Ninja Masters

[Xorcist]

Out of all the fighters back in the day, none of them impressed me more than Ninja Masters. It had so many interesting features and the gameplay was pretty solid. Just the fact characters could put away their weapons at will and had different associated special moves when unarmed was totally cool. I always thought this game deserved a sequel, alas it never got one.

 

What are everyone's thoughts on this game? Anyone play it...

[Gryph]

Yeah! I thought this game was definitely under rated. I didn't play it that much since my sound files were messed up but I really liked to play as Karasu.

[Agozer]

Yeah! I thought this game was definitely under rated. I didn't play it that much since my sound files were messed up but I really liked to play as Karasu.

H4w. My sound is fine. Ninja Master's (notice the typo) is indeed a fine game.

[Swithin]

Huh, just got some Ninja Master's in earlier tonight with a good friend (as in 'played', not 'received a shipment'.)

 

I do have thoughts on this game, actually. The first is that the sprites look horrendous. The character design is OK, but the sprites are stiff, under-animated on the whole, an generally sub-par (with some notable exceptions.)

 

Yes, that makes a huge difference. The music is better than average, the backgrounds, while they don't have tons of animation, are pretty good (especially the cave and Nobunaga's palace), so the presentation is pretty good... but the characters look like ass. They look poorly drawn. They're unappealing, and they really hinder the game because the character sprites themselves emote a certain FF1-ness, which is unfair to the game. Tennhou and Ranmaru are, however, exceptionally well done, while Karasu (who has a good conceptual design) looks like ass.

 

As for the game-play, it's good, it's somewhat innovative (you could willfully disarm in SS as well, so it's not entirely new), and the ease of play is a plus point. Good at combos? Come on in. It's not the most technical game, but you'll have fun shooting the ****. Bad at combos? That's OK, mash a bit, read a movelist, and eventually you'll be able to do things on purpose. It's not the total mash-fest everyone makes it out to be. Beyond that, it's fun to play, the characters aren't immediately unbalanced, and there's suprising depth to the game.

 

Anyway, the game is a fair bit of fun. The CD version is worlds above the cart for the plentitude of options and the awesome soundtrack provided, as well as having Ranmaru and Nobunaga unlocked at the selection screen.

 

The really annoying thing for me is that there is so much in NM that I like, but the game... falls short. I've had some pretty tense matches, but on the whole it lacks the 'experience' that many better games provide. It's not as enthralling, you can see easily behind the curtain, the bad parts stick out. There are simply better games to play. And yet... I'm not alone in feeling a certain fondness for the game. The atmosphere of the game is well laid out, the characters are interesting, the weapon-drawing is a cool gimmick, etc etc. I'm left wanting all the same ingredients re-blended and re-used in a better game.

 

I guess I know it won't happen, but hell, SNKP owns the IP. We've got tons of samurai in the SNK universe, it would be cool if they could integrate some of these characters into other series, or make a crossover (part of why I keep harping on the subject) with SS and LB. It wouldn't be all that hard, either - the characters each have about the same amount of specials as all other SNK characters, and having them use their infinite extra-specials with a full super-stock would set them apart from other characters, not to mention drawing/sheathing/throwing their weapons (I'm not a believer in the theory that every character in a game *must* use the same guages, combo systems, etc...)

 

Good backgrounds, good music, good character design, fun mechanics, some crappy sprites (Karasu!), but overall a 'bleh' game. Not something you can play for 12+ hours like Soul Calibur. I kinda look at NM as a portfolio of content ready to be re-used...

[[S4]The Phantom]

Well put.

 

I feel that it is really innovative game, because the sheathing of weapons actually can be used to combo or reduce delay on some moves to make a really techinical play possible.

 

A lot of Samurai Shodown players who know SNK games give Ninja masters a lot of respect.

 

However, the sprites and movement speed, the feeling of "weight" were not presented to the quality they could have done.

