For me, Ninja Gaiden is the game that bestowed ". . ." as legitimate conversational option.

You know it's gonna be hype when a game gets an episode entirely to itself.

Beating Ninja Gaiden is one of my favorite gaming accomplishments

The praise is wholly deserved. My friends couldn’t believe that I could beat this game (I rented it many, many times), so for my friend’s 10th birthday, at the tail end of the party, I demonstrated a complete run of this game. It might be hard to explain to younger gamers but there really was nothing like it at the time. No matter how badly this game shoved your face into the ground (and it very frequently and very painfully did), the rush of finally clearing those hurdles based on memorization and perfect twitch gaming reflexes was a mighty high, propelled along by those cutscenes and trying to figure out what would happen next. Atari 2600 and Super Mario Bros. made me fall in love with games; Ninja Gaiden made me good at them.

It’s a small thing, but I’m glad you mentioned the great lighting and shadows in the cutscenes.

I like that this series is such a chronological slow-burn, as when milestones like Ninja Gaiden arrive, it truly hits how much of a milestone it really was. As I say "Nunchuck F*ck!"

19:47 To the end of… _Return of the Jedi_ surely, haha. Unless Ryū’s father cuts his hand in the process. Excellent video!

The "complaining about the brand of water after being rescued from the desert" metaphor was fantastic

It's impressive you managed to quantify the ratio of coolness vs. sense in the cutscenes. I'm also digging the super-chill 'What Did NP Say?' muzak.

I remember beating this game for the first time on the Wii in dedication to my late brother. He would always try to finish Ninja Gaiden and could get to the second last boss fight. Getting sent back to Stage 6-1 always broke him and me watching it. To find out they left that glitch in the game on purpose was sadistic. Like how could anyone learn the boss pattern when you were sent back to the beginning of the stage after you died? Games today don't give you that sense of anxiety anymore. The closest thing are the Dark Souls games

Ninja GAI-DEN! -That guy from the Wizard. Rented this so much. Never beat it legit (saved states during my emulation years). A Classic of classics.

Oh man... this is one of those "you had to be there" games. Back when this debuted, it really felt like nothing else that came before it. My entire elementary school was obsessed with it, and I remember everyone lying that they completed the game, including myself. In my case, I thought the Malth boss fight was the last one and after beating him, I shut it off like a moron! It's a great game that had cool cutscenes which were mind-blowing at the time, and I'll forever remember it fondly.

Love this game. I believe it was this first game to elevate the cut scene to cinematic levels. Stupid hard though, but it was never cheap.

I fondly remember a pizza place near my childhood home having an arcade Ninja Gaiden machine where the bottom 1/4 of the screen was distorted such that every time the cinematic duel in the attract mode ended, Jason/Rick from Splatterhouse's body would start to fall down but then veer off sharply to the left.

Notes: * It took me a minute to get the reference, but that's a great title. * I had to go check on those TG16 (programmed by Hudson) and SMS (made by Sega) versions of Ninja Gaiden. A nice article could probably be written on their differences, and how they spoke to the development priorities of their companies. * The arcade version of Ninja Gaiden got a respectable home port to the Atari Lynx. * Tecmo made the interesting decision to try to port Mighty Bomb Jack to home computers too. Most of these home computers did not have the best support for scrolling, and the other home versions of MBJ ended up paling before the NES version, although it should be said that the Commodore 64 version, of all things, is surprisingly good, beating out the Amiga and Atari ST versions of MBJ. * Do we need some kind of pithy genre summation for a game that combines this and Konami's earlier game? Castlegaiden? Ninjavania? * You identify that Ninja Gaiden has a lot of inspirations from Castlevania, which I agree with entirely. There is a third game though that I think kind of serves as another unique take of Castlevania, and rounds this out as kind of a trilogy of these three NES games. It's not thought much about these days, partly because after its first NES sequel it was largely a dead-end in popularity, and it's only ever seen one rerelease, on an entirely different platform line. It's Rare's Wizards & Warriors! It likewise borrows several other key elements from Castlevania, the focus on precision, the items you get from background elements you attack, the secret bonus items, the difficult levels leading up to distinctive, unique bosses, and other aspects too. While W&W certainly has flaws (attacking with your sword is much jankier than it needs to be), it's a style of game that deserves to be revived some time. * In retrospect, the zoomed-in view of Ryu's masked eyes seems reminiscent of, maybe even inspired by, the iconic images of the eyes of the main character from the Italian "Diabolik" comics. * The arcade version of Ninja Gaiden is actually pretty funny, with some great cutscenes of the Ninja in America between levels and a memorable "Continue?" screen!

