The History of Ninja Gaiden part one – Arcade console documentary

martial arts and arcade games have been around since the early 1980s the majority of these were developed in Japan thanks to the popularity of these flicks on the big screen the game slowly trickled their way to our shores and invaded our arcades arcade classics such as kung-fu master kid Nicky radical ninja and he AR kungfu martial arts games were not just confined to the arcades though as the home computers at the time produced some stellar games such as the last ninja for the commodore 64 and various other platforms today though we are going to take a look at ninja gaiden one of the most beloved ninja franchises on the 8-bit platforms not only are we going to cover the various home versions but also the totally different arcade game and everything in between who are the shadow warriors and what do they have to do with our story so sharpen your katana and grab your shuriken z' this is the history of ninja gaiden in the 1980s martial arts films were taking over america and the president of Tecmo had taken notice martial arts games had not only grown increasingly popular in the arcades but also far more advanced than previous entries arcade entries such as double dragon the ninja warriors and shinobi had been released and were all successful games but something else had gained popularity and that was the 8-bit NES rather than create an arcade game and then converted to the home market Ninja Gaiden was given two different creative teams to create two different games the arcade would get a side-scrolling brawler with large sprites and fast gameplay which competes quite nicely with the likes of Double Dragon the lead developer on the game was H Jima and he wanted to give Western arcade fans of simultaneous two-player extravaganza ninja gaiden or ninja ryukenden was known in Japan was released into the US arcades in 1988 the word guidance literally translates into side-story and was only added for the American market because they thought it sounded cool you take on the role of an unnamed blue ninja who has traveled to America to take down the cult of nostradamus the game is a simultaneous to clear fare with the second player taking on the role of an unnamed pumpkin colored ninja the game takes place across six stages with each one based on actual US cities such as Los Angeles Las Vegas and Brooklyn the goal of the game is to perceive to the right fighting various enemies in the process that ultimately a mini boss at the end of each level one thing you'll notice right away is that there are only four or five different enemies not including the mini bosses that you'll fight so repetition sets in rather quickly the one of the main enemy care of your you'll face is a muscle-bound Claude complete with a ski mask who just happens to look like Jason from the Friday the 13th series the controls are fairly straight forward with an attack button and a jump button you do have a few basic combos and a neck throw which will flip enemies over your shoulders you can even reach up and swing from certain objects you can also do back flips up the walls which is useful for getting out of a tight spot certain parts of the backgrounds are interactive as well and you may destroy to uncover power-ups and health items such as bone boots and oil drums some of the various bosses you will encounter include a sumo wrestler the claw brothers who have claws reminiscent of Wolverine and the Dragons who are a duo of steroid enhanced tough guys decked out in spikes and face paint clearly based on the wrestling tag teams of road warriors any further evidence of this is the background billboard when he faced him for a second time on level 5 where it shows a wrestling ring alongside the initials MSG or Madison Square Garden when they first appear on the screen a ripoff of the song I am Iron Man from Black Sabbath can be heard playing this was also an early theme music used by the road warriors [Music] [Music] at the end of each level you'll see some humorous cutscenes of your character at furious locales one will show him gambling another will show him whitewater rafting etc the game features excellent cinematics at the start of the game as well as a crazy continued scream your character is strapped to a table and a giant buzzsaw is slowly being lured onto your chest you have until the clock reaches zero to insert or credit otherwise it's curtains for you when the clock does reach zero the screen turns red although no blood or gore are shown the graphics and animation are excellent with the backgrounds featuring rafidhi and commercial billboards my personal favorite is the Las Vegas background with bright lights and plenty of animations and England the name of the game was changed to shadow warriors due to the violent connotation with the word ninja similar to what was done with the Teenage Mutant hero turtles there were a number of home conversions produced and I will cover them at the end of this video now let's take a look at the Nintendo versions developed concurrently with the arcade game but led by designer Hadiya yoshizawa the NES version was completely different mr. Yoshizawa realized that the home market needed something with a bit more content and a longer gameplay experience than the arcade could provide he took inspiration from the Super Mario Brothers game and wanted to create something similar as far as length goes another reason for the longer adventure and extra content was that consumers were expecting to pay between 40 and 50 dollars apiece for these games so a lot of franchises like contra and Double Dragon were doing the same thing while the arcade game featured a fast-moving unnamed ninja the NES title would finally reveal his name as Ryu Hayabusa when designing the character they wanted him to stand out so they gave him an armless shirt to show off his big guns ninja gaiden was released in 1989 by Tecmo for the nes the first thing you notice after starting up the game is the fabulous intro scene which unfolds through various manga inspired animation Tecmo titled this tech multi etre and it truly was never before had a game pulled you into the story with its excellent sights and fantastic music the father of ryu hayabusa has been killed by a ninja master jacques cui oh so he must go to America to seek revenge [Music] as I mentioned your character is much more nimble and fast in his arcade brother there are a lot more power-ups a pickup in this game similar to Castlevania in the candle you can destroy this game has a similar mechanic only using lamps and spiderwebs among others some of the secondary attacks you can use are the art of the fire wheel the windmill shuriken and a cool looking jump and slash attack you have to use these moves