NES Ninja Gaiden

True story:
I had spent months to get to beat this game. I had levels 1-1 through 6-1 mastered. Getting past them was a nonissue. 6-2 was hell on earth, 6-3 wasn't as bad, but got completely nuts on the very last board. Beaten by the Masked Devil on 6-4, I was sent back to 6-1. This time, on 6-3 I got the JumpNSlash powerup (on the first board in the level) and kept it with great effort, so I could completely own the Masked Devil. And I did.

Then the Jaquio showed up. With my JumpNSlash taken from me, I died. Then, cos there was a big thunder storm that day, the power went out. To get back to where I was, I would have to go through the entire game again. Then my friend Adrian called.

He'd just beaten the game.

I saw the ending later that day when I went over to his house and had him beat it again. It was years until I did it myself.

Ninja Gaiden 1 is NES punishment. It's one of the most cheap, abusing games ever made. The problem with that is the controls were drum tight, and the cinema sequences (a first in games) told such a compelling tale that thousands of us 12 year olds would destroy ourselves trying to get to the end of it.

It took so much effort I still have parts of the game in my muscle memory.


4 stars