414 - Shadow of the Ninja

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And welcome to Nastalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Well, we have a lot to discuss today because it's been a while since we had a ninja game on the show. Yeah. Have we ever had a ninja game on the show? Yeah, we've had a lot of shadow games. Uh you know, you'll re you'll recall Shadowgate. Yeah. Uh yeah, so we we're very familiar on that topic.

Is there do like I I mean I guess it's it's somewhat sort of like a superhero thing at this point, but like I I've never heard of at least in the more recent years Of pop culture. Everything just being like one kind of thing. Like i i is is there some like more modern ninja like in in in pop culture right now? Yeah. Yeah. Not not right now, but maybe like vampires ten years ago. Vampires, yeah. But look you you weren't like, Oh, this is so cool, everyone's a vampire

Actually you were for a little bit. Yeah, I think everybody was doing that. A and zombies, remember when Walking Dead and That's true. Zombies was getting kind of like so played out that I was just like, why don't they know about what when were you gonna get the one that like they knew about the zombies because they read about them in books first and then it happened? Like why do they never have the zombie pop culture first?

I th yeah, I think that that's like an interesting there's other two versions of the w of of possible worlds. One where these stories exist and one's where these stories came from.

Sure, but it's not like nobody ever heard of like they were like, Oh, ninjas, what's that from? Like ninjas are ninjas ninjas are not like Ninjas don't translate to zombies in that sense that like one day everyone wakes up and suddenly zombies. I know that. Yeah, but we kinda did just wake up today in New York City in nineteen ninety and there's just So many ninjas everywhere. That is true. Like every other episode of this podcast.

is about ninjas. And a lot of them, Sean, do take place in New York City. Yeah. Apparently we are we we're the ninja capital of the of the United States. No, no. Yeah, of the United States is important'cause they're coming from Japan and then they're saving America. Well there's nothing that's to say that they're from Japan, Mike.

That's very presumptuous of me. I think that one of you mentioned recently on one of our many ninja episodes that like, Oh, I wonder if it's a ninja turtles thing and the New York part kind of adds to that theory. Like ninja turtles becoming popular might have just made ninjas in general popular. Probably. Okay. And if you just forget the whole like ninjas are popular at the moment

It it's all coming out in December of nineteen ninety. If you didn't get a ninja game for Christmas that year a and you know you were like old enough to tell the tale, like you your parents screwed up, right? Like they had like six options at Toys R Us and they were like Nah, he doesn't need these. Yeah. Probably Probably weren't a very good sun.

Shadow of the Ninja though, to try to figure out what separates it, I guess, you know, it is a side scrolling action game just like a Ninja Gaiden, just like most ninja games are. But it has a heavy emphasis on the platforming part. Not that the other ones didn't, but that I feel like there's a lot of moving platforms, there's a lot of

Scrolling in the levels themselves, both vertically and horizontally, a lot of pitfalls. So while there is still like you know, primarily a I d I wouldn't call it a hack and slash, but some kind of like action game format where you're mostly just attacking enemies and moving to the right.

there is this reliance on on the platforms and specifically the uh like the hang hanging from platforms. That's a that's like a notable feature in this game is they want you to grip on to platforms from underneath them and kind of uh use them to monkey bar across uh to other platforms. Like a ninja would.

Yeah, and I do appreciate that there's like this thing in this that's not just the design of the character or like the fact that like they have a sword or whatever that makes you feel ninja like. Yeah. Climbing onto this these, you know with a ceiling or whatever the top of the you know, having this like agility and also just the platforming being kind of part of the fight and not just part of the navigation, where I did feel a lot of the times I had to like

jump between attacks or like duck under someone and and jump up to reach them but jump back down. Like platforming felt like part of battling the enemies and not just how I get around. Yeah, I agree. That I I appreciated that um And it also like the enemies that are also ninjas, like they actually well, you can't do a lot of the cool ninja moves. Uh they must be like higher

Uh they must have like graduated in a higher class of ninja. Black belts. Yeah, because they can do like they can do like roll jumps and at least maybe at least that like th they are ninjas that can do these Yeah it's funny, you're right. I just like until right now I never really interpreted anyone else on screen as a ninja. But me There's definitely other things there's only like so many ninjas, but ninjas do exist, yeah.

