Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom

This article is about the NES sequel. For the 2012 game, see Ninja Gaiden 3.

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom North American box art (NES version)
Developer(s)	Tecmo
Publisher(s)	Tecmo
Designer(s)	Masato Kato
Composer(s)	Hiroshi Miyazaki Kaori Nakabai Rika Shigeno
Series	Ninja Gaiden
Platforms	NES, Atari Lynx, Tiger Handheld, Super NES, Virtual Console
Release date(s)	June 21, 1991 NES Atari Lynx Virtual Console (Wii) Virtual Console (3DS)
Genre(s)	Action platform game
Mode(s)	Single-player

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom, known in Japan as Ninja Ryūkenden III: Yomi no Hakobune (忍者龍剣伝III 黄泉の方船, lit. "Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword III: The Ark from Hades") is a side-scrolling platforming video game developed and published by Tecmo. It was released in Japan on June 26, 1991 (1991-06-26) for the Famicom and in North America in August 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The NES version was not released in Europe. It was later ported to the Atari Lynx by Atari and released in 1993 in North America and Europe, the European version retaining the North American Ninja Gaiden III title. It was also re-released as part of its Ninja Gaiden Trilogy Super NES compilation in 1995 in Japan and North America. Long after, it was released for the Virtual Console service in North America on February 18, 2008 (2008-02-18) for the Wii and in North America and Europe on November 28, 2013 (2013-11-28) and January 23, 2014 (2014-01-23) respectively for the Nintendo 3DS. It was designed by Masato Kato, who took over for Hideo Yoshizawa—designer of the first two games in the NES series.

The game is the third installment of the Ninja Gaiden trilogy, in which the events take place between the first two games in the series, Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos. The player controls Ryu Hayabusa as he is framed for the murder of Irene Lew and investigates the circumstances behind her death. He eventually discovers a plan by CIA agent Foster and another person named Clancy to utilize an interdimensional rift to create and control a race of energy-infused superhuman mutants. The game features similar gameplay from its previous two Ninja Gaiden titles and includes some new features such as the ability to hang overhead from pipes and sword power-ups.

As with the previous titles, Ninja Gaiden III received mostly positive reviews from critics. Early reviews praised the game for its plot, gameplay, and difficulty; later reviews criticized it for that plot being overly outlandish, inconsistent level designs, and the game's difficulty level, in which the North American version was intentionally made harder than the Japanese version through limited continues, stronger enemies, and omission of a password system. The Atari Lynx port, while receiving general praise for graphics and controls, received poor reception for its sound and for the inability for players to see characters and items, attributing it to the Lynx's small screen.

Plot

File:Ninja Gaiden 3 NES ScreenShot1.jpg

One of Ninja Gaiden III's features included the ability for Ryu Hayabusa to hang overhead from pipes, as shown above.

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom takes place between the events of the original Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos. The story opens with Irene Lew, one of the protagonists in the first two Ninja Gaiden titles, an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency on a mission called "Cardinal". She gets chased to the edge of a cliff by a man who looks like Ryu Hayabusa, when the edge gives way, and Irene falls in the water to her apparent death. Ryu is accused of Irene's murder but says it was not him, that it was somebody else who looked like him who tried to frame him. He first investigates a laboratory that Irene was investigating. After going through the laboratory, a mysterious man appears and tells Ryu to go the Castle Rock fortress, where he will give Ryu more information about Irene when he gets there.

On his way to the outer limits of Castle Rock fortress, Ryu encounters Foster, who was the head of the CIA's Special Auxiliary Unit in the first Ninja Gaiden game, via a video image. After saying that nobody has ever made it through the fortress' defenses alive, Ryu inquires about Irene, to which Foster replies: "I don't know what you're talking about." Ryu vows to push on, Upon reaching the foundation of Castle Rock fortress, Ryu encounters his "original", or a person designed to look like Ryu, and finds out that it was he who killed Irene. They both thrust themselves at each other, and afterwards look-alike tells Ryu that he has gained all of his powers. The look-alike flees, saying that Foster ordered him not to eliminate Ryu quite yet.