wisely though because they use up your ninjutsu points Ryu can also do a wall bouncing if two structures are side by side you can do a wall pops and climb all the way up to the top the game takes place across six levels and with all of these powers and abilities you would think this game would be a cakewalk unfortunately this game is notorious for being one of the most difficult NES games on the market the enemies will constantly respawn giving you very little time to breathe also when you take a hit it knocks you back a few inches and a lot of times into a pit which is certain doom it's not all bad though as you have unlimited continues so as long as you keep your NES powered on you can start making some progress just to stick the knife in your back and twist it just a little bit further when you get to level 6 which is the last part of the game the difficulty ramps up even higher starting with stage 6 - you have to fight three bosses in a row if you manage to defeat one or two of the bosses but end up dying it will send you all the way back to 6:1 and start all over again this is a true classic and has leaps and bounds above the arcade original despite the masochistic difficulty [Music] Ninja Gaiden to the dark sword of chaos was released in 1990 for the NES the game takes place almost immediately after the events of the first game with the new force of evil rising by the name of Ashtar the emperor of darkness the graphics are on par with the original release along with the speed of the gameplay although there have been some tweaks to the weapons system the levels themselves feel much more open-ended and broader including fighting on top of a speeding train and later levels Ryu has to deal with weather effects such as blustery winds that change direction throwing you around like a sack of taters the same wonderful respawning enemies make their return which is basically par for the course in the series one new feature is the ability to climb walls this time around rather than wall bounce all the way to the top by doing so you can use your secondary weapons while climbing up another cool new technique that Ryu has learned is the Phantom shadow which allows them to conjure up to double gangers that follow him and copy is every move including attacks the tech multileader cutscenes make a return and they look just as good as in the original the game does seem a bit easier than the previous entry but that could just be due to the overwhelmingly high difficulty level of the first game [Music] Ninja Gaiden 3 the ancient ship of doom was released in 1991 for the NES once again you take on the role of Ryu Hayabusa in his final 8-bit NES adventure as he is framed for the murder of Irene Liu timeline wise the game takes place between the first two with Ryu having to investigate the murder the gameplay is very similar to the previous two entries but feels like a mash-up of Strider and shadow of the ninja you now have the ability to hang from pipes or IV as was last seen in the arcade game your usual assortment of ninja attacks such as windmill throwing stars fire dragon balls and fire wheel art have all returned among others a new attack is the vacuum wave art which shoots vacuum blades above and below your player your sword attack has also been altered giving you a better range with the weapon one major plus is the removal of the respawning enemies so that does make the game just a tad bit easier but what Tecmo giveth techmount taketh away gone are the infinite continues and you were given only 5 credits the Japanese version featured a password system but this was omitted from the North American release while the graphic quality in the first two entries remain consistent in this entry they have been given a considerable overhaul playing through the game the backgrounds reminded me of Batman for the NES which was also released a previous year the same silky smooth controls are on par with the rest of the series but the difficulty is just crazy hard [Music] [Music] also in 1991 Ninja Gaiden shadow was released for the original Gameboy the game started out as a port of shadow of the ninja but was changed late in development this is a stripped-down version of the Ninja Gaiden series with very little storytelling and only in the opening cinematic instead of the multiple ninja spells of the original series you only have a basic sword attack and a fire wheel attack a cool new feature is the inclusion of a grappling hook for reaching those hard-to-reach places that plays pretty well for an early Gameboy title but it just doesn't quite feel like Ninja Gaiden sticking with the year 1991 ninja gaiden was released for the Sega Game Gear this is a brand new game with no ties to the previous series and with the storyline included that has to be a good thing Ryu is hunting a demon not just any demon but a terrorist demon who wishes to bring the world to its knees with World War 3 most of the special attacks found in the previous games are missing but you do get to run and slash for their swords at the same time it's a novel concept for compared to the previous games but again it doesn't feel like classic ninja gaiden there are only four levels in total which might be a good thing because the gameplay itself is very bland the graphics are colorful but there is a lot of flickering going on [Music] in 1992 the game was released for the master system but only in PAL territories where the system was still thriving this game was redesigned from the ground up and its head and shoulders above the game gear entry as the story goes ryu returns to japan to find and destroyed and the shinobi doh scroll stolen by the nefarious dark shogun the cinematics and cutscenes make a welcome return so upon first voting up the game you will get the warm and fuzzies there are eight stages in total this time around with plenty of variation in between such as a volcano and a waterfall instead of climbing up walls you have to bounce your way up similar to the early entries in the series we even get a few new ninja attacks but there is one cool new one that stands out called that desperation move which kills every enemy on the screen - the bosses but it also depletes 1/4 of your health the controls are nice and tight and they feel like classic NES ninja gaiden [Music] around this time Sagan started developing ninja gaiden for the Sega Genesis upon first glance it reminded me of Streets of Rage but nowhere near as playable while the sprites are larger than the previous home entries the controls are finicky and they don't feel anything like the classic series a prototype was leaked onto the Internet so if you are curious download it and try it on your favorite emulator honestly though I had more fun with my colonoscopy than I did playing this