Yeah, I mean I'm seeing and some of them now I've just thought like, oh like this guy's just throwing shit at the end of the day. You might also be like the most plotting, like least agile ninja. Yeah, yeah. Except when it comes to monkey bars. Even that. I mean I think it's a really cool mechanic, but it did I think actually functionally that part, the monkey bar part.

sort of slowed me down more than uh c you know, i i as much as it looked cool, I feel like a lot of times it put me in the way of a of an attack that like and gave me like just that like one extra second of like time it took to get out of there that got me killed. But it's also very useful to like hang before you um Before you move up on the platform, right? Like so you hang there and the enemy is above it and then you can choose like okay, he fired his gun, now I can swing up there.

It's useful in the context of this game because it's because it's there, it's useful to do what you're saying. But would it not be more useful to just be standing below it and jump up? And then jump back down. Sure. But you can do that too. I see I always had trouble doing that. Every time I tried to do that I would just grab onto the lid. And then my timing would be off. So I felt like I had to go over the ledge.

What I what I mean is that there are certain platforms that don't have that are not flagged as monkey bars. That you can do that too. I think part of my problem too was recognizing which ones were flagged as monkey bars and which weren't. So then sometimes I would think like

Oh I'm about to jump up and then I would grab the monkey bars. I'm being a little bit of a curmudgeon because it is a it is a cool mechanic that's like fun because it makes you feel like a ninja, but you know, let's complain. This is like

An observation on my part. I don't know if it's intentional by the developer, but this was like one of the rare side-scrolling games that I'm I might. I've I I'm not gonna confirm it, but in my playthrough, enemies only ever showed up to the right of me as well. So kinda like as I'm progressing. There were no like back attack enemies, there were no like

You know, above from above, like nobody swooped in on you. And so it was kind of like even if there were multiple enemies in front of you, there was this like plan of attack to move forward. Like always clear out the state the you know, the elements in front of you before you move on.

And I feel like that's actually pretty smart in the game because the difficulty of some of these enemies, it is like it is hard to just go around them, to dodge them and just say like forget it. Like you kinda do wanna fight them and to move on.

I could have sworn there were some that's kinda sort of spawned behind you, but I I I'll take your word for it. Well that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying that there's uh in my like head memory of this game, it was very rare or or again, like maybe not even at all until the later stages.

Where it just feels like uh everything is coming in front of you. So you almost have like your little uh one on one encounters with everything if you played it slow enough yeah and you kind of slowly paced through these battles. a as you move along the stages'cause the stages themselves are pretty short. They're uh there's five total levels but they're broken into different sections. So I guess there's like fourteen total stages.

But it's meant to be this you know, I guess like if you're really good at the game, speed runnable, quick burst game. And if you're not, it's you could take it slower and really fight these enemies one by one and move continue to move to the right. Yeah, no there were there were definitely certain situations where I'll just like screw this, I'm gonna try and jump over them and skip this fight.

And then what I think the hitboxes of them are a little taller than it looks like because uh I I definitely could not do that. You are kind of forced to face off. against the the vast majority of these guys. Yeah.

And I yeah, I do recognize too that, you know, a lot of them maybe if not n definitely not all of them, but a lot of them do feel like little one on one duels, which I've praised in other games before, specifically Zelda Two, I really liked that in actually. But um But yeah, there's sometimes like I was like also just like I'm just gonna like tank some damage and run through this guy because I'm not dealing with this right now. Particularly the guys, I think it's thinking stage two.

