A unique and obscure game for the NES.

User Rating: 7.5 | The Last Ninja NES
By TheSerafen | Review Date:
Back in my younger years, when Nintendo was king, I jumped at any opportunity to play different games. If a friend of mine had a birthday and I knew he would get some video games, I would try to persuade him on which games he should get. Of course, my advice would go unheeded and my friend would buy some strange game that neither of us has heard of instead of going with a sure thing. Sometimes this gamble would pay off and other times it would show me how bad his taste in games really was.

Luckily, when my friend chose to get the Last Ninja over my recommendation of Castlevania III, he managed to find a cult classic. Sure, it is no comparison to Castlevania III, but my patience paid off when I eventually bought it later. The Last Ninja seemed like an unremarkable game when I looked at the screenshots on the box and when I first played the game. But after playing more, I grew fond of The Last Ninja. It is definitely a unique game for the NES that few other games could match.

Graphics aren’t necessarily the strong point in The Last Ninja. They are quite plain and simple. Even though it is an 8-bit game, the graphics lack the detail found in other games released before and around the same time. The characters aren’t highly detailed, but are strangely well animated. Their movements are very fluid and have a bit of variety to them. My favorite is the hit reactions against the enemy characters with their heads being snapped back. The music also lacks variety, but what music there is fits very well with the games subject matter. It has a strange fusion of eastern style music and spy themed music. There aren’t many sound effects, just limited to the sound of the enemy being hit and some other miscellaneous sounds.

It took me awhile to get used to the control scheme. There weren’t many games with a ¾ overhead perspective out, so getting used to moving around was tough. The hardest part was positioning your jumps correctly. A certain part on the first stage where you have to jump onto a moving boat is especially frustrating. Fortunately, there aren’t many other obstacles like that elsewhere in the game. Once I got moving around down, the Last Ninja became enjoyable to play. Despite being bare bones in some key areas, it bodes quite a bit of atmosphere that helps you get into the game.

Am I glad my friend decided to buy this obscure game instead of a blockbuster like Castlevania III? Not really. I feel this way because I knew I would eventually get to play Castlevania III and I was able to play a game that I know, under any other circumstances, would have never played.
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