When Ryu reaches Castle Rock fortress, he encounters the stranger whom he met after his trip to the laboratory, who reveals his name as Clancy. He tells Ryu about a project he and Foster have been working on called the "Biohazard plan". Clancy says that he can no longer work with Foster. He said Foster was designing creatures called "bio-noids" – transformed superhumans that are infused with "life energy" that flows from an interdimensional rift that appeared after the demon from the first Ninja Gaiden game was defeated. He explained that this rift appeared at the site of the Castle Rock ruins, in which Foster rebuilt in order to harness this power. Clancy reveals that it was a bio-noid that killed Irene, and that Foster controls the bio-noids; he pleas to Ryu to stop Foster. After making his way into the fortress, he encounters Foster and the look-alike. Foster vows to eliminate Ryu and use the life energy from the rift and Ryu's secrets of the Dragon Clan to make him into an all-powerful bio-noid. Just as Foster and the look-alike advance on Ryu, Irene appears, to the amazement of both Ryu and Foster, and is armed with a machine gun; she was working with the army with regards to Foster's plan. The look-alike then transmutes into a bio-noid, which Ryu defeats.

After the defeat of the look-alike bio-noid, the door to the interdimensional rift throws wide open, and Clancy appears, telling Ryu, Irene, and Foster that they were all used as pawns in his plan to take over the ruins and claim all the life energy as his. Foster tries to follow Clancy through the door, but the energy tears him apart and is destroyed. Ryu instructs Irene to stay behind while he goes through the rift into the subspace, as he knows that he will be protected from the power that is inside. Ryu encounters the look-alike bio-noid again while inside the subspace, who was resurrected and transmuted into a super creature. After he defeats the look-alike, Ryu is instantly teleported into a room, where he meets Clancy once again. He tells Ryu that he has already claimed the life energy as his and explains the truth behind Castle Rock – that the ruins are a dimensional warship called the "Ancient Ship of Doom". He says that "these super-dimensional ruins are the foundation upon which a new world will be created", and that it will now be where all new life will originate from. The ship reappears in the real world, and Clancy then fires a test shot from the ship into the distance to demonstrate its power, which Irene watches in horror. He then drops Ryu through a trap door to the outside of the ship.

Ryu fights back to the inner chambers of the Ancient Ship of Doom, where he prepares to engage in the final showdown against Clancy, who has now transmuted into a super bio-noid. Clancy offers Ryu to have him and Irene work for him by his side wipe out the human race and usher a new age, but Ryu refuses and commences with the final battle. After transforming twice into progressively-stronger versions of himself, Clancy is defeated by Ryu, and Ryu is transported outside the warship and back to Irene; they both watch as the Ancient Ship of Doom is brought down and explodes, and they witness the crumbling of Castle Rock fortress. In the aftermath, Ryu tells Irene that Clancy's and Foster's plan have been foiled, and that mankind will live on and refuse to be part of anyone's evil plans; he adds that mankind would never stoop to a level in which they would completely destroy themselves out of mere ambition. The two watch as the sun rises and as a new day begins.

Gameplay

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom is a side-scrolling platform game in which the player controls the player character Ryu Hayabusa as he investigates the events behind Irene Lew's death. In the game, Ryu can jump, hang, and climb up and down walls with the control pad; pressing the jump button while holding the control pad the direction away from the wall causes Ryu to spring off the wall. Ryu is also able to attack enemies with secondary weapons while on a wall by pressing the attack button. A new feature introduced in Ninja Gaiden III is the ability for Ryu to hang overhead from pipes or ivy; he can swing up on top or drop from them, and as with walls, he can only attack enemies while hanging with secondary weapons.

As with the previous Ninja Gaiden games, Ryu's physical strength is represented by a life meter on the top of the screen; it decreases when Ryu gets his enemies or other dangerous objects. Throughout the levels, the player can find "Recovery Medicine" bottles that partially replenish Ryu's physical strength; as with all other items in the game, they are located in crystal balls that Ryu must slash to open. The player loses a "life" when Ryu's life meter runs out, he falls into a pit, or if the timer runs out. The game ends when players lose all their lives, but they can continue and resume play at the beginning of the Act in which they have lost all their lives. However, in Ninja Gaiden III, players only get five continues total before being required to restart the game from the beginning.

