25 replies to this topic

[7800Lover]

I recently got Ninja Gaiden for the NES on my Wii Virtual Console. That game is EVERY bit as difficult as I remember. It's said to be one of the hardest games on the system.

As Ryu Hayabusa, you have to fight through various levels armed with your sword and special ninja magics like shuriken and ninja fire. The game mechanics remind me of Castlevania (the life meter and special weapons) combined with Double Dragon (fighting constant waves of foes in hand to hand combat).

It is very tough for me. Those birds that attack you in the third act are very tricky and a number of times, they've knocked me to my death. Since the game was designed in Japan, I have to wonder what is it with the Japanese and killer birds. Do birds routinely kill people in Japan?

Anyone else play or manage to beat Ninja Gaiden?

[godslabrat]

7800Lover, on Thu Feb 2, 2012 1:51 PM, said:

Anyone else play or manage to beat Ninja Gaiden?

Ninja Gaiden is tough due to endlessly respawning enemies and boss battles that show no mercy. It's not Battletoads brutal, but it's pretty close. Still, it's one of the Classics-among-Classics for the system. I'd rank it up there with Contra, Blaster Master, and even Mario and Zelda.

A lot of the secret to doing well in the game is to learn the patterns (both the enemy layouts and the bosses' methods) and work around them. If you want to get good at this game, I suggest being ready to put in a lot of time at it. Using some method of stage select to work on the later stages (without having to work your way through the rest of the game) would be a huge timesaver.

The sequel is a bit better in some regards. The controls are a bit more intuitive, giving you the ability to scale walls and jump a little more naturally. This means you don't have to fight the game in order to do what you want to do. IIRC, the third game was a step in the wrong direction as far as controls go.

[jaybird3rd]

I've played (and beaten) Ninja Gaiden many, many, many times on the NES. The trick is indeed to learn the patterns, where the enemies spawn, etc. With enough practice, you'll get to the point where you can play through most of the levels almost with your eyes closed.

[mbd30]

The first "Ninja Gaiden" is much easier than "Battle Toads" and "Ghosts n Goblins". If you persevere you will make progress.

Helpful advice: If I recall correctly, you don't have to duck to slash the birds. It's much easier to kill them without having to duck first. Same with the flea men in "Castlevania".

[HatefulGravey]

My very favorite NES game. I'm not great at it, and have never beaten it, but I do love this game the most.

[MagitekAngel]

If I remember correctly, Ninja Gaiden on NES has unlimited continues, so beating it is mostly a matter of patience (as well as keeping a handle on the inevitable frustration of being sent back to the start of a long level). I am fairly certain, however, that at least one of the sequels does not afford the same luxury, making it logarithmically more difficult to complete.

[HatefulGravey]

You do have unlimited continues. Those go away in the 3rd game. However, you do lose all your power ups when you have to continue, and those are very important toward the end of the game. You also have to start at the beginning of the last level again instead of toward the end. Kinda sucks.

[Austin]

Ninja Gaiden is very doable. It takes plenty of perseverence and memorization, but when you get comfortable with it you should be able to blow through it with ease.

[NE146]

Yeah I wouldn't call NES Ninja Gaiden "easy", but it's definitely not super difficult. Anyone can master the game if they play it enough.. I mastered it when it was new and I still have the muscle memory for it programmed in. Yeah you gotta remember the patterns, but you also have to be FAST! And you have to know how to stop the regeneration so it doesn't affect you. Still though, very masterable.

Now Battletoads.. I can't finish that for the life of me. And Ghosts and Goblins I have a lot of problems with as well.. THOSE are the super hard games.

[BillyHW]

I had Ninja Gaiden for NES back in the day. Bought it because of the awesome cover art. Great cutscenes for the time.

I remember it being a great, fun, challenging game, but I managed to beat it with less trouble than most of you. You just gotta keep at it. I remember finishing Battletoads at a friend's sleepover party too. Hard but doable.

Ghosts'n Goblins is infinitely harder than those two games.

[Eltigro]

I remember renting Ninja Gaiden back in the day and my friend and I staying up all night to play it. I remember getting pretty far into the game, but not beating it.

[cybercylon]

I did finish NG back in the day as well as Battle toads. I don't think I could ever play a game that hard now... I would quickly lose patience.

[BillyHW]

Yeah, back then we all had more patience with video games.

[HatefulGravey]

Battle Toads was easier for me. Maybe I'm a freak or something.

[8th lutz]

I beaten it in 1992 or 1993.

Ninja Gaiden 3 is brutal compare to Ninja Gaiden 1 in difficulty.

[mbd30]

8th lutz, on Fri Feb 3, 2012 7:59 PM, said:

I beaten it in 1992 or 1993.

Ninja Gaiden 3 is brutal compare to Ninja Gaiden 1 in difficulty.

So is "Ninja Gaiden 2", in my experience. The part with the wind changing direction is so cheap.

[PsychoKittyNet]

I can get to the last level but have yet to beat it. I think ill play it tonight.....

[rockman_x_2002]

I've filed pretty much all the Ninja Gaiden titles (the classic ones and the modern ones) into my "puppy kicking" category for difficulty.

[atarilovesyou]

So has anybody here beaten Gaiden 3? I recall it being stupid difficult...even with a Game Genie, it was stupid hard.

When I beat Gaiden nowadays, I use the cheat (is it?) where you can jump, press down while in the air and you won't use ninja magic. This is super useful in the end of the game, where you can use the jump n' slash on the bosses. But to make it to the bosses with enough magic to use the jump n' slash is really hard...somehow I did it back in 89, but today? Way too tough without the cheat.

