"Ninja-kun Majou no Bouken" - NES/Famicom

AKA - 忍者くん魔城の冒険 / "Ninja-kun: Adventure of Devil Castle" if you want a translation.

----- Introduction -----

Weirdly enough, City Connection, the company that acquired the rights to all of Jaleco's games when their parent company went bankrupt in 2014, is releasing a collection of Ninja Jajamaru-kun games for Switch, and this game is the precursor to that series. So this game's, like, kinda relevant? For once?

In 1983, a company called UPL (Universal Play Land) developed Ninja-kun (this game) for arcades, and Jaleco published it. In 1985, Jaleco decided to publish a Famicom port, this time developed by TOSE, a company you probably don't know well but who has developed some stuff you might have played (they developed World of Final Fantasy, and co-developed King of Fighters XIV with SNK).

So anyway, that's who's behind this ninja game. Now, is it fun?

I'm exactly as immature as it takes for me to point out the green strokes on the left look like a penis.

----- Playthrough -----

The main gameplay loop of Ninja-kun 1 is that you're climbing something that's filled with bad ninja. Or bad things in general. And your job as a ninja is to kill all of them so that you're the only thing alive on the thing you're climbing, because that's the ninja way.

That's the exact plot of Naruto (I've never seen Naruto).

You can bump into enemies from above or below, by jumping or dropping into/onto them. Doing this will stun them for a few seconds, and give you the opportunity to take them out with a shuriken, using the B button.

You can also try your luck by just running up to them and mashing B, but the way this game works, even if you hit them, you'll probably end up eating a shuriken back for instant death. Some enemies, like the daruma, shoot so quickly you don't stand a chance if you don't knock them out first.

This thing is actually the bane of my existence.

After you finish the first couple levels which are mountains, the third level takes place on what seems to be a feudal castle:

Nice castle, nerds. This'll look good next to my other castles.

And that was as far as I got, because when I finally managed to beat that level, the next level was filled with the super fast shooting daruma enemies and I couldn't even put a dent in them.

Oh, GOD. STOP.

That was as far as I could make it, because I was mostly just getting pissed and not having enough fun to continue playing the game.

To make up for my poor skills, I have elected to include this longplay. Thanks for picking up the slack, bud.

It seems that the game mostly just repeats in the 3 level pattern, with some different enemy sprites as the game goes on.

----- Review -----

Innovation:

Does the game show anything not yet seen on this system/ever before?

I guess stunning the enemies by jumping into them is a new thing. And this preceded Super Mario Bros.... But to be honest claiming the game is a huge innovation does feel like a little of a stretch. It's a bit like a worse Ice Climber. 

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Spitting Rage:

Does the game make you want to tear your own organs out of your body?

Well, it was certainly making me mad. I think it's of paramount importance that you jump into people's backs in this game, and that didn't occur to me for awhile. It's frustrating when the enemies jump and drop up and down the ledges in perfect time with you so you can't get away, or when they manage to perfectly throw a shuriken in time to kill you when passing you in a split second. This is a tough game, in my opinion.

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Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

It's easy enough to understand that the point is to jump up and kill the guys. I don't think there's much here to be confused by.

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Satisfying Gameplay: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel?

It is satisfying when you manage to stun one of the enemies correctly, I can't deny that. It gives you a moment to be smug at them before taking them out with your shuriken.

WA-CHA! EAT IT!

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Game Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

There's only two levels, and they increment in a 3-level pattern. I guess there are more enemies but they don't really seem to add much to the game depth wise, so I'm gonna say very shallow.

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Sound Design: 

How's the sound?

Some of the sound in this game is ridiculously annoying to me. I don't like the background music very much, and there's a lot of very high-pitched sounds in this game, which is something that gets my personal goat pretty quickly.

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Graphics:

How's it look?

Everything looks pretty much fine. The backgrounds look better than the sprites I think. There's a lot of sprites that just rapidly flash that I'm not too crazy about, but I'm pretty sure this was before we took photosensitive epilepsy all that seriously in media.

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Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

There's some nostalgia, and I like Japan. And ninja. But no, not really, the game isn't really that solid, and it mostly just frustrates me, and I don't like the sounds. They hurt my ears. So no, I don't want to t-shirt rep this one.

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Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

Probably not. This is an interesting take on an early platformer for Famicom, but I don't think you're missing anything if you just skip this one altogether, to be honest.

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