Dan Geeks Out: Video Game Review #367: Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom

Nintendo Entertainment System

Nostalgia Factor:

When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of the first two Ninja Gaiden games for the NES. Although they were known for their legendary difficulty level, I never had too much trouble with them. Probably because I used to play them all day, every day until I became so good at them it didn’t even register to me that they were supposed to be challenging. Not only did I love playing these games, they also had really involved storylines as well. The first time I can ever remember caring about a video game’s story was with the first Ninja Gaiden game.

Seeing as how I loved these games so much, you’d probably assume I enjoyed the third game in the series as well. And you’d be wrong. I didn’t like this game. Not because it sucked or anything, but because I never played it. How did that happen, especially considering I was such a huge fan of the series? I’m not sure. The internet wasn’t around back then, so you had to rely on video game magazines or word of mouth from other kids who had played the game. I remember hearing from friends and kids at school that Ninja Gaiden III was “terrible” and that it was the worst game in the series. I remember going to my uncle Stevie’s house (I only got to see him about once a year) and he had this game. I wanted to pop it in and play it and he told me to not even bother with the game because it was “whack”.

Not only did I hear the game was bad, the NES was nearing the end of its lifespan. 16-bit consoles were all the rage and no one wanted to play NES games anymore. Although I personally still wanted to play Ninja Gaiden III, it no longer became a priority. When I traded in my NES and all my games to get a Sega Genesis, it basically closed the door on childhood Dan ever playing this game.

Let’s fast forward to the year 2022 – 31 years after this game’s initial 1991 release date. I had been creating a list of games to play for my Mop Up Duty review tour, and Ninja Gaiden III was on the list. When I made it to the year 1991, I immediately knew that the time had come. After a 31 year wait, I was finally going to play this game.

Story:

Despite being the third game in the series, Ninja Gaiden III takes place in between the first two games. Irene Lew, Ryu’s love interest from the first game, is murdered by an assassin that looks just like Ryu. Upon hearing of this, Ryu decides to investigate. He uncovers a plot by Foster (the shifty CIA agent from the first game) to harness the power from an interdimensional rift that was left behind when Ryu defeated the evil demon Jashin (again, from the first game). Foster has been using this power to create super powerful soldiers, known as bio-noids. It was one of these bio-noids that impersonated Ryu and killed Irene at the beginning of the game.

But wait! Irene isn’t dead. With her help, Ryu is able to defeat Foster and enter the interdimensional rift – with the hopes of sealing it off once and for all. Inside the rift, Ryu learns that Foster’s ex-partner Clancy is attempting to take control of the Ancient Ship of Doom, a powerful weapon with immense power. Clancy brings this ship through the rift and into the real world, where he is set on using it to take control of the planet. Ryu, of course, infiltrates the ship and destroys it from within, sending it crashing to its destruction. Ryu finds Irene and the two watch the sun rise on a new day.

Gameplay:

If you’ve played the other NES Ninja Gaiden games, you aren’t going to have any trouble picking this one up. It handles almost the same as the first two games. There are small differences, sure. Ryu can now hang from ledges and swing across them using his arms. He also has some new special weapons at his disposal. Honestly, though – not much has changed with the gameplay. You move left and right. You duck. You slash your sword. You jump. You climb on walls. You get hit. You lose health. You bounce back. You die –a lot. You fight bosses. You move onto the next stage and do it all over again.

What sets this game apart is its difficulty level. Now, I know that the first two games in the series are considered two of the toughest NES games of all time. And while I’ve gotten pretty good at those games over the years, I can still acknowledge their difficulty – even if it doesn’t particularly apply to me. Those games had unlimited continues, however. No matter how many times you’d die, you could always come back and try again. Sometimes it was at the beginning of a level. Sometimes they’d send you back a ridiculously long ways. But you always got to try again – as many times as you wanted. In this game, you have a finite number of continues you can use. Once you use them all up, you have to go back to the very beginning of the entire game again.