Jeremy does such a great job of documenting these games succinctly without missing a thing. Some history, some perspective, and so much care and attention to detail. I'm blown away.

I've definitely been looking forward to this episode. Ninja Gaiden is definitely an NES milestone and one of the best games of 1989. Ninja Gaiden II would improve on Ryu's wall climbing and final level checkpointing. Beating Ninja Gaiden definitely earns one bragging rights. The game does have a timer that also incentives going forward at all times. 1989 will have other bangers too (Strider obviously not being one of them....on NES anyway). Next time, an overhated game and a good game for Halloween: Friday the 13th.

The history of video game cutscenes is always really interesting to me - I widely appreciate "Ninja Gaiden" for pushing that mold, and I grew up with mostly DOS games, so I remember being very impressed they started having FMVs, especially those cinematics in Blizzard games. That'd be a great story to research. I would blindly guess that FMVs would probably first originate on PC-Engine and Sega CD games.

I am glad you brought up the framing in the cutscenes. Ninja Gaiden always has something interesting to show, and like you said, it definitely "vibes". Even that lengthy Foster CIA exposition dump that I found boring as a kid, I think is cool today. I really love the execution of the story in this game and it still stands the test of time. The cutscene execution in Ninja Gaiden 2 and 3 would sort of stumble a bit in comparison. Part 2's story sequences look impressive, but with the tale being much more cookie-cutter, it doesn't quite land. Likewise with Part 3. There are some neat shots but ultimately its story is dull and really drags on. You are also right about other NES games attempting to copy this cutscene format and just not doing it justice. Astyanax is one, with VICE Project Doom being another. Fun games, but the story execution is quite poor compared to Ninja Gaiden.

5:37 Was certainly not expecting a Hitchhiker's reference when I clicked on the video, but such a reference is always welcome. Especially since I'm assuming we'll never see a video on the Hitchhiker's Guide game. Not unless Text-Adventure Works becomes a thing.

I can't say with absolute certainty which game was the very first to have story-heavy cutscenes interleaved between action stages, but for what it's worth, Märchen Veil (Aug 1985) is the earliest that I can think of offhand, so this concept at least predates Super Mario Bros. Of course in those early days, you'd only get still frames and text, but developers like Nihon Telenet would put a lot of effort into developing the theatricality of those cutscenes over the next few years, to the point that those scenes, more than the games themselves, were really their claim-to-fame. By the time of Ninja Gaiden's western release, they were even including some true animation and PCM-sampled voice overs from professional seiyuu in, for example, the PC88 version of Valis II. Impressive at the time even coming off of CDs, but arguably even more impressive coming off of 5.25" floppies on an 8-bit computer! Of course, none of those early cinematic games hold a candle to Ninja Gaiden as a GAME though, not even *close* really. Anyway, Ninja Gaiden was definitely intended to feel like an ultra-violent 80's action flick, as evidenced by the fact that--in Japan at least--it is the second entry in a meta-series called "Tecmo Theater", the games being connected only by their heavy focus on cinematic presentation. The first entry in this series was actually Captain Tsubasa, which got stripped of its license and reskinned Black Belt-style for the Western release as "Tecmo Cup". Though it came out before Ninja Gaiden in Japan, the Western release was four-and-a-half YEARS later, greatly diluting the impact its at-the-time groundbreaking presentation might have had. Compared to such an undignified treatment, Ninja Gaiden got off very lightly, coming out just four MONTHS after the Japanese release, and suffering only a tad from the typical translation woes of the era.

Indeed, it's a game that captures what means to be a ninja. The way you have to move your fingers fast is indicative of that. An analog way to make you feel like you're in control

I have made it to the final boss of this game ONCE and after I died, gave up lol I decided it was close enough and was content on getting that far after being wrecked by like, world 3 as a kid.