There's like these mecca looking guys, these robot looking guys that like you hit them once, they like detach from their legs and fly up above you and start shooting you. Oh yeah. And I'm like, I'm just gonna take the hit and walk away. It's like e I'll take less damage definitively less damage because I'm going to get my ass kicked once this guy starts flying around. That's a good point because the they are pretty generous with the health here. Um

And I did end up making that game time decision of just like I'll just walk through'em and hopefully they'll despawn if I get far enough away. Um Uh but yeah, I I appreciated that this wasn't like a ninja Ninja Gaiden like one hit kill situation. Was Ninja Gaiden one hit kill? I feel like a health bar. Oh shit. Well but one of them is. I'm sure th I'm sure one of them is. Every NES game ever is multiple. One of the ninja games is there was a recent ninja one that uh was one hit, I believe.

Uh anyway, the uh the mixture though of the the what we're talking about, the one on one battles and the platforming of it all, it does feel like it is i the the first of these Ninja Side Glowing Action Games that kind of rewards uh like your movement, like your control over the character more than just like

being stronger or brute for or like attacking, you know, without care. I I'm not trying to say that the game thought those things out, but like the enemy attack patterns and the spacing and everything, there is a way to like interpret where the projectile'cause a lot of the enemies are projectile based. I thought that was kind of strange too, that they're not

Melee focused and they're mostly shooting lasers or other weird things at you. There's like a way to read where they shoot, how often they shoot, and then like how to go in for the kill. And whether that's like Fun or not is up to the the player themselves because it's a large part of the game and kinda slows down the game for the uh for the less skilled player, but it it seems like the design intention. It is the year twenty twenty nine.

And uh Emperor Garuda has taken over New York City. Uh I I d I don't know though, in the manual it just refers to it as the largest city in America. So are we just the emperor and he just rules New York. Yeah, a city. He's like the the mayor emperor. I guess we are the empire state. So Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the emperor state. Yeah, I guess I I need a little bit more m a little bit more details to to see how To see how seriously I should take this guy.

Well, is he just st maybe he's already taken over like Japan or Asia and now it's like he m finally like took over the first part of America and it's like shit, he he got New York City, it's just a matter of time before he gets um Iron Mountain, New Jersey. Logical progression. Yeah. So on in that order. People only like the there New York City is only a target because you have to get through that to get to Iron Mountain, New Jersey.

Exactly. And Iron Mountain is it it just sounds strong. Like whoever controls Iron Mountain has the respect of a lot of people. The rule is this a real place, Mike? Iron Mountain's a real place in New Jersey, yeah. Yeah, it's where we would get our uh it's where we would get our tapes at Nickelodeon. Is that where you go to All the VHS tapes off the Jersey Shore?

No. I never realized that Iron Mountain was like a city. I thought it was like a company only that like we just I I don't think it's a city. I think that's why I chose it, because I tried to pick as obscure a place as possible. Anyway, my point being, it's the year twenty twenty nine. This can still happen. We have three years to find out if you know, I'm not saying Emperor Garuda specifically, but there is still time for an emperor to take over New York City. Emperor Mundami? Dude.

Okay. Maybe not. Um we'll workshop it. And there's only two ninjas up for the task, or is it like'cause they're part of a clan. Is it like they just send two ninjas? I don't know about you guys, but

If they took over New York City, you'd think you'd ask for a little more help than just two ninjas. Are they do they work less Yeah, well no,'cause it's like, yeah, they're they're the two ninjas of the Ega clan, uh Hayate and Lady Cade, and I guess I'm trying to figure out what is yeah, is it like an apocalypse situation where it's like they're the only two left and they have to go in, or is it like

I think it's just a long way to do that. Oh, it's a good thing that they can be doing. More ninja stuff. Here's like my headcanon is not that it's a low priority, that it's like it's trying to be low profile. Where it's like th this you know, this

faction that's taken over New York City, like you cannot take them on head-to-head combat. You bring your army up against them, they're going to destroy you. They got giant robot spider things and they're they're just you need someone that can be a ninja that can sneak in there, infiltrate, get to the heart of the of the conflict.

and and take out the the issue. Ninja. See the interesting thing is that they can't they can't be going on the stealth route because the manual also mentions that Garuda is aware That they have breached the outskirts of his city's defenses, and for the first time ever, he feels an inner chill.

