Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. It's a clear sign of the changes to the video game industry as time has marched forward- games these days, by design, need to be beatable. That's not to say that games can't be made challenging- they certainly still are. But being able to actually beat a video game and see the ending is pretty much a prerequisite upon which the rest of the game is then founded on. Nowadays games have hugely adjustable difficulty levels, lengthy tutorials to teach even the newest of gamers how to play, and even have self-adjusting difficulty programmed into them, all in order to ensure that a game can always be played and beaten by gamers of any skill level. This was not always the case.
Long ago, when the video game industry was a mere speck of dust compared to what it is today, games were brutally unforgiving. Quality control wasn't always guaranteed and some games were buggy, incomplete messes because of it. However, others suffered from a different kind of flaw- massive difficulty without any reprieve. A bit of this was by design- arcade games were made intentionally more challenging with the notion that more money needed to be spent in order to complete them, and home console games often emulated (or at least attempted to emulate) arcade games as closely as possible, right down to insane levels of difficulty in some cases. Still, others were just unforgiving for the sake of being unforgiving, and Ninja Gaiden is a prime example of this.
Interestingly, Ninja Gaiden actually was one such quarter-eating
arcade game; however, it was changed drastically when ported to the NES and
became a fast-paced action platformer as opposed to a button-mashing beat 'em
up. Despite everything that's been said about its difficulty, Ninja Gaiden is a
fantastic game for the NES library- the graphics are wonderful, the controls
are fluent, and it was even well ahead of its time with a detailed story and
cutscenes between every level. In fact, the only real problem with the game
comes from how hard it can be at times.
The game was one of the first on the NES to have wonderfully detailed and lengthy cutscenes that explained the plot.
Now, I should say that while Ninja Gaiden is very difficult,
it's definitely far from the hardest game ever. In fact, it's second sequel
Ninja Gaiden III may have that distinction, but I digress. It's certainly
challenging, but it is beatable if you buckle down and refuse to quit. However, getting to the point where you don't want to quit is perhaps the most challenging thing about the game. You'll go through cycles of frustration and exhaustion playing through the same levels and getting killed over and over again, but with true determination and fortitude can you make it through.
I didn't have Ninja Gaiden as a kid and in fact had never
really known about it until much later, when I saw this episode of the Angry
Video Game Nerd in which he reviews Ninja Gaiden and discusses its
legendary difficulty. However, watching his struggle and eventual failure
to complete it actually inspired me to one day give it a shot myself. I remember seeing it at a
store and then picking it up, wondering what kind of trouble I was making for
myself now. I knew that it would be an incredibly tough challenge, but I was
determined to give it my best shot.
Now perhaps I should discuss why this game is so difficult,
for those who are unaware. It was a pretty common theme of platforming games in
the 80's and 90's that when your character takes damage, they get knocked
backwards. This has been true since the very beginning and even through critically
acclaimed games like Castlevania. Anyway,
this is the biggest problem with Ninja Gaiden that most often results in death,
due to a large amount of both pitfalls to get knocked into as well as enemies
that do the aforementioned knocking. At any given time the screen can be filled
with quick moving enemies who run at you, fire projectiles, or dive bomb you in
the air. At the same time, if you get hit by one of these things, you're very
likely to go flying back and fall to your doom. Also, enemies respawn
immediately and infinitely if you are standing offscreen enough to trigger
their spawning zone, meaning you could potentially be stuck killing the same
enemy over and over again without moving forward. Because of this, the game
kind of rewards you for playing quickly and recklessly; as long as you keep
moving forward, even if you are taking continual damage it's better than being
stuck in one area.
The thing is though, it's rarely an unavoidable situation to
fall and die; if you get hit and fall back, it is most likely your own fault
for not counterattacking early enough or performing a precise enough jump. As
such, it's just frustrating enough to make you want to keep playing. On top
of that, you're given infinite continues. You have three lives and once you
lose all three, you'll have to go back to the beginning of the stage you are
on; however, you can pretty much keep playing continually until you either beat
it or give up in good old fashioned rage-quit form.
Of course, there are a few bullshit areas. There's the
infamous area in level 6-2 where unless you perform a glitch to make an enemy disappear offscreen (described by AVGN in his episode), it's nearly impossible
to progress. There's also an area I'll describe more in a bit in which you have to jump
downward but immediately pull back, timing your jump well enough that you grab
onto a wall where you can safely jump to the other side. And of course, there's
the biggest hitch in the entire game- getting sent back THREE levels if you die
at the final boss. The boss has three different forms and if you defeat one,
you won't have to replay it at any point if you die- however, should you lose
all of your lives and have to continue, you'll need to play levels 6-1, 6-2,
AND 6-3 all over again just to get another shot at it, which are the three
hardest sections of the entire game, mind you.
This guy causes what is perhaps the hardest moment in the entire game. Birds are flying at you, other enemies are running in offscreen, and the guy to the right is standing on a platform too narrow to land on and counterattack. It's possible, but it requires pixel-perfect accuracy to take him out and move on, otherwise you'll likely be knocked into the pit and die. Alternatively, you can much more easily trigger a glitch and be done with it.
