Game:

Ninja Taro (1991)

Duration: 1:49:26

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First thing I noticed about this game is how similar it is to Rolan's Curse, and sure enough, it's the same studio. This is basically the secret third game in the Rolan's Curse trilogy, and it was actually the longest of the three. Sadly, it was also the weakest. The biggest problem with this game is Jajamaru's ridiculously slow movement speed, he's slower than every enemy and I have no idea why this is the case, this game would be made way better if he was fast like a ninja should be... this by itself wouldn't be so bad, but the backtracking in this game is constant, which artificially extends the length of the game. There's backtracking for the sake of it, like having to interact with a wall for a "?" to show up, backtracking to speak with someone, then going all the way back to the "?" so you can progress... this type of thing is all over the game.

This game is a bit weird when it comes to getting stronger, since the drops that I assume increase your defense are very rare. At the start of the game I was getting 1 to 2 hit killed by the bosses, which of course means walking all the way back to retry. My tip is find an enemy that drops a potion and try to farm it if you can, getting 15 as the max. Going through this game with no healing items is insanity since Jajamaru doesn't actually have the capability of dodging things since he is so slow. Actually, the final boss of this game felt identical to that found in Rolan's Curse 2, since you have to tank hits and just heal as much as you can while wailing on the boss. A bad design choice in both games, as there should have certainly been a more interesting boss but oh well.

I do like the graphics and music and this could have been a solid game but there were many bad design choices made that I already mentioned. What I forgot to mention is how dang cryptic this game can be at times... This was definitely an ambitious title given it's scope, but it feels like the developers learned from their mistakes here and would rectify it in Rolan's Curse 2, which is easily a top 100 game boy game.

Personal rating: 2 / 5 (Mediocre)

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