The Ninja is a strikingly average game for the Sega Master System. Basic graphics, bad sound and boring gameplay do not a good game create. The graphics are fairly standard SMS fare. People animate in four frames of animation, terrain is just a endless scroll of the same landscape and enemies are identical genetic sprites. There are also these horribly undetailed things that chase you. All I could think of was that they were pigs. After reading the manual I discovered they were wolves. Sound is very lacklustre. Firing sounds are just a blip enemies dying is just another blip and there really isn’t much other sound besides the insanely annoying dying sound. Music is mind numbingly bad midis which loop constantly and really aren’t all that good to begin with. Control is ok with responsive controls with both buttons being used to fire and pushing both together to turn invisible. Why each button wasn’t assigned to each function, ill never know. Gameplay is simple and frustrating. You play a supposed ninja out the get some green scrolls that you need to get for some reason to save the kingdom or something. Wow. Unlike most ninjas yours style of combat is to run through wide open fields and streets and kill anyone you meet with throwing darts or stars. There isn’t much variation and just killing bad guys all the times gets boring fast. You don’t have a sword or anything, your only other weapon is throwing stars that you can get by collecting a red scroll. The game would be very easy if it didn’t employ the oldest trick in the book to increase difficulty: the one hit kill. That’s right you fight hordes of projectile flinging bad guys and one hit kills you. I’m sure you can imagine how annoying that is. Another problem is that the hordes of enemies run just as fast as you, unless you get the blue speed scroll. There are token other enemy types like close range swordsmen and end of level boss guys with nunchucks.. All up the gameplay is nothing like what a ninja would do and gets inanely boring. The final stupid thing is the fact that if you happen to get all the way to the end (which I have) you need to have seven green scrolls to complete the game. If you don’t you are sent back to the start of the earliest level that you don’t have the scroll for. These scrolls are invisible and are hidden really well. What a stupid idea. Replay is nada If the stupid one hit kill gaming don’t annoy you the stupid scroll hunt will. This is one of the few really bad games for the Master System. Don’t play it.
The Ninja hails back from 1986, the year I was born. Back in those days, games didn't have things like polygons, bump-mapping, animation, or gameplay. In the Ninja you play the part of- well, a Ninja. Using your various ... Read Full Review
I am giving this game a 10 because it is amazing yet very simple compared to other games running on this hardware. The game starts with a storyline and then a map screen showing your relative progress. If you like tricky... Read Full Review
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