Quote Originally Posted by bb_hood View Post
Ninja Gaiden III is probably the easiest Ninja Gaiden game. With a little practice you can just run through most of the levels. The game wants you to utilize the sub-weapons frequently and doing so makes this game much simpler. Bosses in Ninja Gaiden III are all very easy. They all have very noticable patters and never really pose a threat. Ninja Gaiden III features the Dragon Sword upgrade, which is very powerful. The Japanese famicom version is a little easier than the NES version. The NES version has a limited number of continues and the Famicom version has a password feature.

Ninja Gaiden III is an awesome game. It looks great and it plays great. Ninja Gaiden III is a game that may seem very hard at first, but with some practice it becomes very easy.

Dude, that is crazy talk. This game is insanely difficult. Im calling bullshit on this one. I'm a pretty big Ninja Gaiden fan. I've beat all 3 NES games (North American versions, no cheats), and the third game is without a doubt the hardest. It also happens to be my least favorite.

As far as the difficulty goes, Tecmo made some big changes to the game when they localized it. Compared to its Japanese counterpart, the North American version is brutal. For one, they doubled the amount of damage enemies inflict. The minimum damage you take is 2 bars of health. They also did away with unlimited continues, and capped it at 5. They also tweaked enemy placement to make platforming more difficult, and to increase the overall difficulty. This was likely the result of a fear of the rental industry. It was common for games to be made harder in order to make sure you couldn't beat a game just by renting it.

I've beat the fist 2 games dozens of times, but I've only beat the third game once, and I recorded it on VHS at the time. I never want to beat it again. It's beyond maddeningly difficult. Cheap enemy placement is the worst part of it all. It's a frustrating game, and unfairly difficult. The first one is a breeze in comparison. Seriously.

Have you actually played through and beat the North American version, or is your opinion based on a casual playthrough?