Tecmo and Ninja Gaiden

[NeoZeedeater]

"Our Legacy - 100% Games Since 1967"... is what it says on Tecmo's website. Now there's almost zero chance they have making video games that long but they have been in the industry for quite a while.

Part 1: Tecmo History 1982-1988

The oldest Tehkan(Tecmo's original name) game I know of is their 1982 arcade game Swimmer, a game where you swim upstream and avoid obstacles.


Senjyo was a tank shooter released in 1983. The graphics in this game are amazing with lots of detail and multiple parallax layers. The game itself is pretty good but doesn't break any new ground; it's your standard move crosshair and shoot game.


Another 1983 arcade game was Guzzler, some kind of maze-chase game.


In 1984, the first game in the Bomb Jack series was released in arcades. This platformer was ported to the NES and had a couple sequels. Sega ported it to SG-1000. Elite ported it and its sequel Mighty Bomb Jack to various computers.



The vertical arcade shooter Star Force also came out in '84. It was ported to the NES as well.


Lovely Poker and Pontoon were arcade card video games released in 1985.

The mid-'80s marked some changes at Tehkan. They began releasing sports games like Tehkan World Cup and Gridiron Fight, a genre that would become an important part of their business. They also officially changed their name to Tecmo.

Solomon's Key was an action/puzzle game for arcade and NES.

Salio ported it to the Mark III and U.S. Gold/Probe ported it to home computers.


Tecmo's most successful(and best) 1986 arcade game was Rygar, a side-scrolling action game about a man and his mega battle yo-yo.


The 1987 NES version of Rygar was also a big hit although it wasn't a direct port; it had adventure elements thrown in.


I prefer it to the arcade game. The arcade version was ported years later by Atari to the Lynx. There's also an awful Mark III version of Rygar by Salio.

Also from 1987 was the first game in the acclaimed Tecmo Bowl series. I don't think the arcade games were huge successes but the NES games were.



Gemini Wing looks kind of cool. I haven't played it. It was ported to several computers by The Sales Curve/Virgin Mastertronic.


Silk Worm, an arcade shooter from 1988, worked great as a two-player game since one player could control the helicopter in the air while the other could control the jeep on the ground.

Silkworm was also ported by The Sales Curve to various computers and by Sammy to NES.

Amiga screen


I'm not sure if there's an arcade version but Tecmo Baseball was made for the NES in 1988.


Part 2: Ninja Gaiden History

Thanks mostly to the popularity of Technos' Double Dragon, the beat 'em up genre was thriving in late '80s arcades. Tecmo's first addition to this genre was Ninja Gaiden in 1988. I don't think it's a classic but it was a good game at the time, i.e. before Capcom made all their awesome CPS1 beat 'em ups.


This game was ported by Atari to the Lynx and by Capcom to PC. The Lynx version was very well done.

Lynx screen


PC info and screen
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=1602

Tecmo decided against porting it home and instead created an original game for the NES. NES Ninja Gaiden turned out to be one of the best games of 1989 with its fast-paced platform action and 'Tecmo Theater' cinemas. Even though the NES was showing its age at the end of the '80s, these cinemas were still a sight to behold. Such detail.


Hudson remade it for the PC Engine in 1992.
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/tg16/02/ninjagj.html

Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos for the NES was similar to the first game although the difficulty wasn't quite as high.

Gametek ported Ninja Gaiden II to PC.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/covers...7/gameId,2466/

Tiger made sure to capitalize on the franchise like they did with so many popular games.



Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom was released for the NES in 1991. Although it maintains the quality of the previous games, I was a little burnt out on Ninja Gaiden when it came out; it was a little too similar to its predecessors and had no major improvements.


Atari ported Ninja Gaiden III to the Lynx. I hear it isn't as good as the NES version.


Originally under development by Natsume as a Shadow of the Ninja game before being bought by Tecmo, Ninja Gaiden Shadow was a great action game for the Game Boy in 1991.
http://www.classicgaming.com/ninjagaiden/ngshadow.html

Not content with just having their own ninja series with Shinobi, Sega licensed Ninja Gaiden from Tecmo and made three different games.

The first was Ninja Gaiden for the Game Gear in 1991. This game resembled Capcom's Strider more than it did Ninja Gaiden. It wasn't bad but you're better off playing Ninja Gaiden Shadow or the GG Shinobi series for a portable ninja platformer fix.