Ryu can defeat enemies by attacking with his Dragon Sword or by using secondary weapons which consume Ryu's "ninja power"; such weapons include the following: "Windmill Throwing Stars" which move back and forth like boomerangs, "Fire Dragon Balls" which launch fireballs downward at an angle, the "Fire Wheel Art" which launches fireballs upward at an angle, the "Invincible Fire Wheel" that forms a series of rotating of fireballs around Ryu and destroys any enemy who comes into contact, and a new weapon in this series called the "Vacuum Wave Art" which hurls vacuum blades above and below Ryu simultaneously. Players can collect red and blue capsules to refill Ryu's ninja power, and they can also collect "Scrolls of the spirit of the Dragon" to increase Ryu's maximum ninja power level. Another new item in Ninja Gaiden III is the "Dragon Spirit Sword" that increases Ryu range of his sword. At the end of each Act is a boss which has its own life meter that decreases when damaged; Ryu can defeat the boss by completely depleting its life meter. Ninja Gaiden III's first four bosses consist of the "bio-noids" – super-human creatures created and controlled by Foster to take over the world; they each represent the four elementals: earth, wind, fire, and water.

Tiger Handheld version

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom was ported by Tiger Electronics as an LCD handheld game. This port features five levels in which Ryu must reach the end of each level by defeating various robots with his Dragon Sword and a "ninja weapon ball". At the end of each level, Ryu fights a boss; the first four levels' bosses are the same bio-noids from the NES version, while the fifth level's final enemy is the "Giant Boss", which must be defeated to beat the game. Gameplay is similar to the NES version, in that Ryu and the bosses have life meters and that they feature similar items. Features included built-in sound which could be muted, battery backup high score, and an automatic switch-off feature in which the device shuts off after three minutes of inactivity.

Development

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom was developed and released by Tecmo, who also did the previous two games in the series, Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos. It was released in Japan on June 26, 1991 (1991-06-26) for the Famicom under the title Ninja Ryūkenden III: Yomi no Hakobune; it was released in North America for the NES in August 1991. It was ported to the Atari Lynx in 1993 by Atari, and then Tecmo re-released the game as part of its Ninja Gaiden Trilogy Super NES compilation in 1995. It was released for the Wii's Virtual Console service in North America on February 18, 2008 (2008-02-18).

Ninja Gaiden III was designed by Masato Kato, who took over Hideo Yoshizawa's main role in the game's development from the previous two titles. In an interview with Kato, he said that Ninja Gaiden III needed "to go into a new direction". The game was given more of a science-fiction motif as opposed to the Cthulhu Mythos motif in the previous two titles; the enemies changed to look more robotic than in the previous games. The original intent from the developers was to make the game easier than the previous titles, "to create a game a normal player can enjoy". However, the perceived popularity of difficult video games in North America caused Tecmo to release the game for the NES with a much higher difficulty level than the Japanese version. They also decided to place the events of Ninja Gaiden III between the events of the first two titles in order to maintain continuity; they figured that it was too difficult to continue the story after Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos, so they developed the plot sometime before the events of Ninja Gaiden II that revolved around the game's main antagonist, Foster.

Reception

Reception
Review scores Publication Score Atari Lynx NES AllGame EGM 8/6/6/6 GamePro 3.5/4.0/5.0/4.5 5/4/5/5/5 IGN 8.0 Nintendo Power 4.1/4.3/4.1/3.9
Award Publication Award Nintendo Power "Best Challenge" (NES), 1991

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom received preview coverage in video gaming magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly, where it was displayed at the Consumer Software Group trade show in Tokyo on March 24–25, 1991. They said that Ninja Gaiden III was the best Famicom game in display there, that it "easily walked away with the best for this system!" The game was also previewed in the July 1991 issue of Nintendo Power. They said that the game contained all the old features of previous Ninja Gaiden games which included ninja arts (but they lamented at the lack of the "jump and slash", absent from Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos) and similar usage of cinematic cutscenes that made the original Ninja Gaiden game popular. They also particularly praised the new moves Ryu had as well as an excellent plot. GamePro magazine previewed the game in August 1991. They said that the game's visuals were good and on par with the previous titles and that the scrolling was great.