I learned to speedrun Ninja Gaiden over this past summer, and it’s been a rewarding experience and makes me love this game even more. Is it frustrating? Oh yeah, but nothing is more satisfying than getting through this game quickly without dying. It makes *me* feel like the ninja.

Best Works episode yet! Ninja Gaiden rules. I've made it to the last boss only to get booted back to 6-1 and scream in rage/agony too many times. This makes me want to give it one more to.

OMG! I can't remember the last time I was this excited over a KZfaq thumbnail.

At the time the cutscenes were truly amazing. I had this game for a year or so around 1990. I remember really liking it but never making past the 3rd or 4th level therefore eventually losing interest. Probably the most common experience of this game

As a kid it felt like I was stumbling into the middle of some big comic book narrative that I knew nothing about … but hey, ninjas running through moonlit fields slashing each other… what more did we need, that opening cut scene was worth the rental as it was.

Nearly 20 minutes of cut scenes??? On the nes even with all the tricks with repeating elements that is seriously impressive I'm really surprised 😮

I didn't realize until right now how close we were to the end of 1989. There's a little under 700 officially licensed nes games so even with doubles episodes I'd imagine this series would be at a higher number by now.

By far the best video essay about Ninja Gaiden I've ever seen. Excellent work as always Mr. Parish.

Ninja Gaiden absolutely set the standard for story telling via cut-scenes for years to come. I can still remember playing it at my best friend's house for the first time after his mother bought it for him. In late 87 I had been blown away by how big the world of the Legend of Zelda was for an NES game and Ninja Gaiden blew me away again with it's cut-scenes and intense gameplay. My best friend and I never did beat it w/o the help of a Game Genie but man did we ever try! Ninja Gaiden 2 (along with Mega Man 2) was a favorite game of mine to speed run back in the day. It was thankfully easier than the first game and I played it so much that I could blow through it pretty quickly. Ninja Gaiden 3 was good but not up to the level of the first 2 games in several ways The "remasters" on the SNES were completely phoned in and a huge disappointment, especially compared to Super Mario All-Stars!

Ninja Gaiden's opening cinematic remains, in my opinion, one of the greatest pieces of storytelling in media history. It's simple and a little cheap, but that's also what makes it so powerful and effective. I say simple, but honestly I could write an entire essay on this scene alone. Anyone who has never played this game, regardless of your interest in action platformers, should AT LEAST search up an HD video of the opening (though by his or by crook playing through even just the first couple of levels would be even better). Jeremy isn't joking when he says the story and presentation is nearly matchless until the medium evolved in the CD era. As an aside I would also like to highlight that while the music is repetitive it's still good, and serves its purpose well. And, again, is put to expert use in the cutscenes. Truly one of the greatest games of the era.

Ninja Gaiden completely blew my 10 year old mind when I first found it here in Brazil, and - seriously - was one of the driving motivations for me to learn English as soon as I could. I loved the gameplay, the cutscenes, everything. Great video on a great game.

Irene Lew always made me think of Jodie Foster for some reason. Along with Tunnel Rat Rob, those two were my earliest example of great supporting cast members in a video game. Having never played Ninja Gaiden 3, I was relieved to discover that Robert had some how survived the events of Ninja Gaiden 2 when I finally got to see the OAV many years later.

This treatment feels loving. It seems like Jeremy really has an appreciation of this game.

my cousin had this game and she played it daily when i went to visit. Its the reason im still lugging around my copy that i got in the early 90s.

As expected of all of Jeremy Parish's works, a completely fair, straightforward breakdown of what is be. Loved the dry breakdown of Ninja Gaiden's story into the absolute goofiness that it actually is; a melodramatic sentai shinobi showdown wrapped around the best kind of punishing and fair gameplay to be had for ages to come.

The impact of Ninja Gaiden can't be understated. When I was a kid, I was amazed by this game. I still remember sitting at home playing this game, or at my Gma's house with my unkle's copy. I don't remember too many games like this. Great memories.

