Ninja 1987 is a 2D action platformer akin to classic Ninja Gaiden games or Shadow of the Ninja (the NES original… not that Reborn thing). Each mission is divided into small areas where you need to survive and kill enemies foolish enough to stand in your way.

Along with your trusty sword, our Ryu Hayabusa wannabee also has a special dash attack, that requires a special meter. The meter will allow for three uses, but you can pick up lighting items that will refill the meter one bar at a time. You also pick up a sole power up alternate weapon: shurikens.

Our hero can also double jump, use his slash attack in mid-air, duck and wall climb. You do have a health bar and the lives system works a bit differently. Instead of having a set amount of lives, every time you die, you lose 1000 points from your score. As long as you kill enough enemies, you can finish this without a single game over.

The game’s visuals are faithful to those classic 8-bit games from the NES era. Each mission as its own theme and color schemes; all the while keeping a darker tone. Enemy variety is decent and they do a decent mix of new and recycling enemies in later levels. Bosses are overall well-thought out; just too easy. Mission intros are also blatantly stolen from the NES Ninja Gaiden games. I don’t want to say that the soundtrack is abysmal, but it’s far from being a classic from previous games that inspired Ninja 1987.

This game was clearly not QA’ed thoroughly. In every area of every level, if you’re not careful, you’re bound to be stuck and clip into invisible pixels. Either by wall climbing or using the dash attack. Thankfully, in my personal experience, pausing and unpausing the game would work, but there were circumstances where I had to reset the game because no matter what I’d do, I would remain jammed into pixels. Boss battles are fun, but they are pushovers; no challenge whatsoever.

Ninja 1987 is basically Ninja Gaiden from Wish. Not to say that it’s a bad thing. It’s fun, controls are tight, bosses, albeit very easy, are fun to battle. Unless you want to beat your own score, the game has no replay value nor additional gameplay content. If you have a few bucks to spare and looking for an easy old school experience, Ninja 1987 will fill that void. Be careful to not clip into invisible pixels.

Overall
  • 75%
    CX Score - 75%
75%

Summary

Pros

  • Gameplay is very tight
  • Very easy 1000 Gamerscore
  • Fun and overly easy boss fights

Cons

  • No replay value
  • Clearly skipped QA

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