The game was featured in Electronic Gaming Monthly's July 1991 issue as an "EGM Exclusive". They praised the game, saying "Ninja Gaiden gets better every time!" It was also one of the featured games in the August 1991 issue of Nintendo Power, where it received 11 pages of coverage, which included a full walkthrough of the first four Acts plus a brief plot overview of the entire game. It was in this issue where Ninja Gaiden III was purported to be the final Ninja Gaiden game by Tecmo. As in their preview, they gave praise to the action, gameplay, elaborate plot, and difficulty. GamePro reviewed the game in its September 1991 issue. The magazine gave the game top ratings in all categories except sound. They noted the difficulty level as being dictated by the enemies' strategic placements in the various environments; they added that while Act 1 is easy, the remainder of the game is very difficult. The review praised the usage and usefulness of the secondary weapons, Ryu's new ability to hang overhead, and the new addition of the sword power-up, which it said bore resemblance to the game Strider. They slightly criticized the game for leaving out the "cloning" power-up from Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos as well as the limited continues and lack of passwords. In March 1992, Ninja Gaiden III received three nominations in the "Nintendo Power Awards '91" in the following NES-related categories: "Best Graphics and Sound", "Best Challenge", and "Best Overall". It won in the "Best Challenge" category; the magazine commented that "the game-playing public knows a challenging game when they see one!" It placed second in the "Best Graphics and Sound" category, finishing behind Battletoads for the top spot. It was the ranked as the third "Best Overall" NES title for 1991, finishing close behind Tecmo Super Bowl.

The Atari Lynx version of Ninja Gaiden III also received coverage in various magazines in 1994. In GamePro magazine, they criticized the fact that the Lynx's small screen makes it difficult for players to see the various power-ups and enemies and to use secondary weapons. However, they praised the good controls, and they said the sound was fine though "weird and spacy". VideoGames & Computer Entertainment praised the game for being better than the arcade version that was previously ported to the Lynx, but they were disappointed that Tecmo did not port the first two NES Ninja Gaiden titles to the handheld, as well. Electronic Gaming Monthly praised Tecmo for a good translation of the game from the NES to the Lynx – complete with good graphics, controls, and varied gameplay – while saying that "Ninja Gaiden [III] is a game that the Atari Lynx has been longing for". Despite that, the reviewers noted that the Lynx's small screen made all the sprites too small for most players to see well, and the screen's blurring makes it frustrating for players to track character movements. In a retrospective review, Allgame gave a mostly negative review, saying that the background makes it difficult to see foreground elements, that players cannot see their character or what power-ups they are collecting, and that sound is very poor, saying "thirteen banshees all wailing different, off-key songs would only begin to approach just how bad the music is".

A few modern video gaming websites reviewed Ninja Gaiden III upon its release to the Virtual Console in 2008. Nintendo Life's Damien McFerran gave lackluster ratings, saying that the game "passed under the radar of many a videogame enthusiast". He added that while the presentation was great, he pointed out flaws in the "silly" plot, the inconsistently laid-out level designs, and frustrating difficulty in addition to the five-continue limit. He said that many gamers would prefer the previous two Ninja Gaiden titles over this one. IGN's Lucas Thomas appreciated the improvement in Ryu's ability to scale and climb on top of walls, his ability to hang overhead, good storyline, and the new items such as the Dragon Sword power-up and the Vacuum Wave. His chief criticism was the game's difficulty, saying that it's not the "rewarding kind of difficult" but instead "the cheap, annoying kind of difficult that makes you want to throw your controller at the TV screen and just go read a book". As with the Nintendo Life review, Thomas similarly criticized the inconsistent level design as well as a storyline which becomes progressively more bizarre, including "weird science-fiction themes about bionics and clones".

In a retrospective of the Ninja Gaiden series, Eurogamer said that Ninja Gaiden III was the only game in the NES trilogy not to make it to Europe. They made similar criticisms about the difficulty level, saying that the North American version was made more difficult than the Japanese version by utilizing limited continues, making the enemies much more powerful, and removing the password system present in the Japanese version. They said the story was too outlandish, calling the plot, of which a short-lived anime Ninja Gaiden series would loosely be based, "a glorious load of old bollocks". While the version from Ninja Gaiden Trilogy for the Super NES remedied most of their criticisms, they said that the game added new frustrations which included slower framerates, lower-quality controls, and the omission and shuffling around of several tracks, which they said "is precisely the sort of thing that makes die-hard videogame fans apoplectic with rage".

External links

• Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom at MobyGames