I love playing older arcade games that I may have missed before. It gives me a chance to see where gaming started and experience classics for the first time. I was very excited when The Ninja Warriors came to Nintendo Switch via Arcade Archives, as I wanted to play this for the first time. Sadly, the experience did not live up to the hype for me.
The Ninja Warriors has a stretched horizontal display due to having originally been displayed across three screens in the arcade, similar to how Darius was in the arcade, and I am glad the visual is preserved as best as could be. The music was also amazing and more than held up even today and some games from the modern era could stand to learn from this music. My issue however, was with the actual gameplay that I experienced.
The Ninja Warriors felt like a much slower paced and less agile version of Shinobi, and if I must admit, I am not a fan of the Shinobi games all that much either. The Ninja Warriors felt like a chore to play and I get that it was a quarter muncher in the arcades, but that experience has not held up for me. The game looks good, don’t get me wrong, but I was bored just a short time into my play session. Everything felt monotonous and just dragged on, leading me to wonder why this game is so well regarded. Was it because of the visual feast it was in the arcade? The amazing music? I cannot say for sure.
I also took the time to track down and play a copy of The Ninja Warriors Again on Super Nintendo and I feel that is a much better experience. The music may not be as good and it is visually just another SNES game, but it plays so well. There was a real depth to that brawler and I finally see why people are excited for the remake, as it is based on the SNES game ( and has some music from the arcade version). The characters felt diverse, the pace was handled much better, and there was a variety of ways to attack. In addition, because it was a reimagining of the arcade game rather than a port, the quarter muncher nature was gone, while still having a good challenge.
Playing both of these titles recently has made me maintain my view that some titles are only well remembered due to nostalgia and the flash rather than having any substance. It also made me see that the developers were aware of this themselves and knew when they had to make changes for the home console. The Ninja Warriors as an arcade game is just average to below average, but the SNES game is excellent and I am now anticipating the remake much more.