Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom

This article is about the 1991 game. For the 2012 game, see Ninja Gaiden 3.

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
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
SeriesNinja Gaiden
Platform(s)NES, Atari Lynx, Super NES
Release
June 21, 1991
  • NES
    • JP: June 21, 1991
    • NA: August 1991[1]
    Atari Lynx
    • WW: 1993
    Virtual Console (Wii)
    • NA: February 18, 2008
    Virtual Console (3DS)
    • NA: November 28, 2013
    • EU: January 23, 2014
    [2][3][4]
Genre(s)Platform
Mode(s)Single-player

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom[a] is a side-scrolling platform video game developed and published by Tecmo. It was released in Japan on June 21, 1991 for the Famicom and in North America on August 1991 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 (2008-02-18) for the Wii and in North America and Europe on November 28, 2013 (2013-11-28) and January 23, 2014 (2014-01-23) 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. 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.

  1. ^ "All NES Games" (PDF). Nintendo. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 11, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2015.
  2. ^ "Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom". Nintendo.com. Archived from the original on 2015-09-10. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
  3. ^ "Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom". Nintendo.com. Archived from the original on 2018-10-14. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
  4. ^ "Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom". Nintendo.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-05-19.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).