Joystiq [Xbox]

Ninja Gaiden III (NES)

Release: 1991
Platform: NES

Less ancient times and more convoluted, Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom essentially revolves around an rift between time and space created during experimentations by, once friendly characters, Foster and Clancy (who befriends Ryu and leaves Foster to his madness). Through the rift emerges an evil Ryu, who is controlled by Foster, and is ordered to kill Irene Lew (the good Ryu's girlfriend) for learning of their plans to take over the world. The good Ryu is framed for murder and must clear his name (guess all that other killing didn't count) and sets off to get revenge for the death of his true love. Eventually Clancy reveals himself to be the ultimate evil and Ryu must destroy him within the other dimension to restore space and time. This one really goes in every direction.

Classically Ninja Gaiden III's North American release was abysmal. The title sold well but the game included a glitch that dealt players twice the amount of normal damage as well as removing the option to continue using passwords and the availability of unlimited continues--both of which were available in the Japanese release. When the game was added to the SNES Ninja Gaiden trilogy the issues were corrected but had graphics problems making the game look worse than it did in its original release years before.

Also available on: NES, Lynx, SNES, Virtual Console

03/06/08