0.5/5 ★ – jdraco's review of Ninja Gaiden.

I’m convinced that every developer making games for the NES back in the 80s was on coke, meth, heroin, steroids, and every single other drug known to man because this game just defies everything in terms of what a game should be and how it should be designed And the thing is, it didn’t start out terrible for me; I actually kind of liked it in the beginning I thought the movement was actually pretty good for an NES game; it was fast and somewhat fluid, despite the wall jump being absolute dogshit I liked the cutscenes as well and thought that the sprite work was very impressive for the NES And overall, I just didn’t really have a problem with it; I actually thought it was a solid, challenging action-platformer But, in the short time when I was actually enjoying the game, there were still hints of the complete and utter horse shit that was to come Infinitely respawning enemies, your character getting stuck to the wall after being knocked back, little to no hitstun at all The more I look back on my time with this game, the more I realize that these were all present in the earlier levels, and I guess I just brushed it off for whatever reason But there was absolutely no ignoring it in the last 2 levels of the game Because these levels (especially the last one) are, no exaggeration, the worst levels and possibly the worst things that I’ve ever played in any video game They are just abominably, exceptionally, extraordinarily bad, bullshit, fucking awful levels That will probably continue to haunt my wet dreams until I'm 87 years old It's just unfathomable how any human beings could make something so, so bad and feel like it was okay to release the game afterwards Why the fuck would they do this to humanity? This game came out in 1988, and if they had never released this game, who knows how history might’ve been altered for the better 9/11 might’ve never happened, Hurricane Katrina might’ve never happened, Taco Bell might’ve never discontinued the waffle taco, and overall just so many positive things could’ve happened if this game had never been released But it did, and it fucking poisoned the Earth because of it Now you may be asking, “Why are these levels so bad?” And I would say to just play them for yourself, and you’ll see why But me recommending that you play this game is probably an actual crime that I could get the death penalty for, so instead I’m just going to explain to you why they’re so terrible So basically, do you remember every single bad thing that I said earlier about the infinitely respawning enemies, or your character getting stuck to the wall after being knocked back, or the little to no hitstun that the game gives you? Now I want you to take all of that that I just said and imagine it cranked up by fucking 8 million Those are the last 2 levels of this game And another element in these levels that adds on to their bullshit is the fact that they flood the entire screen with a million enemies at a time Enemies that come at you from every single imaginable angle, with some of them being able to throw projectiles at you And this, paired with the terrible hit stun, makes these sections an absolute fucking nightmare because enemies can just stack a trillion hits on you over and over and over again And what makes this even worse is that, like I mentioned earlier, your character will just latch on to the wall if you get knocked back into it, causing you to have to jump off of it, usually right into an enemy/projectile, and then you get knocked back again into that same exact wall So many fucking times you will just be caught in this bullshit loop where there is absolutely nothing that you can do This game actually made me feel like I was fucking going insane because at some point I just started hysterically laughing from how bullshit this game is It’s unbelievable And then as for enemies constantly respawning Well, it’s a fucking joke in these last 2 levels There’s a moment in particular where you need to jump onto a platform that has an enemy on it Which is already bullshit to begin with because the enemy takes up the entire platform, so it’s already hard enough to do this But then you also have to deal with a million flying enemies coming at you, all of whom will respawn almost immediately after you kill them But then the enemy on the platform is also throwing projectiles at you while all this is happening, making it 1000 times more difficult All with this being a game designed to be beaten by the average consumer playing the NES back in the 80s Fuck everyone who worked on this game; I hope they all aggressively stub their toe Like, how could they? I feel actually offended by the fact that they made this game. Why do this to the world? Tying back to enemy respawning, though, it wouldn’t even be that bad if the window that triggers the enemy to respawn was just farther away Because the way it works is that when you kill an enemy, if you walk far enough away from where you killed that enemy, they will then respawn Except in this game, if you walk basically 1 centimeter away from the enemy that you just killed, they’ll then respawn Which is a fucking joke and makes moments like the example that I gave just a second ago, fucking hell And speaking of hell, the boss fights in this game can all go straight to it because they all completely suck None of them are fun; most of them are just chalked up to you approaching them and hitting them over and over again while having to sponge multiple hits They’re just so fucking lame and overall bullshit, considering some of them have attacks that you just can’t avoid And no boss fight is a better example of this than the final boss of the entire game, Jaquio Who has 3 phases, 2 of which you have to beat with only 1 health bar, all while the boss constantly throws unavoidable projectiles at you over and over again, which will completely fuck you up considering that there is absolutely no hit stun, so you will just be thrown into the loop of constantly being hit until you die Literally the only way that I was able to beat this boss was by turning on a cheat code that gave me infinite health… That was the only fucking way And honestly, that’s the only way that I can see any living soul beating this boss fight Seriously, I would pay money to see someone beat this boss fight in front of me, because I really don’t believe it’s possible I know there are videos out there on the internet of people doing it, but I just can’t fucking believe them I would genuinely need to see it with my own 2 eyes in person… So yeah, overall this is the worst game I played this year without a shadow of a doubt, and I really never want to think about it again Which won’t happen because I already planned on playing the sequels… So, fuck this game, and also I realize that I forgot to mention that this game tries to tell a story, but really there's nothing to talk about with it because it’s just such a throwaway piece of shit story that wasn’t even worth paying attention to Like, I’m pretty sure it’s about the ninja that you’re playing as trying to avenge his father, and then the government gets involved in what you’re doing at some point, and then there’s this woman for some reason who’s with you at the end of the game, whose name you don’t even know, who your main character kisses I don’t fucking know; it’s so stupid And so is this game And I can’t possibly think of a more fitting score to give this game than a 0.5/5