version [Music] in 1995 at the tail end of the super Nintendos lifespan techmo gave us ninja gaiden trilogy which collected all three original 8-bit games onto one 16-bit cartridge these are mostly direct ports but some of the cutscenes being redrawn to take advantage of the 16-bit hardware Nintendo's censorship also rears its ugly head with the removal of pentagrams and the color of blood being changed from red to green this time around they have also included a password system which greatly helps the difficulty a few of the levels also had their parallax scrolling removed and a couple of music tracks as well otherwise though this play is exactly like the original trilogy of games now let's go back and talk about the conversions of the original arcade game European developer ocean software got the rights and some of these turned out really good now I don't want to start out with those so let's start with a not so stellar conversion the first one we are looking at is the ms-dos version when I first booted this up I thought Gaiden translated meant [ __ ] because all of the characters are short and squat the enemy AI is also a dumber than a box of hammers and will constantly get stuck in certain areas the actual fighting is speedy enough although the speed of the rest of the game is extremely slow the music and sound effects are very irritating so it's best to play this either muted or better yet pray for the onset of total deafness we only have one button control so certain things had to be sacrificed such as exploding objects as well as hanging from pipes [Music] the good old Commodore 64 port is up next and while it looks decent the actual gameplay is something else entirely using only one button a lot of the moves are missing including the pole swing and no objects can be destroyed the sprites are large and detailed but due to the 64's palette the colors are bland and washed out there is no in-game music aside from the title screen with only generic grunts and groans for the sound effects the speed of the game is fast although your character appears to be on demoon due to the serious hang time he has when he jumps overall not a very good conversion but it's much better than the ms-dos port up next is the spectrum port and the first thing you notice is how large the characters are and how small the play area is this looks really out of place but surprisingly enough the speed of the game is really good and despite only having one fire button the controls are not too bad the pole swing is missing although there are destructible objects this time around there is very limited color clash and the characters are nicely detailed there is no sound aside from a tune on the title screen and at the end of each level when this was released back in the day it got high marks and I can see why [Music] the Amstrad version resembles the Commodore 64 port and does not have the zoomed in effect at the spectrum offered with that being said this conversion is nowhere near as polished as the speck II the graphics are detailed and offer a lot of color but the animation is way too choppy the screen also does not scroll which is very jarring when you are playing it there is no music and extremely minimal sound effects speed wise it's very fast although it's not very fun to play up next is the atari lynx version and this is the best version on a video game console although the viewpoint is zoomed in just a bit the sprites are detailed and are animated quite nicely thanks to the two buttons that the Lynx has to offer the gameplay is exactly like the arcade game all of the moves from the arcade original have been transferred over including the pull swing as well as the destructible objects even the backgrounds from the arcade original have been transferred over which makes for an overall excellent representation of the arcade game we even get the cutscenes between levels that also the continue screen with the blowing the sound effects and music are good and we even get the ripoff of the I am Iron Man song on level 4 the downside of this conversion is that is missing two levels and there is no simultaneous two-player option [Music] sticking with the atari brand let's take a look at the Atari ST version this is a very close representation graphically of the arcade original although it does a scroll but rather uses a flick screen there is also an ugly border on the left side of the screen we only have one button for the control so certain sacrifices were made the poll hanging and destructible objects are here and it plays pretty good the speed to the game is on par with the original you do get sound effects and music at the same time which is always a plus [Music] and finally the best home release goes to the amiga which is very close to the arcade original in every aspect not only do we get the opening cinematics but also all of the cutscenes and the fantastic continue screams with the buzzsaw the sprites are nicely detailed although slightly smaller from the arcade game in with a little less color once again only one fire button is used but it does play pretty well the screen actually Scrolls like it should which further adds the arcade experience there is also a music and sound effects at the same time this is a stellar conversion for the Amiga especially back in 1988 [Music] there are even a couple of Tiger LCD handhelds but unfortunately I've never had the chance to try them to be honest though out of all the Tiger LCD handhelds I've tried there's only one that I kept coming back to be on the lookout for the history of ninja gaiden part 2 which should be posted here in the next couple of days if you like this video and the rest of my content be sure to like share subscribe and hit that notification bell I've had a report from a few of you that YouTube had automatically unsubscribed you from my channel so if you would just take a second to make sure you're still subscribed and hit that notification bill so you don't miss a video thanks for watching you

Channel: PatmanQC - History of arcade game documentaries

Views: 78,023

Keywords: NES, arcade, SNES, amputee, Xbox, PlayStation, Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, retro, video, gamesAtari, Colecovision, Intellivision, Jaguar, entertainment, system, Game, Boy, Genesis, Mega, drive, CD, X68000, Amstrad, spectrum, MSX, 2600, 5200, 7800, 400, 800, 1200, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, 360, one, switch, GameCube, wii, wii-u, Kung fu, karate, martial arts, Jackie Chan, kill Bill, ninja, radical, Shuriken, katana, ryu, Hayabusa, Tiger, LCD, handheld, sword, Double Dragon, warrior, shinobi, ocean software, shadow warriors

Id: zfkLpMxa5Do

Length: 27min 39sec (1659 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 04 2020