I got my NES in 1989. To say that this game left an impression on my still impressionable young mind would be an understatement. The arcade game had been the first one I ever really got into, and once I accepted the differences, the NES version was about as perfect as a video game could be. One thing worth bringing up is its lack of input delay. I couldn't have expressed it that way at the time, but it's the secret sauce behind that amazing feeling of jumping through a tight gap in enemy fire, landing in a perfectly placed crouch and slashing your opponent out of existence with a frame-perfect sword strike. I also loved the arcade Shinobi, and heard so much about Revenge of Shinobi over the years. When I finally played Revenge years later I was pretty disappointed that it was slow and plodding with floaty jumps; Ninja Gaiden had so indelibly set the gold standard in my mind of what a ninja game was _supposed_ to be. It took me a long time to see past that and appreciate what Revenge did right. That being said, to this day few 2D action games really nailed the feel that Yoshizawa's crew achieved here. I had no idea he was behind R4, another all time favourite of mine, but it explains a lot. He's definitely an unsung but deeply influential hero of the medium imo.

Maaan, NES Works has always been my favorite thing on KZfaq, but it’s entering a GREAT era in the NES lifecycle and it’s gonna get REAL GOOD! BRING ON JASON! 🔪

Anyone else still vibing to Ryu's Determination in 2023?

"20% cohesion, 80% vibes" the story of my life

Love the Sean Young Blade Runner character design.

I love your deep dives, adding a lot of context to these classic games. 😃

This was a great deep dive style episode. great work, sir

Memories of me staying at a grade school friends house on a weekend sleepover, furiously trying to double team this game well into early mornings before we had to return it to the rental shop Sunday evening. The cutscenes blew our minds!

Freaky awesome, J. I still look at/play Ninja Gaiden every so often. To skip and rip thru a level feels so satisfying. Glad you went deep on NG1

For what it's worth, I came to this game for the first time in 2033 and think it really holds up. It feels good and is a mostly fun challenge.

I don't think I ever even got to level 6...But I still had this game on my NES back in the day, and I played it a lot. I definitely preferred the more ARPG-like side scrollers and straight up JRPGs of the era, honestly.

This was really well done. Good information all around.

Jeremy I am a huge fan of your work. These NES videos are so rich with information. I always thought NES games were ridiculously hard. I'm glad you highlight the difficulty of these classic games. Peace

I always get stuck at that ONE spot for awhile. You know the one

Ninja Sidestory is one of my favorite NES games

Ninja Gaiden sigue siendo mi juego favorito del NES porque tuve la oportunidad de jugarlo con mis hermanos en el año 1991 y pasamos muchas horas de diversión. Incluso, aún disfruto jugarlo en su versión de consola virtual en el WiiU así como en el NES Classic Edition. Finalmente agradezco el trabajo, el profesionalismo y la dedicación de Jeremy Parish y sus colegas por el excelente contenido de este canal y sus publicaciones.

Hahahahaha, I didn't know you could crouch and hit the boss on 12:56!!!! That´s like 100 years later...

"20% narrative cohesion, 80% vibes." brilliant description

I've been waiting years for Jeremy to get to my favorite games. I didn't realize Ninja Gaiden was such a big deal to the rest of the world but I love the game and played it extensively. The gameplay was amazing and the story captured my imagination. I played the game enough to complete it, and the sequels, without dying. The PC Engine version is largely the same with the exception of the last boss. I only played once and reached it with relative ease but he was much harder than the NES version so I didn't beat it. Maybe I should pull out the CD and give it another go since I haven't played in so many years. Interestingly one of the programmers ended up working on Chrono Trigger. I can't remember the exact details but it's a small thread that connects two of my favorite games.

I can say I’ve beaten all ninja gaiden games on master ninja. So punishing, so rewarding, one of the milestones of my life

I'm not sure if the NG/Rygar comparison completely works, since NG wasn't an arcade conversion in the strictest sense. The plan from the start seems to have been for two teams to build games for arcade and NES from the ground up at more or less the same time. But great review in any case and thanks for signing my NES Works book at PRGE.

First time I've run across this channel but this was a good video. Growing up, Ninja Gaiden was my absolute FAVORITE game and it wasn't even close. I was obsessed with ninjas at the time and this game just fueled that obsession. The gameplay is awesome and I loved the cut scenes. Sadly I never was enamored with the sequels as I was with this game, but my love for this one cannot be understated.

Been waiting for this video. Top 5 NES for me.

