Ninja Gaiden Shadow

North American box art.

Ninja Gaiden Shadow is a scrolling platform hack-and-slash developed by Natsume and published by Tecmo for the Game Boy and released in 1991. The game is a prequel to the first Ninja Gaiden game, Ryu is trying to defeat the evil Emperor Gulf, a servant of Jaquio.

Personal

I never played this game when it was popular. Instead, I saw it on a list of the best Game Boy games and played it in an emulator. It took me a couple tries, and I finally beat it on 2017-08-02.

Status

I do not own the game, but I have beaten it.

Review

4	5	5	5	3

Best Version: Game Boy

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game has decent graphics and sound for Game Boy.
• There is a good amount of variety among the enemies, bosses, and level design.
• In the brief time you have, the game presents a good challenge.

Bad

• The story is pretty dull.
• With only 5 levels, the game is too short.
• So much from the original has been cut, it feels like a hollow game. You can't wall jump, there are no story cut-scenes, and Ryu has only a single ninja art (the manual explains it by saying he hasn't yet learned the rest).
• The North American release didn't even bother to create new box art, and European release even kept the same title as their NES release despite the games being entirely different.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Box Art

• 

  The original Japanese box art shows a cartoon Ryu in an action pose with his katana among a city backdrop. It nicely conveys what to expect in the game.

• 

  The North American box art shamefully uses the same art as the NES game, only with the addition of the word "shadow".

• 

  The European box art is even worse, not even bothering to change the title to show its a different game than the NES release!

Maps

• 

  Game manual.

Maps

• 

  Stage 1.

• 

  Stage 2.

• 

  Stage 3.

• 

  Stage 4.

• 

  Stage 5.

Videos

Longplay.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Ninja Gaiden Shadow
Japanese	忍者龍剣伝GB 摩天楼決戦	Ninja Ryu Ken Den GB Matenro Kessen	Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword GB: Skyscraper Showdown

Links