Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom

"a disappointing end to the NES trilogy"

''Ninja Gaiden'' is widely regarded as one of the best series on the NES. The excellent combination of graphics, sound, gameplay, difficulty and plot make these games classics.

the third installment of the series this game was made in 1991. It was probably overlooked because this was made when the Geneses was finally making its breakthrough and the hype for the SNES' release were in. Does it deserve a second look? let's see.

Plot: 2

This has always been where ''Ninja Gaiden'' shines. The dark, intriguing stories go in cutscenes between levels. The first two games had solid, coherent plots, though this game does not. It begins with Ryu's girlfriend Irene being murdered by a Ryu doppelganger. But after that, the plot seems to be just incoherent gibberish. I dare anyone to try and name all the plotholes in one try. In fact the story's so messed up that NP got not one but TWO plot twists wrong.
arcs. Not exactly a good start, eh?

Graphics: 6

''Ninja Gaiden'' has always had underrated graphics. Good sprites and backgrounds mixed with excellent cutscene graphics. The graphics in this game are rather hit/miss. The
colors for the levels have improved . They are now brighter. Sadly, instead of quasi-3-D(well, sorta) backgrounds, the backgrounds are pretty much entirely 2-D.

The cutscene graphics just plain suck. The characters are done really really poorly with less outlining than there was
in the prequels. The fact that there are almost no cutscene graphics, and when there are, they're usually ripped straight out of the prequels doesn't help matters either.

Sound: 6

While the music of the prequels were catchy and memorable, that is not the case with this game. the music is mediocre and forgettable. Not good, not bad, just playing on your TV.

The sound effects are the same as always in the series except for two things. First when your sword hits a metallic
object, you hear a clanging sound. This is actually an improvement over the first two games. Unfortunately, swinging your sword will produce not a slashing sound, but instead a martial arts yell. (''HWAH!'') That seems out of place. Plus, I find it kind of annoying. still, it may just be me.

Gameplay: 6

At first glance, the gameplay seems the same as in the prequels. Ryu can run, jump, swing his sword, use a special weapon and climb walls. There are two new things that weren't in the prequels: cling underneath walls and get a few new weapons. the former is a good new move that you'll use a lot. The new weapons are also pretty good.

There are a few things I don't like, however. In the first two installments of the series, you bounced back about six inches or so when hit. Not anymore. Now, you barely move at all when hit and aren't briefly invulnerable, allowing you to be hit repeatedly. let's this piece of information and combine it with the fact that you now take double the damage you would in parts one and two. Ouch! Not to mention the fact that you always start back at the beginning of the
beginning of the current sublevel you are on. These elements
cause great frustration that am about to explain.

Challenge: 4

This game is hard, but for the wrong reasons. as I have explained, you take double the damage you would in previous games and are bumped around so slightly when hit that you can be hit more than once rather easily. On top of that, the
game takes advantage of this by frequently throwing multiple
enemies at you. In the later levels, where you lose six or eight health bars with every hit, you can easily lose over half your health with a single collision! And there's still that boss at end, in case you forgot.

Finally, you are only allowed five continues. With a seemingly underpowered character, this can seem unfair, especially since the prequels had infinite continues. This makes ''Ninja Gaiden 3'' truly one of the hardest games on any
system.

What's even more irritating is that the Japanese version had
failed to have increased damage, was easier, had unlimited continues and the icing on the cake came in the form a password system. If they had just kept the passwords for the NES version, it would have been more acceptable, but they didn't. I guess I've gone on a rant. time to finish....

Overall: 5

''Ninja Gaiden 3'' is disappointing, but not too bad. It's a bad sequel, but not too bad. It was one of the first examples of successful programmers getting lazy. The series went out on a low note unless upcoming the PS2 installment of the series does better, but that's another story.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/30/01, Updated 11/30/01