He's i he he's supposed to be some badass emperor, but he's nervous that uh ninjas have infiltrated New York City? Yeah, well i I think it's like that's the thing. It's like let's say you have a you have a gun. And Somebody is coming at you like, okay, I can deal with this. But let's say you have a gun and there's a venomous ant.

coming for you. It's like that's a lot harder to deal with right now. Or like a fly that's gonna kill you if it bites you. That's I feel like that's your ninjas where they're like he knows they're there, but he just can't get a hold of them. They're too fast. They're too quick. They're they're sneaky. They're Uh they're agile, whereas like a an army, it's like okay, yeah, we can fight an army. Now what if the ants had little tiny guns too?

Well, then you're screwed. Yeah. You know, I think about this whenever I play a game like God of War or Shadow of the Colossus where I'm just like if I'm like If I'm putting myself in the b in the perspective of a Colossus, but like I'm just Joe and I'm standing there and there's a there's a bug. There's a bug the size of like my my pinky fingernail just jumping around my head clu

Stabbing chains into my head, cannot get it. I cannot swipe it. Just for like twenty minutes, it's like slowly, methodically taking me down. Uh I don't know why I'm describing it. Just a funny image to me, but I I do I have had dreams about about insects.

Oh, that's it? No no like no dream that you want to share with us? I think we're gonna share like one dream. No no no. You just get to know that I've I don't think I believe that you've had dreams about insects. I've had dreams about them, Joe. Yeah, okay.

So the weapons of the ninjas, uh there's the katana, that's your main weapon. Uh you have the throwing stars. You have the uh chain and sickle, which gets a sick name. I don't know if I'm gonna say this right, but it's the Kusari Gama? That sounds amazing. Ooh. That's apparently like that's not even like the name of the web like the nickname. That is the official like Japanese name for a chain and sickle weapon. It's a Kusari Gama. Is that uh I was gonna say maybe it's like uh like heartburn.

Okay, yeah. If you say it the right way, maybe a little more emphasis. Kusarigama. Um no, I'm ba I'm bailing out of this episode. Like I'm doing that's 0 for 2 now. I'm on watch. Uh the last I the last weapon you get is a grenade. Should should ninjas have grenades? I think it might be kind of part like more like a smoke grenade or like a poison thing, right? Like that's like

I feel like I never really understood I never knew ninjas to be like have like explosives and and poisons and like things like that until I uh played Pokemon and like that's what Koga was all about. And then I realized like that's like a big part of ninjas. Isn't it? It is a big part of ninjas, but y the sm the smoke part, sure, you know, uh

Uh i an actual this is this is referred to in the manual as a bomb. I was calling it a grenade'cause it just you know, you su you toss it and then it blows up and it does hurt the enemies. It doesn't like it it would be interesting if instead it was a smoke thing to actually allow you to pass the enemies in a limited amount of time before it like wore off or something. That would be cool. Uh yeah, I don't know how uh lore appropriate the the ninja bombs are.

Uh but I mean I I like them. I think they they they handled well as a as like a short term weapon. It's my turn to mispronounce things here. The Horuku Haya are hand grenades that were used by ninjas centuries before fire.

That's all. Oh that's that's metal. Then then then the whole game is actually lore accurate. It's a small bomb tickly typically thrown by hand. This is on Reddit, so it's true. Hmm. And then If you're you know, if you're really desperate, there is a way to just do a uh immensely powerful, practically screen clearing attack, uh that

as a trade-off, you lose a chunk of your health. It's not something that has like limited uses. It's like you actually uh lose a lot of your health in exchange to to get a rid of a bunch of enemies. But it is a really cool what I think of with ninjas is like kind of like Uh teleporting all around, uh attacking everything, and then the enemies just die. Like that's with that like really high pitched like Um now I I've been seeing this in gameplay footage, but when I played the game

I didn't know you could do that. What do you do to do that? It's a great question. I was looking in the manual and can't find the answer in front of me, but I know I did it in my playthrough. So I I just think it's weird that the manual doesn't call out how to do that. Maybe it's select. Uh yeah, but you would think that they would say that, right? You'd think.

