GOTD 6/9/2016: Revenge of the Ninja (Sega CD/Saturn/PS1)

[celerystalker]

Revenge of the Ninja, also known as Ninja Hayate in Japan, is a laser disc FMV adventure in the vein of Dragon's Lair or Space Ace from Taito. It puts Hayate in the unenviable position of having to infiltrate the evil demon tower in order to eradicate the evil pestilence in his homeland. Armed with his ninja weapons, lightning-fast reflexes, and the ability to overcome repeated comical death scenes, Ninja Hayate must face these perils and become a hero worthy of standing alongside Time Gal in a compilation some day.

Revenge of the Ninja takes place entirely in the Demon Tower, a foreboding castle of iniquity filled with corrupt ninja and oni. The scenes are partially randomized, and pit him against various hazards like a snake-haired demon, a giant Godzilla-like creature, ghosts, and ninjas to convey his ascent toward the evil behind it all. Each scene is, in modern terms, a self-contained quick-time event in which the player follows on-screen and audio prompts within strict time limits in order to aoid death (I assume most people would already get that). Where Ninja Hayate is a little different from most is in that it also gives diagonal arrow commands in conjuction with cardinal directions and an action button. I remember being really surprised the first time I encountered this, and it really took me off guard.

Being a Japanese-developed game, it employs an anime art style, and all of the cartoon animation looks very nice. On-screen hints are shown along with the action icons in the form of flashing scenery or weapons so that the player can earlier anticipate upcoming prompts, and these can be turned off in the options. The Sega CD version features music, whuch was not present in much of the arcade game, but naturally lower fidelity animation. This version, while inferior visually, is still quite playable, but feels a tad easier to me.

The game was re-released in Japan on the PS1 and Sega Saturn in a double pack with the excellent Time Gal, which plays much the same. The screenshots included in this post are from the Saturn version. In these collections, you can access the dip options to change the difficulty settings and language options, and as such is fully playable in english. This is probably the cleanest, best way to play these games if available for most people, save Time Gal's great but super pricey LaserActive release. Overall, Revenge of the Ninja is a high quality FMV game with a good difficulty and fun action sequences, and a good play for Time Gal fans.

Played it? Anyone actually play the arcade cabinet?