Ninja Gaiden (Game Gear) Any% Speedrun in 8:45:95 [obsolete-old WR]
7Current PB: https://youtu.be/Ts5UMHqfRfg
The other ninja game on the Game Gear. Well, this one, despite what you would expect after reading the title, is not so great. Regardless of that, I have fond memories of playing this game back in the days of Game Gear and the Game Boy. It's a totally different game compared to NES Ninja Gaiden games and it's even not similar to the SMS Ninja Gaiden version. SMS NG is way better in my opinion and it has better graphics.
This is a speedrun of the game done in 08:45:95, time starts at the same moment I press the Start button right when the game prompts to do so. Timing stops when the screen fades out after the last boss. The time is measured using Wsplit.
I ran this for fun, since I'm familiar with the game and best uploaded runs seemed like they had some room for improvement. This also has plenty of room for improvement, but since speedrunning this game can get a little random sometimes and even a little bit frustrating, I'm not sure when's the next time I'll attempt improving my time, so I'm ok with how this run turned out.
More info/thoughts about the game:
When we were kids, all my friends really liked this game, but I have always preferred Shinobi over this one. There's several big problems that this game has. First off, you don't get any recovery frames when you take damage, which means Bosses, spikes and even regular enemies can sometimes stun-lock you and juggle you which will lead to some really unfair deaths. Overall controls are fine, but climbing mechanic and the way it's designed feels a little clumsy, so expect to get a lot of deaths in that building-climb autoscroll level despite the level being pretty simple. You use secondary weapons (force) by pressing down&attack which feels weird in the aftermentioned level too. If that won't annoy you in the skyscraper level, the falling object sounds surely will.
IMO the graphics are not so good. Sure, it's nice that is overall a faster paced ninja game where attacking doesn't really slow you down and it's much faster than Shinobi, Batman Returns and some other GG action or platforming games, but everything looks so washed out, lacking any nice details and the bosses look pretty bad, also they have super simple patterns and they're not that challenging unless you get stun locked. Hitboxes & hurtboxes are also way different than what you would expect.
The music is decent and contributes to the ninja themed premise. I have always liked the cover on the GG box.The story is nothing to write home about, but the sequences and dialogs between the stages are a nice touch. The game has an unnecessary secret password system, and I would appreciate if somebody would explain what's the idea with those names in the credits roll. Overall this NG version is definitely not as difficult as other 2D Ninja Gaiden games, but since it can result in some crazy and unfair deaths, I guess they didn't want to make it too hard and any lengthier than this.
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