One would assume. Maybe it was A and B together? No, this is like some people and like not knowing could turn into a in into a tiger in that other tiger that tiger. That other ninja cr Ninja Crusaders. Yes.

Which I was gonna br thank you for teeing this up, Sean. I was gonna ask about Ninja Crusaders is also like ninjas in the future in a city having to stop an invasion, but that was an alien invasion with robots. This one is more like a little a little more grounded at least. Like there's no aliens, there's no cyborgs, but eventually it does kind of just they resort to using robots towards the end of the levels.

Well, it is twenty twenty nine, so I mean my question is like which one is which one's cooler? Forget about the plot wise, right? Like forget about hearing this one's about battling aliens and this one's about battling an emperor. Which game actually has like the cooler enemies and presentations? I th I mean I I think this one because it's like i a lot of them are like th there's a guy with a boomerang which I think is cool. Like there's you can't really beat the coolness

Of a guy with a boomerang. Um And then there's a guy that has like a giant like a giant tank that has like an energy sword underneath it. I'm not really sure what that was supposed to be, but that's how I'm um That's how I'm going to see it. Um And then you've you've got like that this is that they didn't really change anything about the New York City skyline, like it just is that, but that we also have robots and stuff.

Um, so I'm gonna go I'm gonna go with Shadow of the Ninja for for for cooler cooler vibe. Yeah, I also I do like that at least in the earlier levels and and there are just like a lot of yeah, other humanoids I often like prefer over like some crazy mecha robot. If you're if you're a human ninja, I wanna fight other like ninja like enemies. Something about that just seems like more badass or like more intense than like fighting something completely different than what you are.

And and there are there are sections where you just fight a bunch of like, I don't know, Roombas, I wanna call them, like Roombas that are going too fast. Yeah. I I thought they were snails, but I'm like, I don't know why there'd be snails. But there's still there's still people. It's good that there's people. Yeah. And to compare the two games on a different level, I also feel like

size wise, Shadow of the Ninja gets like the scale of everything better than uh Ninja Crusaders did. Uh they're really not even that far apart, but the the s the viewpoint is a lot wider. in uh Ninja Crusaders and Shadow of the Ninja just look

More like how NES games were looking in nineteen ninety and Ninja Crusaders was looking more like nineteen eighty-seven, if that makes sense. Like just just you know, now I look at these games on the NES and I can just tell you what year they look like they were made in. Well if you even want to talk about relative scale, uh like yeah, you th this game has a B2 because if I'm gonna turn into a a frickin' dragon. I'd better be more than like uh A a Sprite and a half.

Of what I was before, you know? You actually get smaller if you're the tiger too. Like you you you're like half the size. You're like a cat, actually, not a tiger. A house cat. Yeah. Whereas like Ninja uh Shadow of the Ninja, the the boss battles in here, like especially some of those um mechanical ones, like they're pretty big sprites.

I have another point about the boss battles. Um please. I found it strange that I don't know if it's just that. they only chose to show the bottom of their health bar, or if there's some weird uh like trigger that you have to hit before you actually start taking away their health. Um, that like that maybe there's just health overflow that you're not seeing. Um but did you guys like run into a situation where like you weren't actually taking any health away from these bosses until

Way into the fight. Yes. Uh yeah. See, I didn't notice that. There's a few there's a few times, especially later on, where like you do have to hit them a few times before you will ever like knock off like and start seeing some chip damage. But what's the thing? Like just make the the health bar bigger than Right. They should almost or they should just make like each block representative of more. So this way it's like okay, it does take like seven hits, but he does lose a block of health.

And then another seven hits will lose that second block, right? I think what you're saying, Sean, is that there's actually just like this invisible second bar. That you can't see. Because it took forever. Like I I got to the final boss. But I I was, you know, uh dying enough times, losing your power ups. It got to the point where I just had my regular sword and I was fighting the guy for m like several minutes.

Never got to a point where the damage was actually coming off of the enemy health bar. And I was just like, I'm gonna watch how this game ends. I think I uh might be conditioned to to not be concerned about that from my experience with Kingdom Hearts.

