If you've ever seen Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, or if you grew up in California during the 80's and experienced the dialect of skater boys, valley girls, surfer dudes and other "extreme" social circles, get ready to be totally annoyed by this bogus game's dialogue dudes!
The Nintendo Entertainment System continues to amaze me, almost 30 years after the fact. Exhibit A: Clash at Demonhead. I first ran across this game a few years ago while shopping for NES games on eBay. The game cover immediately jumped out at me. Take a look at that cover art for a second -- there is no denying this is one awesome-looking game.
If my memory serves me correctly, Bandai's Ninja Kid was the first NES game I ever bought. I remember looking at the display box in Toys R Us and thinking how cool it looked...I had to get it. But no one would be able to warn me about how insanely difficult it would be when I finally got to play it.
But as hard as it was...there was a lot for me to like about Ninja Kid. The game had some interesting level designs, including randomly generated maps and levels that would never be the same. Each map had three stages, a shrine and a temple. The stages contained certain levels, such as Guerrilla Warfare, Poison Field, Blazing Inferno, and Dog Fight. You can choose the stage you want to enter, unless one is blocking your path.
Once inside a stage, there are certain objectives to fill. Collect ten ghosts to get out of Poison Field, kill ten enemies in Guerrilla Warfare or Dog Fight, and light ten candles in Blazing Inferno.The levels are side-scrolling and never end, and enemies will constantly spawn while you are in them. One hit will kill them, but one hit will also kill you as well. This makes for some particularly challenging (and frustrating) gameplay.
Once the objective is met two exits will appear. One will lead you back to the map, while the other will lead you to a random mini-boss fight. The mini-boss levels are horizontal-scrolling, where you will have to climb up and avoid the falling enemies as well as the attacks from the bosses themselves. Once you reach the mini-boss, you'll have to shoot them in the right place to defeat them.
The object of each map is to search for a scroll. The scroll only falls in one stage, and finding it will enable you access to the temple-boss for that map. Once you have the scroll in your possession, you can simply skip the rest of the stages if you wish and head right to the Shrine to turn in the scroll, granting you access to the Temple. The Temple bosses can be particularly tough to beat, and you'll need to seek help from the available Battle Assistants (Pegasus, Eagle, or Mirror Lady) to defeat them.
Once the respective Temple Boss of the level is beat, it's rinse and repeat...on to a new map where another handful of various stages await you. There is no ending to the game. The maps will repeat and repeat until you die, with the main objective to achieve the highest score possible.
I never knew this as a kid, and I think the farthest I got was the second Temple Boss (floating mirror). That guy always got me...and in the end, I just gave up. Playing the game for the first time in decades recently, it is still a tough game, and I was only able to avoid frustration and make it to all of the available Temple Bosses by using a little cheat that gave me nine lives instead of three.
Still, there are a lot of cheap deaths awaiting in Ninja Kid...from the zombies that will jump up out of nowhere in the Poison Fields and kill you instantly, to a flying enemy that might enter the level if you take too long to finish the task. The difficulty may have turned off most gamers back then, but those looking for a decent challenge within the 8-bit platforming realm may want to give this a shot.
In Japan, Ninja Kid actually existed as Gegege no Kitarou: Youkai Dai Makyou, which was a popular manga series at the time. The game mechanics were the same for the most part, but the character looked totally different and had nothing to do with being an actual, "ninja".
Here is the original box art for the Japanese Famicom version:
Here is the back cover of the U.S. version:
And here is a gameplay clip of Ninja Kid in action:
One of the recurring features I'll be doing here at Videodyssey is something called "Replays", where I replay some of my favorite games and give my take on how they have fared with age. What better game to start with by replaying the very first game I ever beat...Rygar.
Rygar holds a special place in my heart. During the NES days most games that I had (such as Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros.) were repetitive, and although I loved those games...I lost interest before I ever made it to the end. Rygar was the first game where I fully immersed myself within the game world and became intent on seeing through to the finish.
Rygar was also one of the first platform games to feature side-scrolling and top-down gameplay. This helped to flesh out the world of Garloz and gave it depth.
The weapon of choice in this game is the Diskarmor, a shield attached to a chain that can be thrown at enemies and returns to the hero. I have always loved this weapon, it was innovative for it's time and still pretty awesome, and can be powered up to take care of enemies in one hit. He also uses a grappling hook and crossbow that can both get Rygar to previously inaccessible areas.
The game has a great sense of adventure. It's not a linear game by any means, as there are plenty of paths to choose and your only aid in your quest is by finding the legendary gods hidden within each level, who give you clues about what you might need or where to go.
Searching for items was a new game mechanic for me when this was released. I had missed out on Zelda the previous year, so running around and searching every nook and cranny for items was a thrill for me.
By no means is Rygar an easy game. I died multiple times on a recent playthrough, especially during some of the boss battles. Once you get to the Tower of Garba things get really tough, as all of the enemy mobs are boss mobs ready to greet you on every level of the Tower.
I have no clue how I was able to beat this game as a little kid...but I'm glad I did. The challenge is definitely part of the fun.. Once you have the Sky Castle in view there is a great sense of accomplishment, something I always enjoy in a video game.
And once you wail through waves of shadowed enemies in Sky Castle, you'll come upon the games Final Boss...Ligar, a lion/lizard/plant monster that throws a hail of fireballs at you.
I'll never forget this screen as long as I live...the end game screen for Rygar, the first game I ever beat.
Here's a quick gallery and run-down of each of the bosses in Rygar:
ERUGA: Two-headed fire-spewing Turtle.
SAGILA: Giant spider that likes to circle around it's prey.
DORAGO: Mutant Soldier and the first challenging boss in the game.
BELZAR: Another two-headed monster, but this time it's a Plant with oogly-eyes.
GARBA: Yep, another two-headed beastie, except this one shoots from both heads!
LIGAR: And here we have our Final Boss, made famous by Napoleon Dynamite.
Odds & Ends:
Maps of Gran Mountain and Garloz from the instruction manual.
And a glance at the enemy mobs in the game as illustrated in the manual. Animalized Men Wriggling Eerily might be the most hilarious choice of words for enemies I've ever seen.
Here is one of Tecmo's advertisements for the game:
And the back of the NES box:
The Underground Cave song is easily the best song in the game...check it out!
Hope you enjoyed this in-depth look at one of my favorite NES games. Check back soon as there is more to come!
