134. Ninja-kun: Majou no Bouken (TOSE, Famicom, 1984)

Ninja-kun: Majou no Bouken (literally Adventure of Devil Castle) is a 1985 Famicom port of a popular arcade game released the previous year by UPL. It is an extremely simple arcade platformer that takes place of a series of vertically oriented levels that are around 2-3 screens tall. The objective of each level is to clear it of any enemies. The jump is very sluggish but also precise, and interestingly, you have to be moving left or right in order to jump at all. Mastering jumping up to higher levels is critical to progressing through the game.

In addition to moving and jumping you can also throw a single ninja star that is very slow to come out, so I found that rather than waiting for enemies to attack me, it was easier to wait until they were above me with their backs turned, then I could jump up at them and hit them in the back with a shuriken before they could face me to do the same. While the first couple levels have basic ninja enemies with similar agility and abilities to you, later levels introduce more agile and capable enemies. It's amazing what fear something as simple as an daruma who can shoot 3 projectiles will strike into my heart, but with such a limited game, it took me about 10-15 tries to figure out a winning strategy/get lucky enough to defeat it.

Ninja-kun is not a great game, in pretty much any sense of the word, but I was able to find some fun in it, even though the actual controls felt pretty piddly and the graphics make the original arcade game look great. There is at least a cute cartoon eye-bug animation if you manage to step on an enemy or get stepped on.

3/5, a simple, bland arcade game with a fun core.