Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos

This article is about the NES sequel. For the 2008 game, see Ninja Gaiden II.
Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
The logo of Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos is on the top of the screen. In the middle of the image is a depiction of a ninja in violet either sheathing or unsheathing a katana from the scabbard. The ninja is portrayed in the background of a nighttime city with a dragon rising over. To the bottom right of the ninja is green text saying "Sequel to NinJa Gaiden, the arcade and Nintendo best seller!", and to the left of that is a license by Nintendo. The bottom right bears the Nintendo Seal of Quality stamp. In the bottom of the image, in red with white lettering, is the Tecmo logo, with text to the left of the logo saying "Hard to beat!!".
NES North American box art
Developer(s)Tecmo
Publisher(s)Tecmo
Director(s)Masato Kato
Programmer(s)Yoshiaki Inose
Artist(s)Masato Kato
Writer(s)Sarah H.
Hideo Yoshizawa
Masato Kato
Composer(s)Ryuichi Nitta
Mayuko Okamura
SeriesNinja Gaiden
Platform(s)NES, Arcade (PlayChoice-10), SNES, MS-DOS, Amiga
ReleaseFamicom/NES
Arcade
MS-DOS
Amiga
Genre(s)Platform
Mode(s)Single-player

Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos,[a] known in Europe as Shadow Warriors II: The Dark Sword of Chaos, is a side-scrolling platform game developed and published by Tecmo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). This is the second installment in the Ninja Gaiden trilogy for the NES and was released in North America and Japan in 1990, and in Europe in 1992. An arcade video game version was also introduced by Nintendo for their PlayChoice-10 system in 1990.

The events in Ninja Gaiden II take place one year after the events in the first Ninja Gaiden game. It is about an evil emperor named Ashtar who, after hearing of Jaquio's defeat, devises a plan to take over the world and engulf it in darkness through an evil sword called the Dark Sword of Chaos. A U.S. Army agent named Robert T. Sturgeon recruits the game's protagonist Ryu Hayabusa and tells him that he is the only person who can stop him. The game received praise in previews from Electronic Gaming Monthly and Nintendo Power and continued to receive high ratings and coverage, being nominated for several awards from Nintendo Power in 1991. Reviewers said that visuals and controls of Ninja Gaiden II improved over its predecessor while maintaining a high level of difficulty for players; the game was criticized for having a more generic and predictable plot. The game maintains lasting appeal among players, with one reviewer saying that Ninja Gaiden II is "a challenging experience the likes of which gamers in the 8-bit era lived and died for".[3]

  1. ^ "All NES Games" (PDF). Nintendo. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 11, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2015.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference ACME was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Thomas, Lucas M. (October 15, 2007). "Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos Review". IGN. Archived from the original on September 23, 2014. Retrieved July 2, 2013.


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