'Cause that's uh that's how the Sephiroth boss battle, super boss in Kingdom Hearts is, is an invisible health bar. Uh and it used to really drive me crazy. I didn't know like well what do what how do I get this health to start going down. I didn't realize it was going down, I just couldn't see it.

It's also cool when uh also in Kingdom Hearts, like, you know, when they have like multiple health bars where it's like different colors and it goes down. So it's like, Okay, cool, I got rid of orange, now I gotta get rid of yellow.

I always loved that uh that mechanic and I I was always a little sad that they never went back to it and I never saw really anyone else do that either. Yeah. I will say Uh you know, I I just finished um The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, and that had a whole new take. on the health bar for the final boss that uh I won't spoil, but I thought it was really uh well done and cool and a little cheeky. Uh the whole world is the health bar.

Y you know what, Sean? We should make a game. If you've got ideas like that, we should make a game. Open world health bars. Open world health bar. The whole world is the health bar. And uh it's basically um The more it's like a oh my god, it's like a PUBG like where like the more you ki hit the enemy, the world shrinks. The more you hit the enemy, the world frank. The world is the health bar. So you're

the health bar goes down is that represented by the w Yeah, isn't that what that like uh PUBG or uh Fortnite? The world shrinks or the map shrinks. Fortnite is where the the circles. Okay, I get it. Yeah, is that not PUBG also? I thought that was like Well maybe it was like I've never played PUBG, but I just uh I I guess I I'm thinking of the entire world. Shrinking. Like the outside of the game.

Yes. Yeah. I I thought you were gonna say, Joe, that this game, this proposed game that we're making is like Raidon Bungling Bay, where it's like everything. No, everything's getting destroyed and that like you know, you have to stop the threat from destroying your your world and your world is truly your health bar because if they destroy all your cities or something. Oh it's your own health bar. Right. It's your own health bar. I like it. Sure. Let's make that.

In addition to all this that we're making inc in addition to a podcast and um a monthly bites episode, let's make a video game. Why not? That's how all video games work. A monthly video game. How hard could it be? Expedition thirty three started as a Reddit post. The guy was like, Hey, anybody know how to make games? And then they wound up making that. No I'm sure no one with expertise helped him along the way. Right, right, right. But that is the truth, actually. It was like seven years ago.

He was like asking if anybody wanted to like I think be the voice actors uh of the demo and also compose music and that's how they found their composer or something. Very interesting. No, they found their composer on SoundCloud. I'm mixing stories, but whatever. This is not an Expedition thirty three podcast, so it's fine.

And then probably the biggest thing that w uh only Joe and I can talk about is that there is once again multiplayer, two playable characters at the same time. Everyone uh you can play as hiate. You know one person, if it makes you feel better. Until this moment, once again, I forgot that we played this one. Well,'cause we played this one the same like we played this one almost in secession to Ninja Crusaders, so they're probably just blending to you.

A as games'cause it's like, yeah, another one of these. But here's the interesting thing, here's the hook. And I I think it's actually a negative hook, but it's a good challenge at least. We were talking about how in Ninja Crusaders you use um continues uh you kinda like gamify it with two players to help progress in In uh Shadow of the Ninja, the two players share all the resources. So continues are shared, uh uh items are shared. The health bar is not shared, but but basically like

You know, any any items you have and stuff like that. So it's very uh It it it becomes more of like a cooperative experience for real, like of uh you know, we have to really make sure that one of us isn't just dying all the time or else we'll run out of continuous defense. weapon then you have the chain weapon as well? No no because that's that well, actually that I didn't I don't think we ran into in our playthrough, so I don't want to speak to that. But I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

But that'd be an interesting idea, right? Yeah. That'd be super annoying. Yeah, that's what that's what I'm saying. I f I feel like Two player on the NES should always just like it should it should awake the power of having friends and games should be easier because you brought along A second driver. You know, it's like the the game doesn't need to scale up difficulty with the two of you. It's just like you brought like your cheat code in real life.

