One of my favorite gamemakers from the Golden Age of Arcades was Taito. To the pop culture sphere, they are best known for Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble and perhaps Elevator Action or Qix. After Space Invaders practically INVETENED the shoot 'em up genre, they would go on to dip their toes into all sorts of genres: Platformers (Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands), racing games (Continental Circus), Puzzle games (Plotting), Cabal shooters (Space Gun) and.... beat 'em ups like The Ninja Warriors!
The Ninja Warriors, (along with Darius), was a game built to be played in a special arcade cabinet with multiple long, thin monitors to give the game an all-encompassing, larger-than-life feeling. In Ninja Warriors, players one and two (Kunoichi the gynoid, and the bigger and stouter of the duo was a blue Ninja named... Ninja) take command of Terminator-like android assassins who are sent on a suicide mission to kill a despotic dictator who had taken over the White House.
The TurboGrafx-16/PC-Engine of The Ninja Warriors.
The game was groovy, funky and cheesy in it's aesthetic, but pretty simplistic and two-note in the combat department. It was later ported to Sega/Mega CD and TurboGrafx-16/PC-Engine as well as it could be.
In the mid-'90s, Taito's North American division was having financial trouble and eventually closed up. Prior to that and around the same time, they had started licensing out some of their games to other companies: KiKi KaiKai had a few games made by Natsume that were known as "Pocky and Rocky", Puzzle Bobble would be a flagship game for NEO GEO MVS and towards the end of the decade, Acclaim would nab the rights to Bubble Bobble.
Super Famicom box art for The Ninja Warriors Again.
Like the Shinto priestess and her tanuki friend, the Ninja Warriors would be another Taito series that would get the Natsume treatment. The Ninja Warriors Again (Boringly titled "The Ninja Warriors" in the US ) for the Super Famicom/Super NES would be a story remake that served as a gameplay sequel. With a new character, Kamaitachi, added to the mix, Ninja Warriors Again told the same story with new moves, more urgency, and was overall a better game than the original.
Kamaitachi kicking bad guy butt in The Ninja Warriors Again.
And yet, in retrospect, you can't help but feel the system limitations of the Super Nintendo wearing the game down. The number of enemies on screen was often much smaller than that of the arcade game, and the overall viewing area feels boxed in. Ninja Warriors Again was a good game, but not exactly a great one.
Fast forward two decades later, most of the same team at Natsume-Atari got together and remade the game for modern systems! Is it an improvement? Absolutely!
Gameplay
Kunoichi in the 1st stage of Ninja Saviors.
The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors (Ninja Warriors Once Again in Japan) much like the games it's based on, is a simplistic, beat 'em up with no Z-axis movement. Think less Ninja Turtles or Final Fight, and more along the lines of Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure. Though the movement doesn't have any third axis depth, it is highly responsive. The characters all have several satisfying attacks at their disposal: a standard attack, a jumping attack, a downward jump attack, a ground jump attack and a special move that wipes out the screen.
The first level has your character DIVE right into the action! Comparing it to the SNES game, you can see that the improved framing makes the window into the game world feel less claustrophobic. Screen crunch is not a problem in this remake, nor are their limitations on how many sprites can be on screen to prevent slowdown. There's plenty of big open spaces to kick a lot of despot minon hiney, and as a result, the Ninja Warriors are more fast and furious than ever.
The initial three characters are Kunochi, who is a jack-of-all-trades; Ninja, a slow and heavy, grappler type character and Kamaitachi, the fragile glass cannon. Ninja, is a slow character, but only in a relative way; he's the slowest of the initial Terrible Trio, but not a slug.
Once you fulfill your programming and complete your mission (BOOM!), two new characters join in on the wetworks: Raiden, who is a GIANT and Yaksha with her extendo arms.
Raiden is HUGE!
In 2 players mode, the ninjas share a life bar adding to the fun, mayhem, and stress!
Kunoichi and Ninja have each other’s backs!
Graphics
The graphics are in perfect sync with the characters’ movements! They’re essentially an updated version of the SNES game. It's an overhaul that’s not too overdone or gaudy.... No, it might even be better than just an overhaul. The Ninja Saviors has some of the best 2D graphics I've ever seen! It looks like an SNK game, and that is good company to be in, indeed! The colors and animations are darn near perfect! Along with Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and the Mega Man Zero series, this game might just have some of the best sprite art ever if you're into that kind of thing! The transparency effects and transitions are cool, too!
Kunoichi dives into action!!
Sound
The remastered soundtrack absolutely KILLS the SNES version. No more compression! The synthesized riffs sound like '80s Japanese funk or pop! The CD soundtrack is one that’s going to be worth buying!
Replayability
This is where things might get a little bit tricky. There are only 8 stages and that might not seem like anything to some. On the default difficulty, the levels are not easy at first but are certainly not hard. I don't expect newer players to plow through it on their first time. The average player will probably get through the main game in an hour of serious, dedicated playing. Unlocking the final two characters and replaying the stages as other characters can add to the replay value.
The game can be more fun with a Player 2, but with a shared life bar, be a good ninja and watch out for your cohort or else both of you are getting junked!
Taking down a dictator is more fun with a friend!
What It Could Have Done Better
As good as the combat has always been, and for how much has been improved, the aesthetic design of the levels has never been terribly interesting outside of one or two set-pieces. If fast-paced arcade-style games don't appeal to you, there's nothing here that will change your mind.
Stage 2 seemed a lot easier than Stage 1. Those rockets always came off as cheap to me.
It’s also a little bit awkward that stage transitions happen while a boss is in the middle of their death animation.
Verdict
What makes Ninja Saviors such a great pick for fans of arcade-style games is that it rebuilds a slightly flawed classic respectfully and ultimately, makes it better. It brings arcade-like graphics and urgency into your home, and possibly anywhere! With the NES and SNES Classics, the Konami, Namco and SNK collections, and Taito's own Darius Collection on Switch, Nintendo's hybrid console is a wonderfully portable archive of arcade, 8-bit and 16-bit games. The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors is another welcome addition to that party.
