The Ninja Gaiden games passed me by during the NES era, but thanks to the 3DS Virtual Console, I recently addressed this gap in my gaming resume by trying the original game in the series to see what I had missed. After getting about halfway through, I realized I hadn’t missed much of anything, as NES Ninja Gaiden has not aged well. In fact, I’m not sure it was ever a good game to begin with. For a game that’s supposed to be a classic, it represents everything I don’t like about retro game design, and makes me thankful for how far game design has progressed the last few decades.
Ninja Gaiden on the NES is supposed to be a ninja game, but the main character, Ryu Hayabusa, is very limited in what he can do. Ninjas are supposed to be powerful agents of stealth and combat, yet very little of that is on display. Ryu’s primary weapon is a short sword that barely extends out from his body. One button press equals one swing of his sword. There are no combos or flurry attacks, or any variation in his attacks whatsoever. He has secondary weapons that he can use, but he needs spirit energy to use them. That spirit energy runs out fairly quickly, so that’s all you have to work with. He doesn’t get better weapons and he doesn’t get weapon upgrades. The primary weapon he has at the beginning of the game is the same primary weapon he has in the middle of the game, and it’s the same primary weapon he will have at the end of the game. There is no leveling up of your character, and there is no powering up of your character. In fact, there is no character progression whatsoever. The game starts off difficult, and gets more difficult as you progress. However, Ryu remains static in his abilities. Meanwhile, the enemies gets more and more insane in their determination to relentlessly and repeatedly kill him.
Ninja Gaiden isn’t just a bad game, it’s a broken game. The enemy respawn rate is so ridiculously high that it destroys its own pacing, progression, and difficulty curve. It’s a game who’s high difficulty takes priority over what traditionally makes a game fun, compelling, and…well…good. It’s a game that sacrifices pacing, progression, and a normal difficulty curve for the sake of extreme difficulty at all costs. If that means enemies respawning out of rock walls or out of thin air, so be it.
No game, no matter how difficult, should have enemies respawning at the rate Ninja Gaiden has them. Usually when a 2D game wants to have enemies respawn, they’ll do it off-screen. Ninja Gaiden doesn’t even bother with that many times. It will have enemies respawn right in front of you, and not even have the courtesy to do it off-screen. I would watch enemies jump right out of walls, and eagles appear in the sky, all coming at me as fast as they can.
Even this would be forgivable if you were given some incentive to keep playing – but like I said, there is no character progression or upgrades in the game at any point. The only reward for dying dozens of times to beat a level in Ninja Gaiden is to die dozens more times in the next level. You’re only rewarded with punishment and death. In that sense, I’ve never played a game like it before. It overtly sacrifices fun for difficulty, in spite of the fact that the developers had all the ingredients to make a truly amazing game.
The Castlevania series on NES is difficult as well. The controls are stiff and you have every horror creature imaginable trying to kill you, similar to Ninja Gaiden’s enemies. However, in Castlevania, your character has more to work with. His primary weapon is a whip. While the first whip you use isn’t terribly impressive, it can easily be powered up to something more formidable. Secondary weapons play an important role, and can be used more prominently than the secondary weapons in Ninja Gaiden. Granted, the original Castlevania didn’t have great power-ups or character progression either, but at least it had something, and it was also a lot shorter than Ninja Gaiden. Castlevania II had an inventory of different weapons you could buy, while Castlevania III had alternate characters you could transform into to help you on your quest. Ninja Gaiden has none of that. Ryu has one short sword as a weapon, and that’s it – for the whole game.
Ninja Gaiden plays like a mod to a lost game that never released that had the potential and foundation to be good, but as a joke, they stripped away most of the main character’s abilities and turned the enemy respawn rate up to eleven. It doesn’t make you feel like a ninja. You’re too lacking in abilities to feel like a competent ninja.
It’s also curious that none of the enemies, other than the bosses, take more than one hit to kill. They don’t feel like they have any substance. The game just throws as many enemies as it can at Ryu, and through sheer volume, will take him out. There’s little strategy or difference in how to beat the different enemies. With the exception of the bosses, no individual enemy is difficult to kill. Instead, the game relies on overwhelming the player by enemy volume, while limiting the main character’s abilities to fight said enemies. Apparently, that is supposed to make you feel like a ninja. If I want to play a game about fighting never-ending mobs of enemies, I’ll play Diablo or Dynasty Warriors. A ninja game, even in the NES era, should have more to offer the player.
The only thing Ninja Gaiden offers from level to level, and from one act of the game to the next, is a change of scenery to die in. The first few levels start off in the city. Then you go to a forest. Then to a mountainous area with snow – but you’ll still die all the same.
Ninja Gaiden isn’t a bad game because it’s very difficult. It’s a bad game because it doesn’t reward the player for overcoming the difficulty it presents. It just punishes you. Ryu doesn’t get better weapons or power-ups or any new abilities. Just another level of suicidal enemies who all want to murder him. If that sounds fun or compelling to you, you’ll love Ninja Gaiden – but even by late ‘80s NES standards, it’s lacking because of the developer’s single-minded dedication to punishing the player at all costs.
I don’t shy away from difficulty in games, and Ninja Gaiden’s difficulty by itself didn’t turn me off. What turned me off was that at around the halfway point, I realized I had experienced everything the game had to offer, and that the rest of it was just going to be like what I had already played – only harder, but with no reward or incentive to keep playing. No better weapons and no power-ups of any kind. Just fighting with my dinky short sword and dying a lot.
The key to making a difficult game is making sure you reward the player for their struggle. Give them incentive to want to endure and persevere. Reward the player and make the basic mechanics and other elements of the game so tight, they keep coming back in spite of themselves. Don’t overwhelm the player with difficulty. Teach them through the gameplay, and don’t be cruel in your level design.
To Tecmo’s credit, you do get unlimited continues throughout the game. Any time you die, you get to restart relatively close to where you died. In that sense, the game isn’t too punishing.
So what does Ninja Gaiden have to offer? The controls are good. Being able to wall jump gives you a feeling of agility when you’re able to use it. The story is told well. The cut-scenes were a first in video games, and the visuals are superb for an NES game. The music is another strong point. There are some truly memorable chip tune classics in Ninja Gaiden.
Other than that, the only thing Ninja Gaiden has to offer is that it’s hard. Really, really hard. Ridiculously hard to the point where your suspension of disbelief that you’re a ninja on a quest to stop an evil demon goes out the window.
If dying a lot in a video game is fun to you, with no reward for accomplishment, conquest, or avoiding death, play Ninja Gaiden. There are gamers out there who like that type of game, but those are the only people I would recommend it for.
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