Yeah, I think that there's a there's a balance. Like it yeah, I don't I don't think it needs to scale too much, but you also don't want it to be yeah, you don't want it to be like, Oh, this isn't a game anymore or like it's not it's not a challenge because there's two of us or, you know Yeah, th this isn't a video game anymore. Now that there's a second player. Yeah. Right, and that's how that works. Right.

I think for me what's more important is that the game is designed around co op and it's not like new Super Mario Brothers where it's like, well, we're just all we're just all screwing each other over endlessly because like it's really just kind of a I don't want to say it was like shoehorned in the multiplayer, but it's like the game's designed as for single player. I think that makes the most difference for me. Sure, that makes sense.

There are uh two sequels and spin offs, um but Ne neither one well, let's start with the first one that's interesting is that there was a Game Boy version being worked on of Shadow of the Ninja, but the project was reworked and re re released as Ninja Gaiden Shadow. Which is very interesting because that's not even the same Uh publisher. Like this is now uh Ninja Gaidance under Tecmo.

So they took a shadow of the ninja game and turned it into a ninja guiden game. And if you look at uh Ninja Guiden Shadow, which I guess keeps it's kind of like a a combination of the two A lot of it is obviously with um Ryu, but he it looks like Ninja Gaiden, but it plays like Shadow of the Ninja, that there is still a lot of um, you know, hanging from platforms.

And uh a lot of similar like enemies and mechanics from this NES game brought over to the Game Boy one. So I see it for sure that it was going to be Shadow of the Ninja. I just wonder how do you change Like hands that far that it becomes a completely different franchise that you don't own. It it sounds like from what you're saying, it sounds like they made Ninja Guide and Guidance.

Right, right. Like a true guiding game that has nothing really to do with the original with the actual franchise, and it's like, oh we'll still put the name on it. That might not be how like guided games get made, but that's how I'm choosing to see it. And then in twenty twenty four, two years ago. We would have said last year, uh, not too long ago.

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn. And next year before that Shadow of the Ninja Reborn uh was released on basically everything switch, PS five, Xbox Series X, Steam. Uh and this looks Th like they they simultaneously made a very good looking game in my view, like kind of a m a metal slug looking ish game. W but also retaining a lot of the aesthetic of this NES game, so kudos to them on that. But this game looks very flashy and fun from from what I'm seeing here. It looks like they just took the

uh the ideas from this NES game and expanded on it times a hundred. Uh the even the enemies behave similarly to the way they behaved in the NES game, but everything just like You know, again, it's just it's more colorful, more polished, more uh uh uh just a beautiful art style here. However, the game seems to have a reputation for being very hard, too. So I don't know if I would uh pay the bucks to see this one, but visually just looking at a gameplay thing, like it's very uh

mesmerizing to look at. So if anyone's played it, would love to hear if uh if it holds up because it yeah, it looks like a true like we're inspired by the original game and we finally went back and made it. Like that's very interesting. That

Netsumi seems to be doing this uh with their games, going back into the catalog. I could be convinced to play this. Could I convince you to move on and do the essential games list? Shadow of the Ninja is uh coming in as a recommend from me, especially if you've been enjoying these other ninja games that we've had. And this might just be

where it falls in the list and it just gets like shitty, which is kind of upsetting'cause it's also alphabetical when it comes down to month. But at this point, I'm a little tired. We've had Uh Little Ninja Brothers, we've had Ninja Crusaders. Now we have Shadow of the Ninja. Technically, I guess you could count Jackie Chan's action Kung Fu in there as well. So it just feels like all a little played out for me and it's not sticking anymore. Like this game doesn't stand out enough.

uh to warrant it. And that also makes me worried about I remember Joe voting Essential on Ninja Crusaders and I was like, I wanna hold off. Now I'm worried that I'm not gonna be too hype on that game. So I guess what I'm saying is is that like there actually is genre fatigue, uh, even when you're exposed to it like uh years later. Like I'm I'm somehow as fatigued as probably people were at this time with ninja stuff of like

