| Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom | |
|---|---|
 North American box art (NES version) | |
| Developer(s) | Tecmo |
| Publisher(s) | Tecmo |
| Director(s) | Masato Kato |
| Writer(s) | M. Akama Masato Kato |
| Composer(s) | Hiroshi Miyazaki Kaori Nakabai Rika Shigeno |
| Series | Ninja Gaiden |
| Platform(s) | NES, Atari Lynx |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Action, platform |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom[a] is a 1991 action-platform game developed and published by Tecmo. It was released in Japan on June 21, 1991 for the Famicom and in North America on August of the same year for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The NES version was not released in Europe. It was later ported to the Atari Lynx by Atari Corporation and released in 1993 in North America and Europe, the European version retaining the North American Ninja Gaiden III title. It was also re-released as part of its Ninja Gaiden Trilogy Super NES compilation in 1995 in Japan and North America. Long after, it was released for the Virtual Console service in North America on February 18, 2008 for the Wii and in North America and Europe on November 28, 2013 and January 23, 2014 respectively for the Nintendo 3DS. It was designed by Masato Kato, who took over for Hideo Yoshizawa—designer of the first two games in the NES series.
The game is the third installment of the Ninja Gaiden trilogy, set between the first two games in the series, Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos. Although the American Box art and in-game dialogue suggests that the game takes place years after the first game. The second game, (The Dark Sword of Chaos) supposedly takes place one year after the first. The Japanese version takes place in between the first two games. The ending screen makes mention of this. The player controls Ryu Hayabusa as he is framed for the murder of Irene Lew and investigates the circumstances behind her death. He eventually discovers a plan by CIA agent Foster and another person named Clancy to utilize an interdimensional rift to create and control a race of energy-infused superhuman mutants. The game features similar gameplay to its previous two Ninja Gaiden titles and includes some new features such as the ability to hang overhead from pipes and sword power-ups.
As with the previous titles, Ninja Gaiden III received mostly positive reviews from critics. Early reviews praised the game for its plot, gameplay, and difficulty; later reviews criticized the plot, level designs, and the game's difficulty level, in which the North American version was intentionally made harder than the Japanese version through limited continues, stronger enemies, and omission of a password system. The Atari Lynx port, while receiving general praise for graphics and controls, received poor reception for its sound and for the inability for players to see characters and items, attributing it to the Lynx's small screen.
- ^ "All NES Games" (PDF). Nintendo. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 11, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2015.
- ^ "Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom". Nintendo.com. Archived from the original on 2015-09-10. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
- ^ "Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom". Nintendo.com. Archived from the original on 2018-10-14. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
- ^ "Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom". Nintendo.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-05-19.
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