I say 'cheat' because some folks say that this control scheme was omitted from the instruction manual accidentally. I'm not sure of the full story...it makes the game easier, so I call it a cheat.

[SoulBlazer]

Yes, I beat all three games -- the first when I was only 13.

The Ninja Gaiden series on the NES is a fav of mine. Great games, and I would rank 1 and 2 as being in my Top 25 list, and 3 just behind it.

The original game was mind blowing. This was the first game with cinematics between stages, that told a very good story and made you want to keep playing to see what happened next. The graphics were only on par for the time (there are some nice scenes in the games, but the cutscenes had the best graphics), but the game play and controls were wonderfull, the music is awsome, and the difficulty is challenging without being 'hurl controller into the floor' catagory like Battletoads and Ghost and Goblins.

Yes, the game is hard. But it's not impossible. There are other games I beat back in the day as a kid that were just as hard, or a bit harder, then the original Ninja Gaiden. As people have said, the game is all about patterns and pratice. As you play through the stages, you learn where things are and how the foes come at you, and the best way to handle things. You also learn how to deal with the bosses and how to use your special weapons.

It's the last stage of the game, though (stage 6) where the game gets cheap on you. The final bosses in the game comes as a three-peat....one after the other, and no ability to heal between them. You're going to lose aganist them at some point, and have to re-do ALL of Stage 6 again. Frustrating. That's the most annoying part of the game.

What I've always found curious is that the box says the game is 'based on the arcade game' but Ninja Gaiden is NOTHING like the original arcade game, which was just a generic beat em up....I'm glad they made some different.

Finally, I LOVE the ending to NG 1. It's still one of my favorite of all time. The musical piece during the scene with Ryu and Irene is amazing, and the ending is so bittersweat and touching. Surprising, also. It's well worth all the pain and sweat it took to get there.

I had a lot of Tecmo games back in the day and considered them my fav company for a few years -- games like Rygar, Tecmo Bowl and Super Tecmo Bowl, and Tecmo Baseball were a lot of fun.

Ninja Gaiden 2 is my fav of the series, and I consider it easier then NG 1, despite things like the winds. The two ghosts you can get to go with you really help, and they also expanded the power ups available to you and how effective they were. The game also didn't toss you back as far when you died like NG 1 did. The opening cinamatic one of my all time favs for a game, and the music was even better then NG 1. The story is also my fav. There's some nasty, and fun, tricks in this one like the shifting winds in one stage and the darkness in another where you need lightning flashes to see.

A lot of people consider Ninja Gaiden 3 the weakest of the series. I agree, but it's not a bad game. It's still a lot of fun, with a good story (they all had good ones, really) and some great music. I consider this easiest of the games (but still challenging). The ability to have a super large sword swing really helps, although the grunting noise Ryu makes when he does it is REALLY annoying. Again, the power ups are just as good as in NG 2. The only thing that bugs me is that the programers got lazy and didn't write as much music for this game, some of it repeats.

Heck, even Ninja Gaiden Shadow for the GB was fun -- I know it's not a original game, but it's still enjoyable and with music from the series.

To those of you having problems with the difficulty and don't want to cheat by using save states in a emulator....may I humbly suggest Ninja Gaiden Triliogy for the SNES? It includes all three games, but the games have been modifed some. The main area is that they have been made easier. Some of the difficulty is taken out (such as the lightning in NG 2) and there are passwords you can use to hop to a stage. The music has also been remixed to take advantage of the SNES sound processor -- some of it sounds better and some of it worse, IMHO. A lot of fans rag on NGT, but I think it's a fun game, although I still prefer the original NES ones. They also changed the endings some, shortened them to take some of the scenes out.

Really awsome games, all around. In fact, this inspires me to take out the NES controller and attach the USB connection and play them on a NES emulator. Damn you folks.

Edited by SoulBlazer, Sat Feb 4, 2012 8:22 PM.

[7800Lover]

I'm still struggling with level 4-2 right now. It is indeed a matter of patience, skills, and memorizing patterns and power-ups.

[Austin]

atarilovesyou, on Sat Feb 4, 2012 7:51 PM, said:

I say 'cheat' because some folks say that this control scheme was omitted from the instruction manual accidentally. I'm not sure of the full story...it makes the game easier, so I call it a cheat.

I look at it in the way that it's not a cheat if it doesn't require you to input a code of some sort. It's built-in function in the game, so take advantage of it.

mbd30, on Fri Feb 3, 2012 8:06 PM, said:

So is "Ninja Gaiden 2", in my experience. The part with the wind changing direction is so cheap.

The wind area goes by a pattern. You need to anticipate which way it is going to change and play the stage according to that. First, it blows to the left. Second, it blows to the right. On the third gust, it goes back, then forth, then back then forth (or something like that). After that it reverts back to the start of the pattern. When you pay attention to what you are doing and base what you do around which way the wind goes, it's easy to get through.

[genesisguy]

I hate Ninja Gaiden. I want to love it as to I love the NES and all the other difficult games, but there's something about Ninja Gaiden that just frustrates me to no end. Last one I played was Ninja Gaiden 2 after the guys on the Implant Games podcast had been talking about it. I made it all the way to the 2nd incarnation of the final boss and just gave up. That having to replay the whole last level everytime you die gets a bit old. I'm done with Gaiden... for good. Give me some Shinobi!

[NE146]

Yeah you have to play the last level again when you die on the final bosses.. but at least you don't have to repeat the bosses (i.e. once one is dead, it's dead). IF they did that, THEN the game would be impossible.

And hey once you get to that point you master that last level anyway so playing through it again takes but a short time.

[Austin]

genesisguy, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 7:56 PM, said:

I'm done with Gaiden... for good.

C'mon man! Don't give in!! You've got the Gaiden fingers!