Ninja Warriors

"The Greatest Beatem Up of All Time Ever Created By the Hands of Man EVAAAR!!!"

The beat-em up is, without a doubt, one of the greatest phenomena in video game history. No gamer alive (before the--FFVII REWLZ ROXXORZ jOO pwnz LOL!!1!1!!!11!!!one!!!--era, that is) can forget the incredible feeling of playing Final Fight (perhaps the first REAL beat-em up, not counting the Double Dragon series...I have no clue what the heck those games tried to be). Sure, in Final Fight, you could only choose two characters, and the characters themselves were about as bland and generic as a bag of Malt-o-Meal Cornflakes, but still, just to be able to play a fighting game with your friends without having to show them for millions of hours how to execute Ryu's hadoken or Zangeif's piledriver (now THAT might take days)...just to be able to play a fighting game and just mash away on stupid thugs (who cares what their names are, or what they look like? just kick ass like a pissed off Stevie Wonder!) Man, now I'm startin to think back on when I was a little nappy headed boy…(if you didn’t understand that, then you need some soul in your life) :)

Beat-em ups have come a long way since the original Final Fight, but thankfully, unlike OTHER genres (cough RPG's cough tournament fighting games cough hentai er oops didn't mean that one), beat-em ups have for the most part, as we say where I'm from, ''kept it real and represented to da fullest, boyee!'' Yet, for some odd reason, they have been diminishing severely over the years. Companies just don't like to make them anymore, probably because nobody can really do a good job at it (Fighting Force? Blah!)

Ninja Warriors for the SNES is, without a doubt, the greatest beat-em up of all freakin time, man, because it stays true to its roots, as well as expands and shows us how fun and interesting a ''mindless'' beat-em up can be. I sincerely believe companies should play this game and take notes---bring the beat-em ups back, but RIGHT this time. Ninja Warriors, let's school deez foos!!! :)

GRAPHICS: 10

This game has the most incredible character designs I have ever seen in my LIFE. What ingenuity man is capable of if he only uses his IMAGINATION (something that seems to lack in video games today...all guys want to do now is make money, not master their art). This is a Super Nintendo game, but as soon as you turn it on you'll swear that you're playing the Sony Playstation. I'm talkin colors, WHAM BAM, in your face like WHAT! I'm talkin backgrounds of postapocolyptic cities and buildings that make you feel as if something really bad has happened, yet something worse is about to happen as well! I'm talkin enemies designed with gorgeous detail and accurate body proportions. I'm talkin explosions that will not only blow your characters away, but will blow YOU away as well! Good lord, has a game ever been more amazing to look at? And don't get me started on the MAIN CHARACTERS! These are the three most stunning characters to ever grace a video game. You have the big strong guy, NINJA (he's so powerful they don't even give him a ''name''....he's just ''NINJA''...ownage...pure ownage), who's like a really buff cyborg with some awesome metalic noonchucks...then you got the crazy-sexy-cool-as-hell-crouching-tiger-hidden-dragonesque ninja woman, by the name of KUNOICHI, who could kick Ibuki's (from Street Fighter, by the way) ass anyday, as she weilds two large ninja shurikens and a sharp, incredibly deadly katana...last, you got the ace of the deck, the wildcard, the loose-cannon-ninja-on-the-edge-who-doesn't-play-by-the-rules, the cyborg named KAMAITACHI(did I mention that they are all cyborgs? They are so detailed that you'll say ''wow those are some SWEET lookin people...I wonder if they're cyborgs?'') The last character, KAMAITACHI, is a cyborg just like the others only he has no skin to cover his body---he's so crazy he just likes to show off his inner badass. He's got these two hooks on his arms that make him look really cool. All in all, with great-looking characters, backgrounds, animations, and enemies, the graphics of this game WILL BLOW YOU AWAY, I guarantee it!

SOUND: 10

I still remember all the songs of this game, that says enough. I even remember the body-piercing sound of KUNOICHI's daggers as they rip and shred through many a vain opponent! The songs are really upbeat and will get your heart pumpin, particularly the first song of the game, with its neat synthesized violins and mysterious melodies...ahh, this is how you make video game audio! Every whip of NINJA's hardcore noonchucks, every slash of KAMAITACHI's blazingly fast hooks, will put you on the edge of your seat and, if your wife/kids/mom aren't home, you'll definitely put your sound system on full blast!

