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Post by anagrama on Mar 27, 2005 18:39:52 GMT
Another 7 days have swiftly rolled around, and after a short week with the Bitmap's finest, this time we've got ShadowAngel to pick the next morsel for general consumption... Over to you!
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Post by ShadowAngel on Mar 27, 2005 20:05:04 GMT
Well then let me choose a game... I really wanted to chose Back to the Future 2 for Game of the Week, just to see what happens. But then i got afraid of getting banned from the forum ;D So move on to my game of the week and it will be: NINJA GAIDEN In my oppinion on of the best sidescroller on the master system. The graphics are nice and the music is just great. You play Ryu Hayabusa the last Dragon Ninja and your mission is to retrieve the magic Bushido which was stolen by some stupids The game itself features everything you expect: Ninjas, Magic, Shurikens and japanese people with shooting cameras ;D Well, i hope you enjoy this game of the week
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dezanuebe
Sonic the Hedgehog
Master System, the best of all times...
Posts: 2,177
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Post by dezanuebe on Mar 27, 2005 20:13:45 GMT
FANTASTIC CHOICE, an excellent game that i really admire, slick graphics, good sound, highly playable and takes some time to finish!!! ... by the way have you noticed how similar the life gauge is to the one in Master of Darkness...
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Post by snowblind on Mar 27, 2005 21:37:09 GMT
Very good game, the images that told the story impressed the hell out of me at the time. Shame I suck at the game though.
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Post by Stan on Mar 27, 2005 21:55:36 GMT
Oooooo, great pick! Can't wait to actually run the whole way through this one. Since I'm quite familiar with the NES series, I will greatly enjoy giving this one a go! I've made it pretty far before, but I never attempted to defeat it. Seems I always ended up shutting it off because I had to go somewhere. Not tonight!
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Post by CRV on Mar 28, 2005 0:58:15 GMT
It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature
If you can get your ninja magic meter to 999, it will stay stuck at 999, meaning you now have unlimited ninja magic. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), it makes the game a bit easier.
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Post by JellyCrystals on Mar 28, 2005 1:00:45 GMT
Nope... don't have this game either
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Post by Hades on Mar 28, 2005 9:27:53 GMT
You know how sometimes games get harder? Well for me this is one of those games, I used to be able to cruise through it without breaking a sweat. But now I get to the lava level (6 I think) and have a helluva lotta trouble passing it.
Still this is a sweet as game. I remember the first time we got this years ago, it was either this or Strider. After playing Strider I was very, very happy that this is what we bought.
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Post by Stan on Mar 29, 2005 4:03:34 GMT
Wow, great game, I just beat it last night (took about 2 hours or so). Well, overall excellent. The graphics and music are splendid. I didn't know about that 999 ninja magic thing, and if I did the game would have been WAY too easy, so I'm glad I didn't find that out. You can avoid it though, I suppose, by just keeping your magic under that and using it a lot (the homing fireball magic uses up a lot). The enemies in this game were a bit different than those in the NES series, and it has a different feel to it, almost more realistic than mystical like the others. I'm not sure if there is any suggestion here of this story fitting in with the three NES games, but it really doesn't matter because it's great regardless. Everything flows very nicely and you can use a variety of neat tricks that any Ninja Gaiden fan will be familiar with. As usual, there is one ninja magic (the homing fire) that kind of trumps everything else, but due to the fact that it uses a lot of power, unless you reach 999, you'll use it sparingly. You can't exactly run straight through this game because there are often enemies and traps here and there that will hinder such progress, sending you into a pit or taking out a good portion of your life. This is good. The bosses tend to be fairly easy, and only the final boss and the rock boss will really give you any trouble. The rest are pretty much cake. This is somewhat welcome, but they should have been a bit more difficult. Ninja Gaiden for the NES had some pretty rough bosses, but it wasn't until the final boss that you wanted to kill it. I'd rather have an easy time with a game than wish it were dead. Some of the enmies were really unique and quite clever, such as these samurai a bit later that look find until you get close and then they flip out and come at you VERY quickly. Nice touch. Overall, it's just a great game and I'll definitely come back to it in the future. My only complaint is that it's a bit too easy, but not THAT easy, it took me two hours to beat it and that included dying several times on certain areas.
