#pixeltao

Ninja Senki is a fast-paced, action platformer produced and developed by Jonathan Lavigne under PIXELTAO. If you haven’t heard of Jonathan Lavigne, don’t feel too bad because I honestly hadn’t either. When I did the research for this review, I was amazed at what Mr. Lavigne has worked on. Originally working for Ubisoft, he’s been a part of a LOT of GameBoy games, which totally explains why Ninja Senki has such a polished 8-bit look. You can check out his blog at http://pixeltao.ca where he talks about his past and current projects.

With such a background in game development, there’s no wonder Ninja Senki is such an amazing game. Take Mega Man, turn him into a ninja, then send him back in time to feudal Japan and you have Ninja Senki in a nutshell. You play as Hayate, a blue ninja whose female plot device, Kinuhime, was slain by a demon ninja. Hayate sets out on a quest for revenge, or katakiuchi, to slay the demon ninja. To reach his target, he must fight his way through 16 stages of minions, each harder than the last, armed only with his trusty shuriken.

The entire game is very Mega Man-esque, from the level designs to the placement of enemies, to the way that the enemies are subtly introduced so that you know what to expect and aren’t killed by some random goon spawning out of nowhere and knocking you off a ledge. I could totally see someone trying to speedrun this game Mega Man style as well. As you progress, you earn points for killing enemies and collecting coins. When you reach 1000 points, you earn an extra life, which definitely come in handy. Each enemy has his own attack style, and learning how to get around them is one of the most fun parts of the game; again, very much like Mega Man.

The main mechanic in Ninja Senki that really helps give it that “ninja” feel is the double-jump. You can’t bounce off of walls, which would have been awesome, but you do have an innate double-jump. You use this ability to reach high ledges with good timing, or jump across large gaps, some with low ceilings where you couldn’t accomplish it any other way. The jump also allows you to collect some coins that appear to be unattainable. You can also use the double-jump at any point in the jump arc, which allows for some amazing recoveries if you happen to fall off a ledge or almost land on an enemy.

The other major mechanic in Ninja Senki is, of course, the shuriken. These throwing stars fire out of Hayate as fast as you can mash the A button. The lowest enemies only take one hit to kill, which is nice if you get caught in a sticky situation. However, other enemies take two, three, even four shuriken to finish off, which adds to the Mega Man feel of the whole game. One enemy in particular, the wizard I’ll call him, is especially annoying. He fires a seeking fireball at you that boomerangs out, so not only do you have to avoid being hit, but you also have to try and shoot the guy. I found that if I knew he was coming, which is going to happen after you die a couple times, I could get off two or three hits before he shot, and then just hop over the fireball and finish his off. One time I even managed to get off all four hits and kill him before he knew what was coming. Ninja Pro. 

Let’s talk about the sprite art for this game. Holy crap is it awesome! I want all of them in giant mosaics across my bedroom. It’s obvious just from this game that Mr. Lavigne is a professional. After seeing his other work on his blog, I can definitely say that he is damn near a god in pixel art. The work in this game is simplistic 8-bit at its finest. As soon as I turn it on, I instantly get transported back to my living room in 1990 holding that blocky NES controller and popping in Super Mario Bros. or Rampage. In fact, I wish someone would take this game and program into a NES cartridge, just so that I could play it on an old CRTV. It would not look out of place sitting on a shelf next to Master Blaster and Metroid.

Sadly, there are some issues I had with this game. Nothing big, but just little problems. When I first downloaded the program and installed it, everything ran great except that Hayate was insistent of always walking left. If I hit the right button, he’d go right, but if I let go, he instantly went left. This made the game impossible to play well and I almost gave up on it. Thankfully, after redownloading and reinstalling a couple of time, it works fine and I’m having a blast.  The other thing that I wish there were more of was story. The game has the absolute bare minimum of plot points. Hayate’s name is never mentioned in the game, and until doing the research for this review, I thought his name was Senki, like in the title. The antagonist has no name, at least none that I could find, and all we know about the woman is that her name is Kinuhime. Is she his wife? Girlfriend? Sister? Daughter? Aunt? Mother? Lover? Friend? Really good acquaintance? Adding any story to this game would have just made it a million times better. Again, small complaints, and the game is still amazing and addictively fun.