Poll of the Day > What's your opinion of the NES Ninja Gaidens?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Where do they excel?

Where do you fail?

Do you like the level design, or the bosses, or the what thes?

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they are all amazing arv dont think he has had any complaints they really didn't screw around with each sequel maybe the 3rd didn't have unlimited continues

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I loved the first one, even if I always had trouble getting past Bloody Malth. The later games never interested me all that much, though - for whatever reason, the first one caught me at precisely the right time, but apparently my tastes had changed by the time the second one came out. Or maybe it was just a lamer story.
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I was probably 8-10 years old when I first played that game. Was definitely a challenge and I never got past the third or fourth level. To some degree I wanna say the game felt comparable to the Dark Soul series. Challenging but did not that feel unfair once I learned the mechanics/timing.

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Only main gripe is the constantly respawning enemies. Obviously the games are hard as hell, but they have tight, precise controls and unlimited continues (except for 3) so it's a fair challenge that can be overcome. Still never beat any of em, but i considered even getting go the last boss an accomplishment.

It doesn't warrant an other topic, but; I'm in full 'spectrum' defense mode right now and rocking like crazy (well, not literal rocking, I'm doing the thing I do)...

I either got stung by a tiny bug or pulled a beard hair out weird, but it make my face slightly tingly/numb - which has now transscribed into "FULL PANIC, POSSIBLE STROKE IMMINENT, TOTAL SHUTDOWN!!!!"

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Fun and hard.

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arv didnt get that alone feeling when you played the games with the cut scenes like arv does some games

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Lokarin posted...

Where do they excel?

At the time these games had amazing presentation of story. I never saw anything like it before. That still really holds up well today. The music is also top notch.

Lokarin posted...

Where do you fail?

Constantly regenerating enemies the instant you leave the section of the screen and come back. That's a big one. Having to go all the way back to stage 6-1 when you die to the final boss (or one of his 3 forms) is bullshit. I've still never been able to do it.

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Constantly respawning enemies that they put in THE EXACT FUCKING PLACE to knock you off a ledge to your death while barely giving you a second to react.

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Yeah, the non-stop respawning enemies are, imo, an outright design flaw. I don't inherently object to respawning in and of itself, but it's over the top in Ninja Gaiden. Dialing it back just a little bit would be a technical improvement, imo.

It's not so much about difficulty as it is about frustration. You can make a game difficult without nonsense like that.

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I mean, it's like, an enemy can spawn and knock you back, then you kill it and run forward and it spawns and knocks you back again. >_>

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Castlevania 1 and 3 didn't have that issue and they are well-respected "hard but well-designed" NES platformers, so...

But I guess it all depends on what you consider to be good/fair design, which is very subjective. Personally I think that a compromise like having a minor time delay on respawns with a placeholder symbol for where the enemy will appear would be a logical solution- other NES games did that.

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jbomb1234 posted...

Fun and hard.

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Typical nes cheap death platformer

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I played the first one on Switch and dont really care for it. Just doesnt make me want to keep playing it.

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