving you a "Perpendicular" firing against enemies on the left and right.
SMOKE BOMB: This fires a bullet that explodes into a 6-Way smoke burst. This projectile can only be fired vertically like the Jeep gun in Jackal/Top Gunner.
FIRE DRAGON: This one is similar to the "Pinwheel of Fire" from Ninja Gaiden. Summons 3 fireballs that orbit Shinbei for a few seconds before disappearing and reappearing again.
LIGHT ARROW: A stronger, fast-firing version of your basic Crossbow, can deal great damage to the enemies despite is one-directional firing.
CANNON: Summons a cannon that shoots a 4 way volley of bullets with a mid-slow firing rate, its main weakness is that the cannon only aims vertically .
TSUNAMI: Another full-frontal weapon. Fires a wave of 4 waves wide that passes through enemies. Like the cannon, it only fires vertically, which is only useful in boss battles.
TORNADO/HURRICANE: Summons multiple wind vortexes around Shinbei that will damage everything in sight.
WARRIORS OF LIGHT: Summons two clones of Shinbei that will provide you multiple firepower. Shinbei and the clones will be firing the Light Arrow bullets in a slower rate.




Bring me the feeling right in that moment when a heart for battle cries.
Find me the treasure where the legend lies.

With all these weapons at your disposal you might think the game is on "Cheat Mode" because it will make you think "I tought I'll be getting only one". Well, we're talking Nichibutsu, so we're on experimental gaming grounds. Believe it or not, having all the 8 weapons at once adds more fun to the gameplay since you are free of picking the ones you want rather than switching by picking a weapon item like in the majority of late 80's shmups and Run N' Guns and with the boss being protected with constantly spawning enemies, getting a scroll and use it on the right time will definitely be the difference between life and death because this game has zero tolerance with human mistake. 1 Hit is all what it takes to kill Shinbei and most of the time you'll be facing enemies from all directions: Ninjas, giant spiders, demons and all kinds of supernatural Japanese folk monsters. Well, if you have the Ninja Scroll and you take a hit, you'll lose it, acting as the shield or single hit point for your character, so there's a little room for error in this game.

By the way, don't let the initial shmup segment of the beginning fool you, the rest of the game is a vertical based Run N' Gun which unlike Commando's "go all vertical", Youma Ninpo Cho/Ninja Emaki will make you go up and down as if it was a maze, but it is easy to navigate as the game leaves subtle hints about where to go with arrows on the ground, but what really counts here is the ability to move on different directions breaking with the linear concepts of the games of its time.




This is gonna be a hellish ride.

Despite being a Run N' Gun, there is shmup moments in the game, the first one when you start the game, and the second is when you ride a boat. While the initial shmup level grants you full control of Shinbei, the boat only allows you to fire vertically, requiring to use the Shurikens to take the enemies on the sides, letting your regular shots to take care of those in front.




The "Lose all your lives in a mistake" moment of the game.

There's also "Out of Control" moments in the game where the game spams you with enemies, like the ninjas that jump to the sides shooting shurikens and lightning from their blades right to your position, leaving little room for error. Combined with the "1 Hit-and-You're Dead" rule, this can be the end of your gameplay. Speaking of ending, once you pass the gate guarded by the red masked ninjas and the female spirit that turns into a bat, the game will disable the continue function, forcing you to start over once Shinbei gets killed.




You are one ugly [EXPLETIVE]...

The final boss battle will pit you against two bosses. The first one is the snake which captured the princess and its by far the hardest one as it spams you with enemies like the first boss and a good amount of bullets, after defeating it you'll be fighting a flying woman head which becomes a monster. Curiously, I find this boss easier than the snake. One final word of advice: If you die in this boss, you'll have to fight the snake again.




Well done!
We dare you to do it again!

After defeating the evil head and saving the princess, you'll be getting a reward. "Mission Complete", time to roll the credits, input your name and play something else, right? Not this time, kid. The game will start all over with more enemies thrown at you, but retaining the "No Continue" once you lose your lives. It's a survival battle until the last spare Shinbei falls.




The Graveyard Maze.

Despite its new gameplay innovations, it suffered the same fate as most of the company's catalogue at the moment of homeporting: Being out of consoles. Graphics were out of question in 1986, the dawn of the 8-Bit NES (Just ask Magmax), but also due to the use of Japanese Youmas, Yokais and demon-themed characters which were among Nintendo, and mostly Nintendo of America's "No-no's" towards religious imagery, and worse, demonic themes (Devil World for example), forcing it to the complete obscurity, until 2024 when Hamster brought it on Arcade Archives. At first, the re-release only covered the Japanese Youma Ninpo Cho, ditching the American Ninja Emaki version entirely. ¿Is there any difference between versions beyond a name and title screen change? Aside from the title screen change and number translation, the answer is "yes". The US version was more tolerant with the player. To begin with, it gives you 3 Hit Points per life, making the game much easier while the Japanese original makes Shinbei a "1-Hit-and-you're-dead" type of character making the game much harder than it should be. The US version removes the "Demon Statues" that you shoot to obtain a Scroll, replacing it with a starburst effect which drops the scroll automatically, giving you better chances to make progress there. Also, the scrolls are the health item at the same time as you can recover 1HP from them and what's best; you can keep your Ninja Magic as long as you have health. The only problem is that the game lacks of continues unlike the japanese version which disables them before the final segment of the game.

