Ninja (Amstrad CPC review)

Developer: Icon Design

Publisher: Entertainment USA

Released: 1987

 

Ninja is a multi-screen action game that was released on various 8 and 16-bit home computers.

 

Your mission is to travel through the Palace of Death, collect the seven idols and return to the opening screen. The door to the seventh idol only opens when you have the first six and their locations vary on each play-through, which enhances replayability. By pressing anywhere on the d-pad while holding fire your ninja can execute attacks such as punches and flying kicks. When you start the game, you're equipped with a Samurai sword, but you can pick up spinning death-stars and throwing daggers along the way (up to three of any combination at once). Being familiar with the other ports of Ninja, I was immediately struck by the weird frame-rate issues, as your ninja moves way too fast when not engaged in combat, and then slows down rapidly when an enemy appears. During combat, the collision detection is spotty to say the least, and your sprite pretty much needs to be overlapping your opponent to even register a hit; this makes it pot-luck as to whether you make contact or take damage, and there's no consistency to the outcome. I also didn't like how throwing all three death-stars rarely results in your opponent's life-bar being completely drained (unlike other 8-bit ports), meaning using the hit-and-miss close range attacks is unavoidable. To top it off, the death-stars and daggers sometimes appear at the very edge of the screen, making them impossible to collect due to your character exiting to the next scene! All of these technical issues result in a game that's much harder than the other 8-bit computer ports, for all the wrong reasons. There's also no music during gameplay so the action has little atmosphere compared to the Atari 8-bit version. The only real competent part of the game is the decent looking sprite animation.

 

Ninja on the Amstrad CPC is full of programming errors and the fact that it doesn't always follow the original source material is weak. Playing this port will give you the wrong impression of the game so do yourself a massive favour and stick to the superior Atari 8-bit version (developed by Sculptured Software instead).

 

 

 

Random trivia: An Arcade version of the game was released in 1987 under the title Ninja Mission.

Ninja (ZX Spectrum review)

Developer: Icon Design Ltd
Publisher: Entertainment USA
Released: 1987

Ninja is one of my favourite 8-bit games so I was excited to try this Spectrum port. Unfortunately it's by far the worst one I've played.

Your mission is to travel through the Palace of Death, collect the seven idols and then return to the opening screen. The door to the seventh idol only opens when you have the first six and their locations vary on each playthrough, which enhances replayability. When you start the game it does feel and play a lot like the other versions of Ninja; however, major problems quickly appear. The best method of beating Ninja has always been to jump-kick repeatedly when near an enemy. In the Atari and C64 versions you can still take damage while doing this but it's the most effective move. In this Spectrum port it's actually impossible to lose the game if you continually jump kick as enemies cannot hit you! This takes a lot of the challenge away and I was easily able to beat it on my first try. To make things worse, it's stupidly difficult to go down a level as you have to be perfectly (and I mean perfectly!) lined up with the hole in the floor. While you're busy wrestling with the controls you'll be swarmed by enemies intent on bashing you over the head. In this instance, it's actually easier to exit / re-enter the room to reset the thugs so you have time to reposition yourself to try again! The in-game music in the Atari 8-bit version is highly memorable but you won't find any of that here - there's the occasional sound effect but mostly it's a dull, silent experience. Even the graphics are poor with a lack of detail and a garish colour scheme.

This version of Ninja is a major disappointment - the inferior graphics and sound could be forgiven if the gameplay was up to scratch but it has some serious flaws that hinder the entire experience. Stick with the Atari 8-bit game as it's the definitive version in my opinion.

Random trivia: Certain copies of the Spectrum port have major bugs including enemies that can't hit you whatsoever and an ending that refuses to register, making the game unbeatable!