Ninja Five-O Review

I always heard this title was a weird "hidden gem" of sorts, I just never thought it would even get a modern re release but low and behold, it happened. The game is enjoyable but I doubt I would be able to beat it without rewind and save states. It has that old school charm of having nothing more than an excuse plot to justify the player going on his killing sprees and rescusing hostages.

Best way of describing the game that it's 2D Ninja Gaiden meets Bionic Commando with elements of boomer shooter keycard hunts. You have sword swipes and air attacks plus magic with a grapple hook that can attach itself on to mostly if not every service where you can swing off of and moment to moment level progression is gated by rescuing hostages and getting color coded key to open certain colored doors. All of this is pretty enjoyable and I would play this on easy to avoid using save states and rewind but not all the levels are unlocked on easy. 

As a result, save states and rewind carried me through much of Ninja 5 O since a lot of the game pretty much encourages you to memorize every enemy placement and trap and demands you to never get hit once. Enemies can kill you in 3-4 hits and not only that but if you get power ups to level up your magic attacks and get hit, the level below is much weaker. Enemies take much longer to die using weaker level magic attacks. When enemy ninjas attack you, it almost feels like you need to know exactly where they spawn because while they die in one sword strike, they can do a lot of damage to your health bar. 

The swing phsyics is also quite awkward since it feels like the momentum from swinging either feels like I'm not gaining enough height or I am overshooting it. The lack of a double jump can also make relying on the swing physics even more of an annoyance. 

Bosses are somewhat easier than the levels and moment to moment enemies but I was still doubt I would get anywhere without rewind since well getting hit once lowers your magic level collected through power ups and weaker magic does much less damage. 

The final timed section to cap off the base stage would borderline feel impossible to do on base hardware since it requires you to be super precise, move super fast and never get hit maybe once but not more than that. 

Overall, I might've complained a lot but I did have some fun with Ninja 5 O but I can't deny that if I tried to play it without save states and especially rewind, me getting to the end would be impossible. I would get much more angry with it. It's a short game and it adopts that NES and arcade philosophy of, "it's short so let's make the game really hard". I'm not a fan of it but at the same time with the ability to rewind in the recent re release, it bypasses much of the potential frustration.