Ninja Gaiden Trilogy for the SNES in 1995. Ninja+Gaiden+(Master+System,+1992) 16-Bit Ninja Ninja Gaiden appeared three times on the next generation of hardware, but only one of those editions ever made it to America. Ninja+Gaiden+III:+The+Ancient+Ship+of+Doom+(NES,+1991) Still, if you are a major fan of the series, you should definitely hunt it down, as it is well worth your play time. It's an original adventure will all the jumping and sword-swinging action you'd expect from the Ninja Gaiden series, but there were some minor changes to ninja magic and wall-climbing. The Master System version, which sadly never arrived in America, is actually a port of neither the arcade nor the popular NES games.
It wasn't until the Lynx version that a direct port of the arcade game could be played with sliding quarters into a slot. Instead, they were original adventures with cinematic edges that really advanced a storyline. The 8-bit Era Ryu's 8-bit days started out on the NES, although none of his appearances on that console were ports of the 1988 arcade game.
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And, as you'll see, color has been a major element of the Ninja Gaiden series over the last two decades. Admittedly, I've skipped over the Game Boy release, Ninja Gaiden Shadow, since it looks not entirely unlike the NES version with a lot less color. YES NO So, here is a list of many of Ryu Hayabusa's home appearances, starting in 1989 on the NES and running through this week's breathtaking Ninja Gaiden II. (Although, Ninja Spirit was a pretty fine game and perhaps NEC didn't want the competition.) The waning popularity of the Master System is as good of an excuse as any, but it's not like the Turbo was just swimming in games and could afford to flick a franchise like Ninja Gaiden aside. For one reason or another, some of these entries were entirely skipped over. Speaking of both of those releases, it's important to note that not every game featured here made it to North America. It's only a marginally improvement over the SEGA Master System edition. Seriously, look at the version of Ninja Gaiden that showed up on the PC Engine (that's Turbografx-16 on these shores) in 1992. I say 'often' because, as you'll see in this evolutionary gallery, that Ryu has not always been given a chance to really put his best foot forward with each advancing generation. The horsepower under the hood grows exponentially with each generation of hardware, and the Ninja Gaiden series has often benefited from such potent increases. There's something fascinating - at least, for old-school gamers - to watch the evolution of a classic character that has survived the years. There's no doubting the sheer beauty of Ninja Gaiden II on the 360, and as somebody who has been making Ryu Hayabusa run left and right for over two decades, it's been fun to watch this pretty astounding journey for the ninja extraordinaire. This week, Ninja Gaiden II debuts on the Xbox 360 - just in time for a really ugly break-up between the out-spoken Team Ninja lead Tomonobu Itagaki and publisher Tecmo.