Little Ninja Brothers

"Not enough people played this game."

One day, in a normally peaceful Chinaland, Jack, Ryu, and their Sensei were watching T.V. All of a sudden a man by the name of the Blue Boltar came on the T.V. and told Chinaland that he captured the Emperor, and that he and the Yoma Clan will take over Chinaland! The Sensei of the Little Ninja Brothers now sends them off on a journey to find the 7 Bells of Prism, fortunately, they already had one bell in their possession. Now they must find the other 6, and prevent the Yoma Clan from taking over Chinaland!

Graphics-9

The Graphics in this game are very nice. The backgrounds on the World Map, and in towns are very bright and colourful, which is nice since it helps portray the mood of the game. The character sprites on the world map, and in town aren't too bad, but nothing great. Whenever you talk to a shopkeeper, or an important person, the text screen will change and you get close ups of their faces. This was very well done, seeing as the faces are drawn in a cartoony anime fashion, quite simply it looks wonderful for the NES.

The battle sequences are nice too. The characters and enemies are large, and fairly nicely detailed. The backgrounds in battle are nicely done as well.

Sound Effects/Music- 10

This game has great music for the NES. It always has music to suit the mood of the area perfectly. All of the music is catchy, and you will likely be humming it within minutes.

The Sound Effects are good as well. Quirky noises in battle, and typical beeps while scrolling through shop menus. Nothing wrong here either.

Control- 9

This game is very easy to control on the map, and in battle. The main menu is easy to navigate, and another little plus is the game doesn't have the block by block moving system like in Dragon Warrior, and many other NES games with a top view map, your character stops when you let go of the D-Pad. The only problem with the controls is in battle sometimes you will hit an enemy and it won't register, but other than that, the controls are flawless.

Gameplay- 10

This game is amazing, plain and simple.

First off the battles. This game has variety in battles. For the first little while in the game, you have a free range battle area where you beat up your opponents until they run away, then eventually you battle occasionally in a traditional turn based RPG battle system. This is a nice touch to the game to keep battles from getting too stale.

Another thing that's great about this game is it can be 2 players. 2 Players RPGs are few and far between on consoles as it is, so having one on the NES is a real treat, especially since the game is fantastic to begin with.

The difficulty of this game can vary. Whenever you start up the game, you have a choice to what difficulty you want to game to be, so if you find the game too hard or too easy, you can adjust it accordingly. You can gain levels, buy weapons, armor, items, and other such things in this just like any other RPG, but something that is strangely absent is this game are Treasure Chests. Sure enemies drop items, and people give you things, but no Treasures to search for makes the dungeons not quite as fun as they could be.

The game is also filled with Japanese humor, which is a plus. I defy anyone to play through this game and not laugh at least once. Some of it is subtle, some of it is blatantly obvious, regardless, I appreciate any game that can get a laugh out of me.

Probably my only gripe about this game is the password system. Now I don't mind password systems, but this one is way too long, and has more symbols than A-Z and 0-9, it was just needlessly long, and very easy to make a mistake.

Graphics- 9
Sound Effects/ Music- 10
Control- 9
Gameplay- 10

Average- 9.5 (Rounded up to 10 due to Gameplay)

Rent or Buy?

I don't see how anyone can hate this game, so I say buy it. It amazes me that this game wasn't immensely popular, but it was one of those masterpieces that slipped through the cracks. Not to mention if you could even find it, it wouldn't cost much, so you really have nothing to lose.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/02/03