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Post by psychofox on Mar 29, 2005 7:45:52 GMT
another great choice. this season's GOTW has seen some fantastic picks...
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Post by Geishaboy on Mar 29, 2005 9:49:16 GMT
I freaking love this game. Its one of my all time favourites. I'm glad someone picked it. ;D
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Post by anagrama on Mar 31, 2005 21:18:09 GMT
This really is a first-rate game - I hadn't played it much until I got the GameGear version about a year ago, and went through that before properly trying the SMS incarnation. I put in another hour or so last night, and it's still as good as ever - great graphics, really tight controls and a few inventive touches. The life bar, bountiful health, infinite continues and 999-trick mean it's quite forgiving, but that's not too much of a detraction since it's really enjoyable nonetheless. Excellent choice!
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Post by CRV on Apr 1, 2005 9:52:13 GMT
Talking about the 999-trick, sometimes it doesn't matter how much magic you have if you don't have the right magic. For example, I was at the Kendo Samurai (Chapter 3 Boss) and had the fire ring. Completely useless. I tried just hitting him with my sword, but of course, he comes after you when you get too close. So I ended up dying...
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Post by Sinistral on Apr 2, 2005 0:05:32 GMT
I only recently got this from Retroreserve. Its a very good game from what I've saw, graphically it looks very NES like i think though. Top gameplay through.
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Post by grolt on Aug 26, 2011 9:31:55 GMT
Last year when I was reliving a lot of NES games I played as a child my brother and I took to beating the first Ninja Gaiden. Bad choice. That game is seriously impossible. It plays so good, but man, the further you get the cheaper it gets and it becomes one giant frustrating mess. How did we find this fun back in the day? Anyway, after hurtling that game from my NES, I decided to finally give the SMS version a try. Initially, I was not impressed. It was graphically zoomed out compared to both the NES and GG versions, and honestly, I didn't think the graphics were all that good. Too plain. We played through the first level and then that was that.
Perhaps it was my allegiance to, or memories of, the original NES game that deterred me from the SMS version at the time, but after finally playing through Master of Darkness and loving it, I decided to give the SIMS guys another chance. I'm glad I did. This game is really freakin' good. The absolutely nailed the control - it feels exactly like the NES game but even tighter. Wall jumping, hanging from ledges, all that, just seems so much more responsive and intuitive compared to the NES. The initial draw for me was always how cool Ryu looked when you'd do that flip slash every time you attacked or how fun the wall jumps or power ups were, and SIMS effectively brought that onto this system.
More impressively, though, SIMS improved on the NES game by lessening the difficulty but still capturing the essence of how the original game worked. There are still the cheap birds that come out of nowhere, you still bounce backwards every time you get hit, and sometimes when you're doing all that platforming above pitfalls it can seem like just a wild bout of luck. But in this game, you're rewarded for memorization or just familiarity with the levels or controls, and after being stymied a few times, you're able to effectively beat the problematic areas and move on. It really was a great feeling to have the frustration at times (for me it was the waterfall level and the ice level the most) turn to sheer delight when you were finally able to beat the level. In the NES version, you'd just give up because the spawning enemies were too cheap and they made you recover so much ground with every continue. On the SMS, SIMS found that sweet spot with the difficulty, and the result is a game that's great to play all the way to the finale.
The story isn't quite as effectively told as the NES version, but it is still quite detailed and has two cut scenes per level (so we're talking about 16 in total). The music is also riling and effective.
The one knock I can lobby against NG, and it isn't really one, is that it's so similar in presentation to Master of Darkness. The life bar, the power up controls, the cut scenes, the music...it all has touches of MoD, which makes it feel a little less like its own property. Considering how great MoD is though, and how a port of NG like this one isn't all that original to begin with, such a flaw really isn't anything to complain about.
I recant the indifference I had to this game before - Ninja Gaiden for the Master System is stellar in every regard. Truly a fun, challenging and, most importantly, a rewarding gaming experience. It offers some good challenge, but certainly doesn't overstay it's welcome. It took me just over an hour and a half to finish.
SIMS was 2 for 2 on the SMS, and in a big way. Shame they didn't do much else for the system. I see they ended up doing some ports for the Dreamcast and then some more current systems...I wonder what they did after doing Gaiden for the SMS, considering no Mega Drive or Saturn games are listed on their Wikipedia entry. Definitely an underrated developer!
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