In the 80s, ninjas were everywhere!  Ninja movies, Ninja video games, even Ninja Turtles!  And now you can play a new ninja game modeled in that 80s 8-bit style.  In the far future of 1987, an evil ninja has taken over the world, and now a ninja from a rival clan must stop him!  Don’t you just love video game stories?  Ninja 1987 is a 2D side scrolling platformer hack and slash, and it’s available on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

You ninja can run, jump, climb walls, and double jump.  He has a short range sword attack as well as limited use of long range ninja stars.  You have a special meter that you can draw from for two special attacks.  One lets you dash into enemies straight forward, and another clears all of them on screen.  Enemies will sometimes leave behind health and special attack refills as well as ninja stars.  There are seven stages with a boss at the end of each one.  If you run out of energy, you’ll start back at the last checkpoint but you get unlimited continues.  Only penalty is your score is subtracted 1000 points.

My problems with this game are fairly minor.  You can get stuck climbing walls sometimes, so it’s a little buggy.  Bosses are a bit disappointing. And hit detection felt slightly off sometimes.  And it’s not as good of a game as most of the 8-bit NES ninja fare.  The game is challenging, but still doable, and otherwise it’s a fairly decent classic ninja romp.  Definitely feels like something I might’ve rented back when I was a kid.

Kid Factor:

Ninja 1987 is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Mild Blood.  You can hit bad guys and robots with swords and ninja stars, and they just explode into red pixels when defeated.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.  I played games like this when I was a kid and I turned out OK.

Tags: Game Reviews