A playthrough of American Sammy's 1990 action-platformer for the NES, Ninja Crusaders.

Ninja Crusaders was a game that seemed to fly under everyone's radar. The graphics were plain, it featured ninja, it carried the most generic name possible, and it came out the same month as TMNT 2: The Arcade Game did. No wonder it got ignored.

It's clear that Ninja Crusaders wasn't a top-shelf, big budget action bonanza, but it is far better than you'd expect for a game that carries such modest production values. It looks and sounds like a C-lister, but the gameplay punches far above its weight class.

The story is hilarious and absurd. Aliens have destroyed Earth's major cities and decimated the human population. Having survived the attacks, a band of ninja have formed a resistance cell that has managed to evade the aliens so far. The ninja decide to send forth their best, Red Ninja and Blue Ninja, to infiltrate the alien headquarters and take back the Earth.

So we're essentially looking at a mix of The Terminator and Contra. Sweet!

But the real hook here is that these ninja can turn into animals like in Altered Beast. Or Manimal. But more like Manimal.

The game initially looks like any ordinary platformer in which you jump and slash at things with a weapon, but hold the B button down for a couple seconds, and lo! What sorcery hath God wrought?

The weapon you're holding decides which animal you'll become: with a shuriken, you become a tiger that can nearly leap the height of the screen. With the bo you can turn into an eagle that can't attack but soars straight over enemy hazards. With the chain sickle, you'll become a badass swimming scorpion that whips its tail as if a Belmont had shoved his hand up its... uhh, that is, used it like a puppet. And with the sword comes the best transformation of all - you turn into an invincible dragon that flies about blowing fire on everything and can wipe out a boss in a single hit. The catch is that the dragon only lasts for a short time, and once you've reverted to your ninja form, you lose the sword. (All of those consummate Vs could wreak havoc on one's system, I'd imagine.)

The stages are simple in their layouts and are designed to allow you to take advantage of your different animal forms, and the controls feel just about perfect. The platforming is fun because even the toughest of jumps are easy to make thanks to the intuitive physics, and the generous hitboxes and snappy attack animations keep the fighting simple. It's also a total blast to play in its 2P co-op mode.

I have to say that I got a real kick out of the fourth stage's boss being the robot from Batteries Not Included. I wonder if one of those ninja are actually Jessica Tandy. The mind boggles.

My only real complaint is that it's so short! There is a second loop, but all it does is double the enemies' health. It seems that a lot of people object to the game's difficulty level, but that's a common refrain when talking about games that feature one-hit deaths. This is no Ninja Gaiden in terms of difficulty. The game isn't stingy with extra lives - you get a 1-up every time you pick up the same weapon that you're already holding - and the enemy placement is exactly the same every time you play. The later levels can be a bit nuts when tons of baddies are frantically jumping around the screen, but after playing a few times, you'll have learned where you should be inching forward and how to go about clearing the tough spots without much problem. It's a game that you probably wouldn't beat the first time you played, but it's one that would've been fairly easy to master over the course of a weekend rental.

Overall, Ninja Crusaders fits nicely alongside the rest of American Sammy's NES library. It's a simple, unassuming, and well-made game, and if you aren't familiar with it, it's worth a bit of your time to check out.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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