In 1992, Sega released Ninja Gaiden for the European Master System. This game was definitely based on the NES games and had similar gameplay but the overall quality just wasn't quite there. The level design, characters and story paled compared to Tecmo's games. They did get the control right though.


Sega also made a Ninja Gaiden beat 'em up for the Mega Drive. There was debate a long time ago at TNL on whether or not this game was actually released. I don't know for sure but it does exist in rom form. Considering how generic it is, we didn't miss much.


Unfortunately, Tecmo didn't make any new Ninja Gaiden games in the 16-bit or 32-bit era. All they released was Ninja Gaiden Trilogy in 1995, a compilation of the three 8-bit games on one SNES cartridge. The graphics were upgraded a bit and a password system was added.


Let's hope the new Xbox Ninja Gaiden game turns out okay.

What are your thoughts on Tecmo and Ninja Gaiden?

[Gutsman]

Gemini Wings + Silkworm > Ninja Gaiden

Just IMHO....

[Mamoscott]

Originally posted by Gutsman
Gemini Wings + Silkworm > Ninja Gaiden

Just IMHO....

Tecmo Bowl > *

Just IMHO... :kirby:

Good writeup though.

[Wilykat]

I'd be interested to see any screenshots of that PC Ninja Gaiden II if any exist.

Great thread.

[NeoZeedeater]

The site that I linked to with the info of the PC port of the arcade game also has info on the PC port of NG2. I didn't directly link to it because it might be considered a piracy link.

[Wilykat]

Originally posted by NeoZeedeater
The site that I linked to with the info of the PC port of the arcade game also has info on the PC port of NG2. I didn't directly link to it because it might be considered a piracy link.

Oh, I only noticed the second link that only had the cover art. Thanks!

[Agent X]

It was rather interesting what Atari did with the Lynx version of Ninja Gaiden III. I've never played the NES version, but from what I've heard this is almost a direct port.

As you can see, a lot of detail was lost in the graphics, because all the characters and objects are the same size relative to the screen, and the Lynx's screen resolution was roughly 1/4 of the NES and most other contemporary systems. This method is acceptable for games like RoadBlasters and Paperboy, where most objects are large and distinct, but doesn't work so well on a game where many of the sprites are so small.

The alternative would've been to transfer the sprites pixel-for pixel, and make the viewable area of the playfield smaller. See Xybots and Double Dragon on the Lynx for examples of this (Xybots being the more successful effort, thanks to some clever interface redesign).

I do think they made the right decision in this case, since the game would probably suffer if they had to cut off a sizeable chunk of the viewable playfield. Either that, or they would have to redesign the levels altogether. The decision was obviously done with gameplay in mind, and game does play very well, but the game doesn't use any special abilities of the Lynx. The Lynx has more onscreen colors and a vastly larger palette than the NES; it would've been better if they could have touched up the artwork a bit by using some extra colors to make up for the reduction in screen resolution, or improved the music. It's also surprising that they didn't attempt this, since this game came out so late in the Lynx's commercial life (it was one of the last 5 games Atari released for the system), and Atari wasn't shy about taking a few liberties when doing conversions (liberties which usually worked out for the better).

Despite the weak (by Lynx standards) in-game graphics and audio, the gameplay is still solid, so I would still recommend it to Lynx owners looking for this style of game.

I figured I'd discuss this because even today, when developers work on GBA conversions of games designed for a higher-resolution screen (such as the SNES), they have to make similar decisions. It's not always cut-and-dried; the individual game dictates whether it would be best to reduce the sprites and keep an accurate representation of the playfield, or do pixel-for-pixel graphic translations and rework the playfield, or even perhaps do a little bit of both.

[Johnny Undaunted]

I always got the impression that the Arcade Ninja Gaiden and the NES game were really meant to be to be two different games, considering the Arcade game didn't come out until the NES/Famicom version was released in Japan and vice-versa here. The first two NES Ninja Gaiden games ruled, but III kinda sucked (inicidentally, it was done by a different director from the first two titles), but Irene was in her hottest there.

[NeoZeedeater]

It is odd that both North America and Europe got the Ninja Gaiden arcade game before Japan.

[kabuki]

Another great thread! Neo, you really should do you own monthly fanzine dedicated to topics like this.

Agent X, a great post by you as well. Interesting topic