Ninja Gaiden is an action

Action game

Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...

 video game released for the Master System

Sega Master System

The is a third-generation video game console that was manufactured and released by Sega in 1985 in Japan , 1986 in North America and 1987 in Europe....

 in 1992 by Sega

Sega

, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...

 with license from Tecmo.

Summary

This video game stars Ryu Hayabusa

Ryu Hayabusa

is the protagonist of the Ninja Gaiden video game series as well as a player character in the Dead or Alive series, both published by Tecmo. According to the game canon, Ryu Hayabusa is a ninja and the leader of the that has spiritual, physical and magical ties to ancient dragons...

 and is part of the Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden

is a series of video games by Tecmo featuring the ninja Ryu Hayabusa as its protagonist. The series was originally known as in Japan. The word "gaiden" in the North American Ninja Gaiden title means "side-story" in Japanese, even though the Ninja Gaiden series is not a spinoff of a previous series...

series, although it features a plot not connected to any of the other Ninja Gaiden games. Due to the discontinued support of the console in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 and North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 because of its poor sales in both regions, the game was only released in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and other PAL

PAL

PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...

 territories, bearing the Ninja Gaiden label instead of the Shadow Warriors one that usually was used for the series by the time in PAL

PAL

PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...

 releases.

Story

Ryu Hayabusa is a member of the Dragon Ninja clan, who have protected Japan for generations. One day he is away from home, he receives a message that the Dragon Village, home of the Dragon clan, has been brutally massacred. He rushes home only to find that all but one of the village members have been killed. The last survivor of the village tells Ryu with his dying breath that the sacred Bushido scroll has been stolen. The Bushido is a scroll of power so strong that its owner can control the world. As the last Ninja of the Dragon clan, the fate of the world is in its hands, and he must embark on a trip to regain the Sacred Scroll of Bushido from the hands of the evil Shogun of Darkness and his minions.

There are two versions of the game that exist. The first version tells the story through the eyes of Ryu himself, explaining his experiences in great detail. The second version is narrated from an outside source, but some details of the plot is not explained as much.

Gameplay

The game features similar gameplay mechanics to the previous NES Ninja Gaiden games. Movements, attacks and jumps are performed in the same mood, and special ninja attacks are cast as usually, by pressing Up and Attack simultaneously. This version replaced some features from the NES games with new abilities, such as the ability to climb hand-over-hand or cling to walls in the NES games being replaced by the ability of bouncing off walls instead of clinging to them in the Master System game, similar to the later 2004 Xbox game.

External links