About a week ago, I was on the phone talking with Reggie . No, I didn’t ask him if he knew Hutch had switched over to Vodafone!

He did throw a question that ostensibly came out of nowheres-ville: “Dude, have you every played Ninja Commando?” A quick and resonant “Yes” followed, and for moderately good reasons. That sucker along with many other arcade games from the late 80s till the early 90s, were carved into my mind like stone. For every passing day, I dropped a few quarters into these soul-sucking apparatuses with their half-working joysticks. Just a few quarters, and then maybe a few more. And if I ever ran out, hey no biggie, I’d come back tomorrow with a new stack. And then the next day. And then the next day. And then the next day. I didn’t have a lot of friends back then, what can I say.

Ninja Commando was released way back in 1992 (although I mostly likely played it roughly a year afterward) and later ported to SNK’s Neo-Geo/Neo-Geo CD console. Developed by the now defunct Alpha Denshi Corp (or ADK), they were also responsible for other relatively well-known games – World Heroes, a 2D Fighter, and Twinkle Star Sprites, shoot’ em up with puzzle elements and no less than three under-aged girls hiding underneath a grand sailor motif. But this isn’t the time to blabber about that, this is about ninjas going commando!

The crazy-rich but still crazy Mr. Spider and his corrupt Mars Corporation are constructing a time machine so that they can use it to, what else, go back in time and give ancient history some stern noogies. Spider’s the kinda guy who you would expect to drive fast cars, date and dine with gorgeous women who in all probability aren’t hiding underneath a grand sailor motif (heaven help them if they’re under-aged), and maybe even host his own crappy reality show while being a total douche bucket. But no! He’s got this whole agenda planned out on his PDA and the first thing it tells him to do is: make a time machine, go stir shit up in the past, and take over the world. Don’t ask him any questions; this guy has money in places that aren’t even meant to have money kept in them. For example, like his ears!

It’s up to the Ninja Commandos to get large and take charge! Three members fill out the entire roster, pictured above. From left to right: Joe Tiger, Rayar Dragon, and Ryu Eagle. It only makes sense that had Spider decided to come up with a first name for himself, maybe he’d qualify for taking the Ninja Commando Placement Exams. Such are the intricate workings of evil. Anyway, all these guys are in every way you can imagine – 97% legit ninjas. They’re young, have easy to remember names, and don’t need to flip out and kill people with that stealth gobbledygook. That’s what an unlimited supply of ninja stars, burning arrows and kunai are for! Truth be told, that Joe can be such a weeny. Sure, he’s got more ninja moxy in him than say, Chris Farley ever did – but that’s not giving enough credit for what really matters.

Rayar and Ryu fair slightly better in comparison, but only a teensy bit. Hailing from her home country “Britein”, Rayar is in task of stating the obvious while Ryu remains the most calm and collected whenever mistreating the English language. And check it, this dude actually wears a mask. That’s dedication, yo. Conversely, there are times I wonder if Ryu is simply in the group so he’ll have an excuse to feed his inner-ninja aggression of purposely beating people senselessly.

But the keyword here is “conversely.”

Going straight into the its mechanics, Ninja Commando is primarily a top-down shoot-em’ up where up to two players can participate (and preferred, if you want to complete the game any sooner). You’ll only have to deal with three buttons throughout the entire voyage: A for shooting your weapons, B for doing ninja flips, and C for performing a special attack but at the cost of your own health. The faster you tap on the A button, the more powerful your attack will become. So for about most of your intended play duration, you’ll want to make it a routine to bash it whenever possible. Pressing both A and B together allows your character to flip in any direction you wish while deploying a few shurikens in the opposite direction. Because your normal attacks only shoot upwards, this is the only option to deal with enemies coming from either or both sides at once. Its works okay for most mid-bosses/bosses, but limits you severely against regular adversaries, who like to shoot and then run up to you for a hug. And these hugs will mar you, guaranteed.

Ninja Commando feels like a testament to how older games of its type were represented. There’s diminutive reason to come back and play once you’ve finally completed it with a friend (other than beating your old score), but otherwise a fine time-killer for those who haven’t tried it. Plus, there’s something really charming about killing cavemen, dinosaurs and Nazis with the sweat on your back! Word to the wise, the final level can be borderline devastating. An all-out boss rush until you reach the end might sound awesome on paper, but those annoying minor foes will drop in without manners and give assistance.

(This game is available on GameTap.)

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• Arachnid Says:
  October 14th, 2007 at 12:49 pm

  OK. Im finally friggin back! My PC gave me loads of issues for 2 weeks. I got the dreaded 1 long 3 short beeps error and after 2 weeks of trying to tinker around with RAM configurations, i realized that it was a loose video card! FUCK!

  Anyways - back to this game. I tried to post this comment from my phone but it didnt work. So here goes.

  Great game and thanks for doing this VJ. I spent loads of money on this baby and play it till today on the comp. However, you did forget to mention the super cool side attacks (not shuriken). Executed by sort of the hadou-ken action + A, the player fires an alternate attack that kills enemies creeping up on you from the side. Ryu’s empty Air attack is pretty cool and effective at quickly putting away bosses. Fucking lovely game!!!