With all this knowledge in mind thanks to good old AVGN, I
decided to give the hardest game I could get my hands on a go. The first few
levels aren't that bad; you get a feel for how fast paced the hack and slash
action is and also get some practice with the wall climbing mechanics,
which are a bit tricky to get a handle on at first. Actually, I find that
things don't really start getting very hard until level 5-2, the cliff side
level.
Here's where getting knocked back and having to grab onto
walls becomes quite a nuisance. Everything in the entire world is attacking
you- birds, lions, statues, ninjas, even ninjas WITH JETPACKS! It's coming at you
from all angles. You can't screw around on these stages anymore, you've really
got to maneuver with precision. Once I got here, I kept getting stuck and dying
at the part I spoke of earlier at the cliff wall, where you have to jump down
and backward in order to grip the wall. This part is particularly difficult
because when you jump, unless you are tightly holding the control pad in one
direction, your jump does not go very far. As such, it's hard to jump forward
and then "steer" yourself backward onto the wall below you at a low
enough point that you'll be able to jump forward. On top of that, there's a damn
bird that flies in and deals damage to you at the part, and unless you have a
special projectile weapon available (from VERY limited munitions, I might add),
there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah, you can't use your sword when
gripping a wall. I died on this part over and over, eventually giving up in
frustration. But I wasn't finished with my ninja quest just yet.
This part was incredibly annoying to me. You have to jump downward, carefully avoiding getting too close to either wall but "steering" yourself leftward...
...getting JUST close enough to the left wall to grab on, then jump to safety to the right. If your timing isn't perfect, you'll either grab onto a wall too early or just jump straight into the pit. Oh, and the bird is attacking the whole time and you're totally defenseless while doing all this.
A few days later, I was back at it. With no save or password
features, I had to play through all of the previous levels again in order to
get back to that spot on the cliff. This time, with just a little extra
patience I managed to get through it. From here there's a few more tricky parts
in the next levels, but eventually you find yourself at the dreaded level 6-1.
I knew what to expect from here, but nothing can truly
prepare you until you have to do it yourself. What's interesting is that if you
clear one of the three levels and then lose all of your lives in the next one,
you can restart at that level without having to go all the way back. It's only
if you die at the final boss will you find yourself back at 6-1. Because of
this, I developed a bit of a strategy here. I would make to level 6-3 (which
was easier said than done, since I would have to make use of the glitch in 6-2 every
time just to get beyond it) then purposely die until I could continue with
three lives. Then, I'd attempt to get to the final boss with as much health as
possible, preferably a full life bar, so I could have a shot at him without
getting killed immediately.
The first incarnation of the boss is not very difficult at
all- you just have to slash away at an orange orb that hangs in the background
behind him. However, the second is where things start to get much harder. This
time, he gravitates around the top of the room, firing off fast projectiles
that come right at you. The only way to dodge these and have enough time to
land a quick hit is by timing a jump right, grabbing onto a wall and then
jumping back while simultaneously attacking and avoiding the fireball. At
first, I kept getting killed at this guy over and over again and would be stuck
back at 6-1 repeatedly. It was annoying, but I knew that if I could just power
through this part, I'd be up to form #3 and just a few slashes away from
beating it.
The final boss has three forms, and if you lose all your lives on one of them, it's back to the beginning of 6-1.
I buckled down and pressed onward, each time getting more
and more annoyed at the things levels 6-1, 6-2 and 6-3 throw at you. However, I
was determined to stay the course. Each time I'd make it back to the boss, I'd
do a little bit better. Finally, I had the pattern down and knew what to do. I
jumped, slashed, dodged and repeated. The ninja energy flowed with me. And then
I had him- with one last slash of my sword, he was defeated. However, one last
form still remained.
The final form doesn't even look like it belongs in the game at
all- it'd be more at home in some weird alien game instead. Nonetheless, you have to
attack it pretty quickly, as soon as you get the chance. It always lands a
cheap, unavoidable hit on you as soon as the fight begins, but after that
things are pretty straight forward. You hack away at the monster's head until
it literally falls off, at which point fireballs will start spraying out of
it's neck like an erupting volcano. It's madness- you have to dodge a constant
barrage of shit falling on you, but I kept at it. My adrenaline was pumping, my
hands sweaty as I struggled to keep my composure and hang onto the controller
for dear life. Every chance I got, I tried to land another hit. I was getting
closer- its remaining health was far below mine. I finally resorted to just slashing
away without regard, hoping it would just die before I did-
-and then, I did it. The thing died, the triumphant last
scenes played, and then the credits rolled. I was overjoyed- I had just beaten
one of the most notoriously difficult games in the NES library. All I could think to do was whip out my camera and snap a picture to prove I had done it, which I still have to this day:
Ah, what a glorious feeling. I've never attempted to beat either of it's sequels and I suspect that beating Ninja Gaiden III would be the crown jewel of NES achievements, since it is the only one out of the three that has limited continues. But for now, I'm just happy I made it through the first game in one piece. Thanks for reading.
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