Nintendo Switch Online: Reviewing February’s NES and Super NES new games

Shadow of the Ninja – NES

Created by Natsume in 1990, Shadow of the Ninja is like every video game for teens mashed together. In the year 2029 some weird emperor takes over America and the only way we can stop him, apparently, is to deploy two “ninjas”. Those are their quotation marks, not mine. REALLY sells their credibility.

After the story, you get to play as Hayate or Kaede. Hayate has the moves and controls of the main character from Ninja Gaiden without as good of a jump. Kaede is…exactly the same except red.

As you make your way through classic Nintendo teen game stages like docks and warehouses you fight random thugs and strange robots that feel like they came out of Mega Man. This game takes a LOT from other, more popular games. You’ll see things that feel like Bionic Commando, Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, Contra and much like a recipe where you add too many ingredients, nothing really works.

It’s an interesting little challenge as the music is kinda catchy and it does have a fun two-player mode which is something that the original Ninja Gaiden lacked but beyond that there’s really nothing to pull you in.

Shadow of the Ninja takes a lot of things familiar from the NES era and gets close to doing it correctly. A fun multiplayer mode however makes it at least worth a try.