It was until September 24th 2024 when Hamster updated the game including Ninja Emaki, giving us a chance of playing both releases and check the differences, and to be honest, it was nice to have both releases since the game was released under the American/International title in a similar way to Hamster/Taito's Liquid Kids which only has Mizubaku Daibouken.




A "Bloody Mess" indeed.

For a game done in 1986, you might expect simplicity in graphics. Well, you could expect that from any other company but not from Nichibutsu 'cos they were at full throttle with the 16-Bit (even before the SNES or the Genesis) and we have a vibrant and well animated series of sprites and massive multi-screen combat zones which encourage exploration in a similar way to Konami's Jackal/Top Gunner, and like said game, this is more of a massive stage with checkpoints rather than mission splitted, which was another experiment for both Nichibutsu and Konami alike since the players were more used to the classic level splitting.

The use of Japanese folklore and mythology is a complete twist on the common themes of gaming, from the traditional military and sci-fi to medieval middle-age knights and barbarians "Swords-and-Sorcery" fantasy settings resulting in a fresh breath of air for videogames. The same can be said for the music which is based on traditional Japanese instruments rather than electronic or rock themes. There's a few digitized sound effects like the roar heard on the snake at the beginning of the game.



NINJA TRIVIAKI



Phoenix Blazed

- Youma Ninpo Cho means "Demon Ninja Power Book" and "Demon Ninja Scroll" while Ninja Emaki means "Ninja Picture Scroll".
- Game Electronics released a bootleg of Ninja Emaki on the same year.
- The game is loosely based on the 1983 film Satomi Hakken-den, released under the name Legend of the Eight Samurai.
- In the Aero Fighters series, Spanky's YF-23's special weapon summons a tsunami just like Shinbei's 6th magic attack.
- The SNES port of U.N. Squadron carries a similiar "Lots of switchable weapons" feature, but the number varies depending on the purchased aircraft, their carry capacity, player's acquisitive capability and they were limited by ammunition rather than time.
- Sunsoft's Batman also granted you several weapons at once after picking the weapon item.
- The hidden Phoenix emblem in the graveyard segment is not just a reference to the Japanese Phoenix birds Hou-Ou and Suzaku, but also the Phoenix Blaze from the Cresta series.
- Terra Cresta is referenced as the default names in the rankings along with Cosmo Police Galivan.
- The "Demon Statues" are based on Bishamon, also known as Bishamonten, a god of war and/or warriors, a punisher of evil-doers and one of the Seven Lucky Gods.
- Bihsamonten is the Japanese name of Vaisravana, one of the Four Heavenly Kings, and an important figure in Buddhism. He is the god of warfare and usually portrayed as a warrior-king.
- The first boss seems to be the Ogama, also known as Bakegama, a monstrous carnivorous toad. "Ogama" means "Giant Toad" and "Bakegama" is "Ghost Toad".
- While most people would think there's lava/magma or toxic ooze in Stage 2, the bloody fact is that the liquid is blood since it is the Chinoike Jigoku (Blood Pond Hell).
- Blood ponds are found in Buddhism depictions of Hell.
- The skeleton boss in the blood lake is a Gashadokuro, a Yokai born from the bones of those who died in battle or famine, hence its name which means both "Starving Skeleton" and "Rattling Skeleton".
- In the american Ninja Emaki flyer, the Gashadokuro was named "Skelagon".
- The princess snatching snake might be the "Uwabami" (Giant Snake) or "Daija" due to its size.
- Despite having two heads, it is not the "Yamata no Orochi" since that monster has eight heads and eight tails.
- According to the American flyer, the two-headed snake is called "Beguido".
- If there's an explanation to put a large room inside a house (Stage 1 boss) might be that the house entrance is a portal to the underworld. In Science-Fiction this will be considered as "Interconnected Dimensions".
- The giant spiders that appear in the game are known as "Tsuchigumo", which means "Dirt Spider".
- Myths and legends about giant spiders are not just only in Japan. In Africa there's stories about the J'ba Fofi (Bayaka/Congolese for "Great Spider"), a cryptid arachnid large enough to hunt humans.




Being a ninja was more challenging than expected.

Arcade Archives: Ninja Emaki is an interesting example of a great experiment on Run N' Gun's traditional mechanics and vertical scrolling game rules which believe it or not, it was a considerable success, just as you can expect from Nichibutsu. But the fact that the game wasn't homeported is still baffling even today, but almost 4 decades that mistake was corrected.



Certified "Great" on the Eda Scale.
No ninja trickery, I swear.