by
Evan Norris
, posted 1 hour ago / 243 Views
Ninja 1987 is a title that wears its influences proudly on its sleeve. Indeed, a single screenshot can tell you exactly what it hopes to achieve. With its 8-bit graphics, side-scrolling perspective, swarming enemies, and familiar iconography, it’s obviously a throwback to the days of Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi. Even its name — Ninja 1987 — is a clear indication of the genre and era the game wants to explore. Developer SEEP isn’t hiding anything from the public, then; but is it hiding an undiscovered gem?
The story in Ninja 1987 is slight, as befitting the games that inspired it. The year is 1987. The great cities of the world are consumed by crime and violence. The source of the chaos is Keigo, a mysterious ninja with demonic powers. Luckily, there’s hope: Yohei, a heroic ninja from Keigo’s rival clan.
As Yohei, you’ll fight through seven levels on your way to confront Keigo. While the levels are brief — roughly 10-15 minutes apiece — they’re fairly interesting. There are cities, sewers, docks, jungles, underground facilities, bamboo forests, and temples to explore, each with plenty of enemies, hazards, and traps. And there’s a nice mixture of combat situations and deadly platforming trials with each zone. However, there are two rather serious problems. The first is that the boss battles, especially the first four, are shockingly simple and uninteresting. The bosses move slowly, or in some cases remain stationary, and fire a few weak projectiles while you carve them up. They’re deflating, especially as they represent the climax of each level.
The second problem is that Ninja 1987 is a bit buggy. During my 90 minutes with the game, I got stuck on the level geometry four times. After three of those instances, I found myself in a soft-lock situation and had to restart the chapter from the beginning. Fortunately, SEEP is quite generous with checkpoints: there are several per chapter, and you can begin your adventure from any completed chapter from the main menu.
As for controls, Ninja 1987 delivers what you’d expect from a Ninja Gaiden-like game, although with a little more flexibility and agility. You’ll move left and right with the analog stick or d-pad, jump and double jump with B, attack with Y, throw a consumable shuriken with A, and perform a couple of ki-depleting special moves with the right bumper and X. It’s standard stuff, but it works well. The ability to perform downward strikes, sweeping attacks, or even a three-hit combo would be helpful here, but that’s clearly outside the purview of the game, which emulates the vibe of an NES action-platformer circa 1987.
In keeping with that vibe, the game is designed to be short and replayable. Consequently, it will take you only ~90 minutes to wrap things up. Ninja 1987 does keep track of your high score, which is nice, but it would benefit from other reasons to return to the action: an online leaderboard, a speed run mode, unlockable outfits, etc. Ultimately, there’s just not a lot of substance here.
There is some nice 8-bit pixel art and chiptune music, though. The electronic music is driving & catchy, and the pixelated graphics are charming & nostalgic. The game also benefits from a wide field-of-view that lets you take in the surroundings and plan your next moves with ease.
Ninja 1987 is an NES-era side-scrolling action game, for better or worse. On the positive side, the controls are relatively snappy, the levels are diverse, and the audiovisual assets set the proper ambiance. On the negative side, the boss battles are bland, the game lacks substance, and a handful of technical issues introduce some unnecessary frustration. If the game had actually released in 1987, it would be remembered today as a middle-of-the-pack action-platformer.
This review is based on a copy of Ninja 1987 for the NS
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