ACA NEOGEO NINJA COMMANDO - (Rayar, Level 4 Difficulty, English Version)
0Ninja Commando developed by Alpha Denshi in 1992. As we all know, Ninjas are adept at adopting all sorts of titles and labels. I mean, when you want to soup up your reputation, why not add the title of commando to the list? Shit, I think Ninja Commando, I tend to imagine a ninja blasting his enemies with a huge ass gun. But that's not really the case here - at least I'm not disappointed with the end result we were given however.
This is a run-and-gun type of game, scrolling from bottom to top as you battle hordes of approaching foes ranging from cavemen to World War II soldiers. Wait, what?! We'll get to that. You take the role of one of three ninjas - the first being Joe Tiger (can't hide the fact that he's American just from the first name alone) who wields shuriken. Then there's Ryu Eagle who happens to be the descendant (the 23rd, to be exact) of Fuma Kotaro. Name sounds familar? Yep, the same Fuma from World Heroes. Ryu's weapon is specializing in throwing magic fireballs at his enemies. Lastly, we have Rayar Dragon, a cute British girl who came to Japan with the ambition of learning the ninja ways and ninjutsu. Her weapon is a flaming bow and arrow.
Our three heroes are out to prevent the gold suit wearing fiend Spider and the Mars Corporation from utilizing a time machine that was built for them to lay waste to the past in order to control the future. Joe, Ryu, and Rayar end up going through all sorts of time-crossing shenanigans as they chase after Spider across several time periods, such as the Stone Age, The Three Kingdoms Era in China, Ancient Egypt, and the Sengoku period (because you can't have a game with Ninjas without being in an earlier period of Japanese history). Of course, you even go to World War II. Hot damn, how creative, Alpha!
I actually liked the game's concept, to be honest. Ninjas traveling through time? Well, you can probably say it's akin to another certain game that involved ninja turtles going through time a year prior. But hey, when you gotta time travel and bring some interesting concepts into the mix, it works when it does, so no complaints there.
During gameplay, you can collect scrolls, which allow you to enter specific input commands (and believe me, some are simple but certain commands, namely Joe and Ryu's are unnecessarily complex to enter during the heat of gameplay) to release ninpo special moves. You can also transform into each ninja's respective form (Razar turns into a Dragon for example). However, due to the game's high difficulty, fast moving enemies and projectiles, and the fact that you die INSANELY fast similar to Ninja Combat, the chances of seeing this is minimal. At the end of each stage, you naturally fight gigantic bosses, ranging from Lu Bu, Oda Nobunga, to even a recreation of King Tutankhamen!
Ninja Commando isn't too bad, I liked it well enough. I even liked the little dialogue quips your character makes on the bottom of the screen, but the biggest detractor for me was the iffy difficulty and the typical "get so much as looked at wrong and you're dead" hurtboxes. But for once it was cool playing something that didn't annoy me too much.
I was originally planning uploading a playthrough of Fighter's History Dynamite/Karnov's Revenge, but aborted it due to getting destroyed by the CPU on Level 4 difficulty. So I shafted it in favor of showing Ninja Commando instead. See you around soon.