On paper this may sound reasonable, but in reality it was a horrible, horrible decision from the people who made this game. You get good at these Ninja Gaiden games through repetition – by playing these levels over and over again, memorizing jumps and where enemies appear, and learning from your mistakes a little bit each time through. You can afford to die, and you can afford to continue and start these levels over again, because you’re learning a little bit more and more with each attempt. When you take away the ability to continue over and over again, you are taking away the player’s ability to learn and get better at the game. Instead you send them back to the beginning of the game, where they then have to fight alllll the way back to the problem area, losing even more lives and continues in the process. And this is not an easy game. It’s doable, yes, especially with a lot of practice. But I feel the game makes it unnecessarily hard on its players to beat an already difficult game. Imposing a limit on how many continues you can use just seems cruel. I don’t know how I would have felt about this if I had played it as a kid. I would have gotten frustrated with the game, I’m sure. But at the same time I know I would have been obsessive enough to put in the time required to beat it.

Time that I just don’t have in the year 2022. Between my job, raising my son, and taking care of all the other adult obligations on my plate, I just couldn’t sink the time required into Ninja Gaiden III in order to beat it the “right” way. So I cheated and used save states. Every few minutes I’d save the game – and if I died, I would reload that save and try again. Part of me feels guilty for resorting to such cheap tactics to beat this game, but at the same time if I didn’t do it this way I never would have seen the end of this game.

Graphics:

This is an amazing looking NES game. You can tell it came out at the end of the system’s life cycle, because they pulled out all the graphical tricks in the book. Clothing flaps in the wind. Fire pulses and glows on the screen. Certain stages have things like plants and machines constantly moving in the background, really making these stages feel alive. The colors seem brighter. You can tell a lot of love was put into the design of both the enemies and the stages. This may be one of the best looking games ever created for the NES – and I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say that.

All of that being said, the game's graphical prowess doesn't translate well to screenshots. This is a game you have to see in action to truly appreciate.

Sound:

This game sounds amazing too. Great stage music, great sound effects. Say what you want about this game and its difficulty, but its production values are truly top of the line.

Overall:

I have mixed feelings about this game. I love the first two Ninja Gaiden games – and as far as gameplay goes, this title is very similar to those games. So by extension that means I do like this game. Its storyline is pretty entertaining. Obviously the presentation is great. That said, it is lacking something in the fun department for me. Everything looks, sounds, and feels right, but I don’t know what it is – something is just off for me. Something is missing that the first two games had that this one doesn’t.

Maybe it is simply the nostalgia factor. I grew up on Ninja Gaidens I and II. I played them religiously. I am able to overlook the shortcomings of these games because they both mean something to me personally. Ninja Gaiden III, on the other hand, I hold no nostalgic feelings for. Maybe I’m not able to overlook its shortcomings because, since I didn’t grow up with this game, I don’t feel as if I have to make excuses for it. It’s too hard. The stages are too long. Having to replay long chunks of these stages when you die is a pain in the butt. The knockback is bloody awful, as always. And the fact that you have a limited number of continues to work with? Don’t get me started (again).

This is a good game, yes. Certainly not “whack” or terrible like I had heard when I was a kid. Honestly, I’m a little disappointed I listened to the rumors about this game and that I didn’t check it out for myself. If I had grown up with this game, Ninja Gaiden III might have gone down as one of my favorite NES titles of all time. Now, it simply has to settle for a middling score. Just for namesake alone, I want to give this game at least a B-, but I just can’t do it. When I think back on my time with Ninja Gaiden III, I have absolutely no desire to play it again. Maybe that will change in the future. But for now, I have no choice but to give it a C+. I can’t help but feel I am under rating this game, but seeing as how I had just a so-so time with it, I don’t feel I can rank it any higher.

THE GRADE:

C+

40th Birthday Mop Up Duty Celebration Tour:

1982 reviews:

1983:

1984: