Game:

The Last Ninja (1987)

Duration: 7:35

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While this game is called "The Last Ninja", this NES port is actually a port of "Last Ninja 2" within "The Last Ninja" series. While the NES cart (and maybe box too...I don't have the box) says that the game is "Game of the Year", that is not entirely true (as you might have guessed). One of the other ports of Last Ninja 2 was a runner-up for GotY at the time and like magazine publications and the like do today, the Goty label was slapped on the NES version in an effort to boost sales. There is actually a lot of information that won't fit in my YT text limit at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ninja

At any rate, you travel to different areas collecting items and beating up ninja wannabes and stuff. The game plays in an isometric view, which is pretty cool for NES and things are very distinguishable, but you shouldn't expect too much more than that. Some people state that the game looks terrible; I don't necessarily agree with that assessment, but it doesn't look amazing or anything. I'm also not too fond of the music...but more than that, I do not like the "life or death" platforming segments. When you are jumping from ledge to ledge, it's not bad, but when you have to jump on moving objects with no clear indicator of your relative position in midair against said object, you can get a LOT of cheap deaths. It took quite a bit of trial and error to guess when I should jump on the first level alone.

Fighting can be easy enough, especially with weapons (shurikens are deadly!), but hand-to-hand fighting can seem random. You get by fair enough by button mashing wildly, but even pressing as fast as I can, enemies will still get a hit or two out. For some reason, with a stick or weapon, I can whack enemies silly with no fear of retaliation. You have to get keys and perform other events to get through the levels. Watching the intro that shows levels actually helps out quite a bit.

The game isn't great, but there are worse games out there.