Ninja Gaiden was just amazing back in its day! Cinema scenes, its story (compelling and to the point for an 11-year-old), Ryu's combat and traversal skills, the scenery and enemies (despite their cheap placements and respawning)... The game, along with Nintendo Power's coverage, did virtually everything right! Peaks of the 80s ninja and NES crazes!

Loved this game as a kid, brother and I both beat it one time each and put it away. I remember trying to go back after that and could not get past somewhere around the 3rd stage, by that point our only working controller was the nes advantage and it was not so easy trying to platform with that wonky beast controller. It was so difficult to beat this game but we had to see the cutscenes we wanted to know!

One of the most difficult games of all time. I've never completed this one but I did part 2. This is an absolute masterpiece!

"Ninja Gaiden requires A BIT of trial an error" is such an understatement haha!

I play Ninja 🥷 Gaiden at the arcade when I was a kid it's great and the nes version that I play it's brilliant. 😀👍🎮

God, I wanted live action Ninja Gaiden movies so bad back in the day.

It’s quite possibly the best possible example of the NES design philosophy exceeding that of arcades (this is a masterpiece and the arcade game is mostly trash) aside from the gameplay being nearly perfect, it’s the cut scenes that are the most memorable thing. As a kid it felt almost cinematic, as there was nothing like this anywhere. I can still remember the jaw drops at the begining of level 6 and then the bigger one arriving at 6-4 (and then immediately turning the game off after losing to jaquio)

One thing this video highlights that I completely forgot about was how Ninja Gaiden was is essentially a rhythm game, where you race at top speed at all times, knowing when to move, when to duck, when to jump, which enemies to avoid, which ones to attack. Once you’ve clicked into its rhythm, the experience is unforgettable. And, yes, level 6-2 is legendary for being punishingly hard. That one screen where you jump across pillars while being attacked from all sides at once is almost deliberately designed to make you throw your NES joypad out the window. I’m still amazed I could beat this game, but it took many weeks of obsessive play. One of the greatest videogames of its era. Its sequel is also outstanding but also (thankfully) much easier. The third game was the weakest entry but the super hard difficulty returned.

Excellent review, sir! I did want to point out one very cool thing you missed, though: if you beat final boss 1 and/or 2, but then die against final boss 2 and/or 3, and get sent back to the beginning of the chapter, but then made it back to the boss room, you were still facing the boss who killed you, and didn't have to repeat the others. (Ninja Gaiden II did this also.) I thought it was a very cool incentive to try again.

The music for the mine stage, “The Amazing Ryu”, is one of those songs that’s so perfectly made for the NES it defies description. It’s one of the best tunes on the console by a mile, not a hair out of place, and every attempt I’ve ever heard to update it or somehow extricate it from the soundfont has been a downgrade. Even as someone who has little patience for other instalments in this sorta canon of bastard-hard NES classics I really liked this game- every possible action and interaction is just fun and responsive even if you’re getting your arse kicked by a chunky sprite of a bird. This is one of THE games I think of when people talk about good controls

I was so mad at the time that there was no attempt at a true coin op conversion. I worshipped the arcade game at the time.

My middle school friend ended up getting Ninja Gaiden and we played the crap out of it. It's one of very few NES games I actually beat (along with Super Mario Bros 2 and Megaman 2.) About a decade later I wandered into a random video store and they were selling off their old NES rental carts. I bought the trilogy for $5 a pop. (Side note: another middle school friend and I dropped $20 into arcade Ninja Gaiden at 7-Eleven. IIRC we beat it. Probably with zero cash left over for Slurpees)

I had never noticed that NG is essentially just a high-speed Castlevania clone with cutscenes but it seems really obvious now that youve pointed it out. Like seeing the arrow in the FedEx logo. Even the little stuff like how it has the player and enemy health bars at the top in anticipation of the boss fight.

I did not know there was a Ninja Ryukenden Anime! I've got to find and watch that some how but it's also interesting how this game parallels other games in not being a blockbuster hit nationally as much as it was internationally. In Elementary School we often discussed the games in class and I remember getting into arguments with kids saying, "Ninja Gayden" and me correcting them into saying Gaiden. 😇

Always found it interesting that the follow ups to Ninja Gaiden don't get discussed as much. I remember renting the first two titles constantly and loving them equally, with the third game coming out just a touch too close to the SNES launch for me to have really latched onto. In any case they're excellent titles and some of the best the NES has to offer.

