The original Japanese version of Ninja Gaiden III. When the game was ported to North America, the game was made harder on purpose with the removal of the password feature and with a boost of damage inflicted by the enemies.
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I'll be honest, I really don't know how to feel about this game. On one hand it's a cool NES platformer, but on the other hand, I don't think it lives up to the essence of the first two Ninja Gaiden games.
Be that as it may, let's talk about the things and additions that I did like, starting with the graphics which are amazing most of the time, even at times almost looking like this is a 16-bit game, and that's great since I think there's almost no lag in the game. The music is also good, but there are only like 4 songs for all the levels, which is very disappointing. Also, it feels like the Ninja Gaiden formula is more polished than ever, as you can now hang onto platforms from below, which is a nice addition. The lamps show what item you'll get now, and the story is even more interesting as well, or at least unfolds better in my opinion.
Moving on to the bad part of the game... let's start with the most obvious, and that is that that frenetic pace that so characterized the first two games is gone, instead now Ryu feels " sluggish" and while it doesn't automatically make this a bad game, to me the new pace is not cohesive with the one established in the previous games, it feels straight up like a step backwards that was only implemented to make the experience more casual, but for the worse. On the other hand, the level design and enemy positioning is less challenging, which might seem like a positive thing given that the game is now more accessible and bearable, however, that's taking away a lot of the Ninja Gaiden essence of this game, as all but the last level are too easy.
Aside from the above, this is more of a personal opinion, but I'm really not a fan of the fact that they changed the ninjas and demons as enemies for robots and biological experiments, I mean, that has nothing to do with the previous games, how on earth were they able to change the iconic death eagles for a generic robot with wings, and the story although I thought it was good, it has nothing to do with the tone of the stories of the other 2 games. This one seems more like a Contra or Mega Man game with a Ninja as the main character instead of being a Ninja game as such. I don't dislike it, but it's not cohesive with what was presented in the previous games, not to mention it makes the game feel less unique.
Conclusion
Yes, you'll definitely come across one of the most polished platformers out there for the NES, it's a very good game and you can finally finish it without save states, but even so, I feel like it feels more like a downgrade to the gameplay and setting than anything else.
Be that as it may, let's talk about the things and additions that I did like, starting with the graphics which are amazing most of the time, even at times almost looking like this is a 16-bit game, and that's great since I think there's almost no lag in the game. The music is also good, but there are only like 4 songs for all the levels, which is very disappointing. Also, it feels like the Ninja Gaiden formula is more polished than ever, as you can now hang onto platforms from below, which is a nice addition. The lamps show what item you'll get now, and the story is even more interesting as well, or at least unfolds better in my opinion.
Moving on to the bad part of the game... let's start with the most obvious, and that is that that frenetic pace that so characterized the first two games is gone, instead now Ryu feels " sluggish" and while it doesn't automatically make this a bad game, to me the new pace is not cohesive with the one established in the previous games, it feels straight up like a step backwards that was only implemented to make the experience more casual, but for the worse. On the other hand, the level design and enemy positioning is less challenging, which might seem like a positive thing given that the game is now more accessible and bearable, however, that's taking away a lot of the Ninja Gaiden essence of this game, as all but the last level are too easy.
Aside from the above, this is more of a personal opinion, but I'm really not a fan of the fact that they changed the ninjas and demons as enemies for robots and biological experiments, I mean, that has nothing to do with the previous games, how on earth were they able to change the iconic death eagles for a generic robot with wings, and the story although I thought it was good, it has nothing to do with the tone of the stories of the other 2 games. This one seems more like a Contra or Mega Man game with a Ninja as the main character instead of being a Ninja game as such. I don't dislike it, but it's not cohesive with what was presented in the previous games, not to mention it makes the game feel less unique.
Conclusion
Yes, you'll definitely come across one of the most polished platformers out there for the NES, it's a very good game and you can finally finish it without save states, but even so, I feel like it feels more like a downgrade to the gameplay and setting than anything else.
Here we are finally the long awaited that no one was actually waiting for, me finishing this trilogy of games. Can you believe it was 2020 when I played the first game in the series? Like many series on the Famicom, this one came to an end in 1991. This may be a controversial take but I found this to be the best one of the trilogy.
Ninja Ryukenden III plays pretty similar to the other games. In fact the only thing they've really changed was some new weapons though those cool shadow clones are gone now. Though you can now get an item that gives you more range on your blade. Honestly if you had this item in the first game, I'd probably find the game more manageable to beat. You can also now hang under certain platforms but keep in mind that like with walls you can only attack with sub weapons when hanging off them.
Level design in this game can be pretty enjoyable. There's still a lot of platforming challenges you'll have to overcome even if they aren't too challenging this time. This is still Tecmo though and by this point they knew how to polish things up and this makes the game the least frustrating of the trilogy.
Surprisingly this is not a very challenging game at least for the most part. It's kind of weird because they did for sure tone down the difficulty from II which was actually harder on the Famicom I think. I'd say this game's biggest hurdle for difficulty has to be it's enemies. Sometimes they just throw a bunch at you with not much time to think about the situation and they also just like to put an enemy on a tiny platform. Still for the most part it's pretty manageable. I think they also changed the controls a bit? I can't really confirm that though. The controls on the ice stage however was not fun like it's so bad!
Even the bosses aren't too challenging for Ryu in this game though I guess that's been the case for a lot of bosses in this trilogy. Sure you do have the chance to die on a few of them on your first playthrough but after one or two more tries they should be easy to take down. Even the final boss isn't hard despite it being 3 forms with no health refills. I should say this now, this was only for the Famicom version.
