Released by Tecmo in March 1989, Ninja Gaiden follows the journey of Ryu Hayabusa who sets out to avenge his father's death. Judging from the fantastic cut scenes, it also involves a woman with a mullet who may or may not be trying to kill him. This game set the precedent for all subsequent ninja games, in that you run around in broad daylight, kill any and all things in your path, and do no less than 30 flips every time you leave the ground. This game is known to be extremely frustrating, mainly due to the difficulty of the platforming and the unfairness of the birds.
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0:12:53 by Josh Styger.
Author's comments:
My goal here was 12:3X but I settled with this 12:53 which is very good for most of the game but there are a few spots that are terrible. Not only that but my slashing wasn't great during all the points screens, didn't get 7 slashes anywhere this run.
Here are my stage times for the run and my best stage times in brackets.
1-1: 119 (119)
2-1: 108 (110)
2-2: 106 (106)
2-3: 148 (148)
3-1: 127 (130) None of the mistakes in this level were my fault.
3-2: 118 (119)
3-3: 144 (146)
4-1: 119 (119)
4-2: 119 (120)
4-3: 104 (112) Ran right off a ledge then got hit by some random enemies.
4-4: 150 (150)
5-1: 115 (115)
5-2: 112 (113)
5-3: 102 (102)
5-4: 149 (149)
6-1: 129 (131)
6-2: 101 (102)
6-3: 103 (103)
6-4: 149 (149)
6-5: 133 (138) Could get 138 consistently in practice but never got it in a run.
6-6: 136 (140) Getting 140 requires you to kill the heart without killing the tail.
= 30 seconds off my best potential time.
Thanks to:
Jim hanson for his 13:08 run, used a few things from it.
Scumtron for his TAS which gave me many good ideas.
Spook for a tip in 4-1 about how to save 5 ninpo.
And the SDA crew for downloading, uploading and all that other stuff this run.
Shadow Warriors in 0:13:32 by Kristian Emanuelsen.
Author's comments:
I felt the need to improve my old Shadow Warriors run as I heard Jim Hanson "The Ninja" demolished the old NTSC-WR with 25? seconds. Shadow Warriors/Ninja Gaiden is a nice challenge to speed run, and it's still my second favorite NES-title. This run went pretty well for me, especially the hack and slash platforming play. The Demon could be killed faster as usual, but I'm not very good at him unfortunately.
Thanks to Tommy Montgomery for going through the pain of recording his Ninja Gaiden run, a game he doesn't seem to hold in high regards, teaching me (and others) the basics of the game and more. Thanks to Josh Styger for his 13:33 Ninja Gaiden run which I learned a few more details from. And thanks to the 'SDA-crew' for transferring from VHS and putting my run up on site etc.
Hope you all enjoy the run!
Here are my stage-times for the run with my best ever stage-times in parenthesis:
1-1: 124 (124)
1-2: 148 (148)
2-1: 117 (117)
2-2: 114 (114)
2-3: 148 (148)
3-1: 132 (133)
3-2: 124 (125)
3-3: 145 (145?)
4-1: 124 (124)
4-2: 124 (125)
4-3: 116 (117)
4-4: 150 (150)
5-1: 119 (121)
5-2: 120 (120)
5-3: 111 (111)
5-4: 149 (149)
6-1: 134 (134)
6-2: 108 (109)
6-3: 112 (113)
6-4: 149 (149)
6-4: 131 (?)
6-5: 135 (?)