I called this one Ninja Gay-den for years, even after hearing it pronounced correctly in The Wizard. It wasn't until I actually took Japanese in college that I understood the error of my ways.

This and ghosts and goblins were the biggest sources of rage in my kid self back then.

This game is fantastic. The second is fantastic as well! Tecmo was up there with Konami at the time.

I still remember how hyped and eager I was when you teased this as part of NES Works 1988 And I dare say you more than delivered, also. LOL that title, but anyway. If I'd dispute anything it's the difficulty I wouldn't call it hard per se, but more just bullshit by design. Sort of like what I Wanna be the Guy did decades later. Also, the difference between versions is because as stated in an interview. Arcade and NES were developed by two separate teams, the only elements they intentionally shared was Ryu's design and maybe a basic plot. Director also coined "Tecmo Cinema" for what we now call cutscenes More than fitting, that's for sure. On another note, I lament there hasn't been another Ninja Gaiden game like this, and even Yaiba doesn't cut it if you feel generous enough to include it

I'm glad that you covered this game! It's one of my all-time favorite NES games! For what it's worth, I do feel that the second game is the better overall game, but I do prefer the story and the locations from the first game. The second game's gameplay is incredible, but I find the story and setting to be a little too "out there".

12:57 - I've...I've played this game countless times over the past 30 years and I had no idea you could just crouch to avoid Bomberhead's sickle. In retrospect I maybe should have figured considering I *did* know that Barbarian's machete swipes don't actually have a hitbox and will pass right through you.

Legendary game.

Ninja Gaiden was one of the few NES cartridges I owned as a kid, along with Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. NES cartridges were expensive at the time and an NES game had to be very special to justify buying it instead of renting it. Ninja Gaiden was hard, but I did manage to beat it.

I played this constantly in the spring of 89 😂my father was working in DC at the time and I spent my spring break down there with him sightseeing and then played this in the evening.

love the show, peace .

Uh, finally! Despite its incredible historical importance and huge appeal to kids, I've never liked it that much as a game because of the frustrating gameplay. Same things for Ghosts & Goblins and Castlevania games. Despite my personal disliking, the cutscenes were and still are quite fantastic!

When mentioning the similarity to Castlevania, I feel like one thing that should have been mentioned are the distinctly similar UI's, particularly the boss and player life bars.

I always appreciate a good Swag Star, like at 1:04! Great write up and review, Jeremy! I remember being completely enamored with this game as a kid and enjoying the challenge and frustration of the final levels and the jerk birds while absolutely astounded by the manga-esqe story segments. What a great game!

My greatest video game accomplishments is beating all 3 Ninja Gaiden games on the NES in the early 90s. There is no way i would have the patience to try to beat them today.😂

Way to add a reference to the HHGttG radio series!

I only had Ninja Gaiden 2 as a kid, but yeah the cutscenes were super impressive back on NES. Game was way too hard for me and my ADD-addled brain, though, I could never muster the patience to soldier through and learn the enemy placements and timings.

I’m not sure if I’m remembering correctly, but I think Ninja Gaiden might have been Howard & Nester’s first two-page spread! Either way, getting a Nintendo Power cover and a H&N feature in the following issue was quite an honor in 1989.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I think you were checkpointed *sort of* on the last boss. Like, if you beat one form that form would stay dead when you got back. Or am I making that up?

Interestingly enough, the arcade game of Ninja Gaiden DID get an EGA/CGA port on DOS 2.1 PC by Hi-Tech, which I have a copy of with BOTH 5¼ and 3.5 or 3½" floppy disks for the IBM or 100% Compatible computer… 😉😉😉😉

Finally we come into the golden Age of the NES.

Picked it up at the swap meet for a few bucks around (winter early nineties) . The cover looked cool but I hoped it was not a ho hum game. Game turned out to be one of the best NES games ever.

I just need to restate and underscore here, that it's probably the hardest game on NES. The gameover restart thing on the final boss is the most unfair rage inducing mechanic I've ever come across in a game. To this day I've never beaten it without the help of save states from an emulator, and that's despite retrying every 4-5 years.

13:56 I bet more than a few people did this after seeing where the game put them.