You know, uh all of a sudden Digger T Rock, Legend of the Lost City is looking pretty good. Like, yeah, we don't have enough caveman games. So it's a no from me. Sean? I'd say of the ninja games that we've played, I've uh I've I've had the most fun with this one. Uh I don't really have real like complaints with the game, aside from

like uh like not being very clear on if you're doing damage to bosses, uh, even though some of them are very they're it's very obvious that you're doing damage. There's a guy that just sort of like blows up when you hit him a few times. Um but He comes back together at the end. Uh yeah, so I really like this game. I I also

Might have some ninja fatigue though, uh with with with just how frequently they're coming up recently. So I don't know if I can put this on the Essential Games list right now, but Ma you know, I don't quite remember Ninja Crusaders, so maybe uh Maybe in the the once we've once we've sort of done a once over, we can we can think about it. So uh not essential for now.

Joe. Yeah, this is pretty fun. I thought it was a fun game. Um I think that the the word mediocre is kinda like a mean word and and I I feel like mediocre means like Yeah, you know, it's n it's not terrible but like it's not great and and it's it's used in like a negative way. And I and I wanna find like the other side of mediocre where it's solid. Yeah, it's not amazing, but like it it's all right. You know, like that's kinda like I think that mediocre also technically might

count there, but it just doesn't sound like it, but that's what I mean. It's fine. You know, I I I had fun. I think you should play this, but like I I I don't I'm not uh I would not uh feel right voting at Essential, so I I'm I'm gonna say no. Sean, your comment about the exploding bosses reminded me that uh this was something that I read about but could definitely not like recreate in my uh in my playthrough is that there was a

theory, I guess, online that how close you are to the explosion of the boss like dictates how much health replenishes. But in my experience, Your health just replenishes a little bit, like X amount, once you defeat the boss, and it doesn't matter where in the room or how close to the boss you were. Interesting. And you're talking about the one specific boss or you're talking about bosses in general? No, no, yeah, that that that first boss. Oh yeah. I

I I was also confused'cause sometimes like he would explode at you and sometimes he would explode away from you and I wasn't sure if that was just completely random. So it seems like there's a lot of Like just weird randomness going on with that boss. But also, you know... The bosses in general, while it is weird about their hitboxes, I I did like even just the the one on one human or humanoid characters that you fight in this game. Uh they they had good

behaviors and made for interesting boss fights, not just like hide in a corner or uh this is too fucking hard. Yeah. But we're not gonna revisit the game. Uh it's much too soon for that. We'll wait till uh We'll wait till our best of nineteen ninety episode, which is coming up.

We have uh Star Tropics next week. Pretty big game. A lot of people um said that they're gonna unsubscribe if we don't vote at Essential. I'm immune to your threats, people. You can't that stuff doesn't work on me. I you see what I've done with Zelda too. Don't make me uh do that to Star Tropic. On a similar note, though...

And I don't really know what I meant by that, so don't read it too. Uh canon ring that bell is you heard it here first. He only did it as a political. I for one genuinely don't really like Zelda T. So it doesn't matter. Me and Mike do, so it would be essential if he wasn't so political. Well we'll see. Um anyway.

After Star Tropics we we have a weird thing going on. Okay, and I want to make the audience aware of it. There are uh two like combo games or compilation games. Uh one of them is Super Mario Brothers Duck Hunt World Class Track Meet. And one of them is Super Spike V Ball Nintendo World Cup. We've already played uh these games obviously now. Yeah, they're be they're being compiled because I'm sure Nintendo wanted to uh bundle up some new stuff for the holidays.

And so I just wanna prepare people that we will still do these episodes. Uh and we might talk a little bit about these games, but I also have other topics uh that I would like to discuss on these episodes. So when you see the titles Don't automatically assume that I'm just gonna paste three episodes together and count that as a new episode. We will uh have some have some uh offbeat shenanigans in those episodes. So we should

We can't do a Mr. Dream thing anymore. I was just gonna say we should take the word track meet and replace it with Mr. Dream every time. That was a fun episode too, though. People should listen to that one.