Ninja Gaiden

• Title — Ninja Gaiden • Developer — Tecmo • Publisher — * DOS • Hi-Tech Expressions • Amiga, Atari ST, CPC, ZX Spectrum • Ocean Software • Lynx • Atari Corporation • Director — H. Iijima • Writer — H. Iijima • Artist — Shinobu Iwabayashi • Composer — Mikio Saitou Ichiro Nakagawa Ryuichi Nitta Tamotsu Ebisawa • Series — Ninja Gaiden • Platforms — Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, ZX Spectrum, Atari Lynx • Released — Arcade MS-DOSFebruary 15, 1991 (re-release) C64 Amiga, Atari ST, CPC, ZX Spectrum Lynx • Genre — Beat 'em up • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer

The player controls a ninja hired by the United States government[5] to defeat an evil cult led by Bladedamus, a descendant of Nostradamus who seeks to fulfill his end of the world prophecies. Flooding the streets of the United States with criminals released from Alcatraz, Bladedamus has kidnapped the President and acquired codes for launching the nation's ICBMs.[6][7]

• Illustration — The game's first stage, with the advertising sign having been damaged The first player controls a ninja dressed in blue, while the second player controls one dressed in orange. Like most beat-'em-ups, players proceed through stages by defeating enemies scattered through each area. The controls consist of an eight-way joystick with a button installed on top and two additional action buttons for attacking and jumping. The button on top of the joystick allows the player character to grab onto any overhead bar or tightrope and hang from there. There are five primary techniques performed by pressing the joystick and buttons individually or in combination with each other. These consists of the a series of punches and kicks that serve as the player's standard attack, the performed by attacking the enemy while jumping, the performed by attacking the enemy while hanging from a bar, the in which the player moves while hanging from or standing above a tightrope, and the a backflip performed after running into a wall, which becomes an attack if the player has a sword. The player can destroy certain objects in the environment (such as telephone booths, signposts, dumpsters) by knocking or throwing enemies onto them. These will uncover hidden items that will award the player with bonus points, health recovery, time extensions and even an extra life. One particular item will temporarily arm the player with a sword that can be used up to ten times before reverting to his standard punches and kicks. The first five stages are based on actual American cities and landmarks including Los Angeles, New York City, Las Vegas, North Carolina, the Grand Canyon, and a transcontinental railroad. The sixth and final stage is set inside the enemy's hideout. The recurring bosses include a sumo wrestler, a pair of wrestlers resembling the tag team Road Warriors known as the Daor Warriors, and a trio of claw-wielding masked acrobats known as the Nanto no Otokotachi. The final boss, Bladedamus, wields two swords and has a fire breath attack.[8]

The Ninja Gaiden arcade game was produced and released almost simultaneously with its home console counterpart for the Nintendo Entertainment System, although they are different games with only a few similarities.[9] The designer of the arcade game is only credited as "Strong Shima", but Masato Kato, who worked on the NES version, identified him as one "Mr. Iijima".[10] Home versions of Ninja Gaiden were released under the Shadow Warriors title in 1990 by Ocean Software for five different computer platforms (Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC). The game was published for the IBM PC by Hi-Tech Expressions, and a single-player game for the Atari Lynx had to be programmed from scratch, which was done by BlueSky Software. The arcade version of Ninja Gaiden is also included as a hidden bonus game in Ninja Gaiden Black for the Xbox in 2005.[11] This game was released on the Wii as a downloadable Virtual Console Arcade game and released in Japan on July 28, 2009, in PAL regions on November 13 and in North America on December 21.[12] Hamster Corporation released the game as part of their Arcade Archives series for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in 2019.[13]