Ninja Gaiden (NES video game)

Ninja Gaiden
The logo of Ninja Gaiden is on the top of the screen. In the middle of the image is a depiction of a ninja in blue with a knife in his left hand and a bo and katana stored on his back. The ninja is portrayed in a background of a burning city. Below the ninja is green text saying in caps "BIGGEST ARCADE HIT!", and to the left and right of that text are Nintendo's license notice and Seal of Quality respectively. In the bottom of the image, in red with white lettering, is the TE©MO logo, with text to the left of the logo saying "A Strategic Encounter" and with text to the right of the logo saying "The Fight of Your Life".
North American box art
Developer(s)Tecmo
Publisher(s)Tecmo
Director(s)Hideo Yoshizawa
Artist(s)Masato Kato
Writer(s)Hideo Yoshizawa
Composer(s)Keiji Yamagishi
Ryuichi Nitta
SeriesNinja Gaiden
Platform(s)Nintendo Entertainment System, PC Engine,
Super Nintendo Entertainment System, mobile phone
ReleaseNES
  • JP: December 9, 1988
  • NA: March 1989
  • PAL: August 15, 1991
PC Engine
  • JP: January 24, 1992
Genre(s)Platform, action, hack-and-slash[1]
Mode(s)Single-player

Ninja Gaiden,[a] released in Japan as Ninja Ryūkenden[b] and as Shadow Warriors in Europe, is an action-platform video game developed and published by Tecmo for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Its development and release coincided with the beat 'em up arcade version of the same name. It was released in December 1988 in Japan, in March 1989 in North America, and in August 1991 in Europe. It has been ported to several other platforms, including the PC Engine, the Super NES, and mobile phones.

Set in a retro-futuristic version of 1988, the story follows a ninja named Ryu Hayabusa as he journeys to America to avenge his murdered father. There, he learns that a person named "the Jaquio" plans to take control of the world by unleashing an ancient demon through the power contained in two statues. Featuring side-scrolling platform gameplay similar to Castlevania, players control Ryu through six "Acts" that comprise 20 levels; they encounter enemies that must be dispatched with Ryu's katana and other secondary weapons.

Ninja Gaiden has an elaborate story told through anime-like cinematic cutscenes. It received extensive coverage and won several awards from video gaming magazines, while criticism focused on its high difficulty, particularly in the later levels. Director Hideo Yoshizawa named Ninja Gaiden as his most commercially successful project. The game continued to receive acclaim from print and online publications, being cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. It was novelized as part of the Worlds of Power game adaptations written by Seth Godin and Peter Lerangis. The game was followed by Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (1990) and Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (1991). A manga-styled comic book, Ninja Gaiden '88, published by Dark Horse Comics, continued the narrative of the five original games.

  1. ^ "Complete Games Guide". Mean Machines. No. 20 (28 April 1992). May 1992. p. 6.


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