CONTROLS: 10

Has it ever been easier to kick ass? You know, most games nowadays try to be all complicated...you see, I'm more of a casual gamer---I don't have time to be screwin around with this button and that...hell, just give me the dang joystick and let me kick some ass! I mean, yeah, I can learn some cool techniques, and there should be some secret stuff, but let me figure it out on my own, don't make it so complex that I have to go to GAMEFAQS.COM to find out how to do stuff...(hehheh, of course, we all LOVE GAMEFAQS.COM right? woo hoo!) :). Anyway, all jokes aside, it's very simple to play this game. You move from right to left with, you guessed it, right and left on the d-pad (or keyboard, for you criminals out there... ;) ). The controls are especially responsive; when you die (trust me, you'll die...this game is hard, but fun!) you won't have anything or anybody to blame but your sucktitude---these controls never screw you over. You can execute combos and attacks so easily with just a few button presses, and it's all so very simple even your grandma can play. I'm serious, go get her right now and ask her to buy this game for you off Ebay, and tell her that you'll play it with her. :) Hey, this game is THAT good.

But, the REAL reason...the reason above all other reasons why this game ROX SO FREEEE-KING MUCH, MAN....is because of

GAMEPLAY: 10+++++++++++++++++ till the end of time plus 1

AH!!!!! Somebody should arrest the people that made this game, because it's so fun, so addictive, that it just HAS to be illegal! Seriously, dude, I'm not pullin your leg. I'm not trying to ''sell'' this game to you or anything...but if you've been achin for a piece of whoopass for a while, and if you like video games, then on the real tip, this is the game for you, man. Let me elucidate...

You start the game by picking your difficulty level...if you're just beginning, I suggest picking ''Normal'', because you're inevitably going to be getting your butt spanked like nobody's business. Next, you pick your character. There are three, as explained in the graphics section. You got NINJA, the powerhouse, KAMAITACHI, the speedster, and KUNOICHI, the all-arounder. Once you have selected your character, you enter the first mission, which is at some sort of airport or something, it appears (I need to play the game some more so I can remember all this stuff!). The game is side-scrolling, so you move left to right in a Mario-like fashion, but oh, this ain't your little sister's Mario! Here come some evil dudes with knives! Oh! Can Mario do a flying jump kick to their faces, knocking them out cold? No! Can Mario repeatedly tap the punch button and perform devastating combos to put shame to large, musclebound titans? No! Can Mario, once he has avoided being hit for a specific amount of time, perform an ultra-powerful attack on everybody in the entire SCREEN? NO!!!! Sorry Mario, you may be more powerful but...these guys can kick your ass. :)

But don't for a SECOND think that just because you've got all these cool powers and combos the game is going to be easy! Oh, no! You see, just as you think you are kickin all the butt the game can hand to you, there comes a boss at the end of the level. The bosses are all pretty strong, depending on how you decide to fight them, that is. You can duke it out like a man, or you can dodge his attacks and leap behind him like a REAL ninja, slashing him to the ground upon landing! Whoa, now THAT's somethin Mario can't do either! :)

There is so much more I can go over here, such as the story, each character's actual individual moves, etc., but it would take me an entire FAQ to do that! For now, I suggest that you just play the game, and, like the guy who does the 10-10-987 commercials says, ''Just try it...you'll see what I'm talkin about!'' :)

OVERALL: INFINITY TIMES INFINITY TIMES INFINITY (gamefaqs translation: 10)

This game, this masterpiece, is one of the greatest games of all time, if not THE greatest game of all time. Did I mention it has replayability, too? Yeah, after you beat the game, you'll definitely want to play it again, and again, just because it's so fun! It's one player, which might turn some people off, but hey, REAL ninjas don't fight in pairs! That's crampin the ninja's style!

And this game, my friends, has LOADS of style. If you've got any esthetic sense, or any sort of love for videogames, then you MUST play Ninja Warriors. It will rock you. To all the companies out there...THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE A VIDEOGAME!!!! This is REAL videogaming! :)

Till next time, game fans! :) Keep on gamin, and oh, kids, do your homework! (Then you can play Ninja Warriors! ;) )

This is Johnny Dangerous…. mission complete...

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/03