This is common knowledge now but when this game was brought over here to the States, it was made a lot harder. There's a lot of things they changed like harder enemy placement, enemies do more damage, checkpoints are harsher along with game overs. Hell you don't even have unlimited continues anymore, you only have 5! Though you can have 99 with a very obtuse way of getting it. I'm not really sure why they did this. Maybe it was due to the rental market?? This sadly makes the game a lot worse which is unfortunate, not saying it's impossible to beat but it always kind of sucks looking back at stuff like this.
The game presentation wise however is amazing. This game has the usual cutscenes as we seen before which still look good but the game itself looks magnificent and I can't get enough of it. Though when I see the final location they do for the usual awesome shot of Ryu approaching it, I can't unsee the thing giving me the middle finger (shoutouts to BlazingWaters for making me unable to unsee it lol). The music is also pretty good though I don't know if it's my favorite of the trilogy. There's also now voice samples for Ryu now which is neat I guess.
The game despite not being a favorite of many has to be my favorite of the three easily. While I don't love it or anything, I did have fun and I wasn't getting mad at all. Maybe I'm just not good at games but I'd rather take an easier game to beat then one that infuriates me. Just don't play the US version. Sadly this version was never rereleased again which is a shame considering it's better. Ninja Ryukenden despite having a good trilogy really didn't go on to do much for the next decade. For Japan all they got was like a mediocre GG game, a Super Famicom remake of the trilogy, and a PC Engine port of the first game. Otherwise the series was pretty much over until 2004's Xbox title Ninja Gaiden which yes was even given that name in Japan. It's crazy to me he just was gone for so long, always wondered why. Still, give this one a go if you're curious as it's one of the better games on the Famicom even if it isn't perfect. Now did I forget anything?...oh right! Did you know this is a prequel to II? Yeah if you wait 18 minutes on the end screen then it'll tell you "TO BE CONTINUED NINJA RYUKENDEN II" which is interesting though why is this an easter egg? Anything else...nope ok bye for now.
Ninja Ryukenden III plays pretty similar to the other games. In fact the only thing they've really changed was some new weapons though those cool shadow clones are gone now. Though you can now get an item that gives you more range on your blade. Honestly if you had this item in the first game, I'd probably find the game more manageable to beat. You can also now hang under certain platforms but keep in mind that like with walls you can only attack with sub weapons when hanging off them.
Level design in this game can be pretty enjoyable. There's still a lot of platforming challenges you'll have to overcome even if they aren't too challenging this time. This is still Tecmo though and by this point they knew how to polish things up and this makes the game the least frustrating of the trilogy.
Surprisingly this is not a very challenging game at least for the most part. It's kind of weird because they did for sure tone down the difficulty from II which was actually harder on the Famicom I think. I'd say this game's biggest hurdle for difficulty has to be it's enemies. Sometimes they just throw a bunch at you with not much time to think about the situation and they also just like to put an enemy on a tiny platform. Still for the most part it's pretty manageable. I think they also changed the controls a bit? I can't really confirm that though. The controls on the ice stage however was not fun like it's so bad!
Even the bosses aren't too challenging for Ryu in this game though I guess that's been the case for a lot of bosses in this trilogy. Sure you do have the chance to die on a few of them on your first playthrough but after one or two more tries they should be easy to take down. Even the final boss isn't hard despite it being 3 forms with no health refills. I should say this now, this was only for the Famicom version.
This is common knowledge now but when this game was brought over here to the States, it was made a lot harder. There's a lot of things they changed like harder enemy placement, enemies do more damage, checkpoints are harsher along with game overs. Hell you don't even have unlimited continues anymore, you only have 5! Though you can have 99 with a very obtuse way of getting it. I'm not really sure why they did this. Maybe it was due to the rental market?? This sadly makes the game a lot worse which is unfortunate, not saying it's impossible to beat but it always kind of sucks looking back at stuff like this.
The game presentation wise however is amazing. This game has the usual cutscenes as we seen before which still look good but the game itself looks magnificent and I can't get enough of it. Though when I see the final location they do for the usual awesome shot of Ryu approaching it, I can't unsee the thing giving me the middle finger (shoutouts to BlazingWaters for making me unable to unsee it lol). The music is also pretty good though I don't know if it's my favorite of the trilogy. There's also now voice samples for Ryu now which is neat I guess.
The game despite not being a favorite of many has to be my favorite of the three easily. While I don't love it or anything, I did have fun and I wasn't getting mad at all. Maybe I'm just not good at games but I'd rather take an easier game to beat then one that infuriates me. Just don't play the US version. Sadly this version was never rereleased again which is a shame considering it's better. Ninja Ryukenden despite having a good trilogy really didn't go on to do much for the next decade. For Japan all they got was like a mediocre GG game, a Super Famicom remake of the trilogy, and a PC Engine port of the first game. Otherwise the series was pretty much over until 2004's Xbox title Ninja Gaiden which yes was even given that name in Japan. It's crazy to me he just was gone for so long, always wondered why. Still, give this one a go if you're curious as it's one of the better games on the Famicom even if it isn't perfect. Now did I forget anything?...oh right! Did you know this is a prequel to II? Yeah if you wait 18 minutes on the end screen then it'll tell you "TO BE CONTINUED NINJA RYUKENDEN II" which is interesting though why is this an easter egg? Anything else...nope ok bye for now.