 

I believe Swithin has gotten to all of my points as well, and I personally love their concept... just they failed to unleash in to the gamers.

 

However, a new viewpoint by one of my SS colleague named Widol (pretty famous among SS players in Korea, and also very good at Kof/GG/SF etc) is that it was more of a "scout" game for the market.

 

They implamented the new system of sheathing, different attacks with/without weapon, and so on... They were implanted into this game to see how the market responds to the new features.

 

Not many realize this but many features in SS4 and some other fighting games have futures that were experimented in Ninja masters, and Widol names it "The bridge between old-style fighters to the new-style fighters".

 

I give Ninja masters a good point for its historical significance in system, but as a retail title itself, its a bit weak.

[L.S.D]

Whoa, I tot we are playing a game?!? Should we get so technical and sound like a geek? j/k

I play games, just to play games and Ninja Master just didn't really raise my interests. And this is spoken by someone who has wasted

tonnes of coins on Karnov's Revenge, Waku Waku, Gowcaiser, MS,KOF, SS and so on.

[Swithin]

*snip*

And this is spoken by someone who has wasted

tonnes of coins on Karnov's Revenge, Waku Waku, Gowcaiser, MS,KOF, SS and so on.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Whoa there L.S.D., your start-up made it sound as if you were talking about blowing money on bad games. By the end you get to KoF and SS, so generally the quality improves as you go down the sentence, but still... Waku Waku 7 *before* Gowcaizer? Waku Waku 7 rocks! It's in the elite 'magical' group of Neo-games that make the system so damn special. Also, since we're speaking of innovations, it's super-stock system was pretty clever, and hasn't ever been repeated as far as I know.

 

Anyway, sometimes analysing a game is as much fun as playing (sometimes it's more fun, if the game sucks in new and interesting ways, for instance.) Are you saying you'd go see a movie with friends, and if they got out of the theatre and started making theories, etc..., you wouldn't consider that fun?

 

Phantom, sounds like we pretty much agree on NM. I hadn't really thought about it's relevence toward the later SS series. NM was released in May of '95, and SS3 in November, so they might have very directly used what they'd learned from NM in making SS3. Still, NM had much less "floaty, flash-animation jumps" than SS3+. Too bad that change wasn't made in SS. I actually could see NM being a practice-run for SNK's background-artists, though, in preparation for Last Blade.

[L.S.D]

*snip*

And this is spoken by someone who has wasted

tonnes of coins on Karnov's Revenge, Waku Waku, Gowcaiser, MS,KOF, SS and so on.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Whoa there L.S.D., your start-up made it sound as if you were talking about blowing money on bad games. By the end you get to KoF and SS, so generally the quality improves as you go down the sentence, but still... Waku Waku 7 *before* Gowcaizer? Waku Waku 7 rocks! It's in the elite 'magical' group of Neo-games that make the system so damn special. Also, since we're speaking of innovations, it's super-stock system was pretty clever, and hasn't ever been repeated as far as I know.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oh, sorry, the game that I list out is games I like to play. Even if some of the games' graphic leave a lot to be desired (Gowcaiser anyone?) But I really like to go to arcade and blow my money there but I just dun like to play NM. Beat me there.

And yes, Waku Waku7 rocks! I like the game so much that it took me one year to find a good rom of this game (can't find it anywhere in the local arcades now). It is a riot to see the mid-boss and the final boss!

[Swithin]

Oh, Ok. Whoops. I'm not the biggest Karnov's Revenge or Gowcaiser fan, but I can see how it's fun just to play around. Sorry for assuming.

[L.S.D]

Gowcaiser is a must-play for anyone who lives in the 80s and grew up with Japanese superheroes TV series

[Agozer]

Gowcaiser is a must-play for anyone who lives in the 80s and grew up with Japanese superheroes TV series

Aye. Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer is great, albeit hard. Plus, the acuired abilities make it stand out from the rest of the games.