Review #680: The Ninja Saviors - Return of the Warriors

 At least the title makes sense this time around.

 Picture a young me. A very young young me. There I was, going through a newly found fountain of games via SNES emulation, and thus, I came across this thing called ' The Ninja Warriors Once again'. It was weird, man, a single-plane beat'em up in which you played as cyborg ninjas, well, only the red kunoichi looked anything like a Ninja. But it was loads of fun, yo! And now, Tengo Project decided to remaster the game for modern consoles. And it's glorious. The Ninja Saviors - Return of the Warriors is a brilliant remake that's ought to be played by anyone that loves retro games.

 As previously stated, this is a single-plane beat'em up game, which can get a while getting used to, as well as to how slow your basic movement speed is. It's not like most beat'em ups, that's for sure. In the original game you could play as three different Ninja robots, the blue Ninja, the Red Kunoichi or the grey scythes-for-arms thing. This remaster adds two new characters, the petite, large-breasted Yaksha and the massive metal mountain, that can change into a gun-on-legs mode, Raiden. Using these two new characters is a bit of a bummer since you need to clear the game twice, but they are completely different from the other three, so they are quite worth it. As a matter of fact, all five characters are incredibly different from each other, and each one has their own learning curve and strategies. Like, I got the hang of the blue guy pretty easily, and I can clear the game just fine with him, while I still struggle with the other four. Thankfully we get infinite continues, limited only by a checkpoint system, and you can change characters on death.

 The game is tough but fair. Well, for the most part. 90% of the game is a blast, but the final boss is incredibly cheap since he can't be harmed directly, but rather, you have to throw enemies against it. I died a couple of times with my blue guy until I learned that I could angle his up-throws by using diagonal-up-left and diagonal-up-right on the digital pad. And that brings me to another issue, while you only have a single attack button, character movesets are very large.. but there's no in-game moveset list. I swear, every time I picked up the game I learned a new move with my blue by. Or take Yaksha, if you jump and kick she'll perform a flying kick, but if you try to experiment you'll learn that if you press Down+Attack after landing the flying kick, she'll follow up with another kick. But only if you press down+kick. And I learned this by chance, since nowhere in the game can you find this stuff out, which is very disappointing considering how much potential each character has! Heck, I'm still not sure exactly how I'm making Raiden turn around or turn into his robot mode.

 But really, despite only having two buttons(Three if you count the super move) each character has a ton of tools to their disposal. For instance, let's talk about my boy, the blue ninja. The attack button performs a simple punch-into-nunchaku combo BUT if you have energy on your energy gauge, you can press up+attack before he takes out his nunchaku to deliver a powerful shockwave attack. You can also tap down+attack before the nunchaku comes out to perform a kick. Attacking while crouched performs a pretty different attack string that ends with a kick. Holding up on the direcional pad will let you use energy-consuming moves, this is true for every character, in the case of Ninja, he can use powerful nunchaku attacks until his gauge runs out. Down+Jump will make Ninja perform a downward elbow attack, but you can also tap Jump to dash forward, if you don't press anything, Ninja will attack with his elbow when he comes into contact with an enemy, or you can press Attack to deliver a kick. Dashing is a great way to close-in and grab the enemy. Up+Jump makes ninja hover, coupling this with Attack+any direction will make Ninja spin-attack in said direction. Then you've also got three different throws depending on where you hold when throwing a grabbed enemy. Lastly, when the energy gauge is full you can use a third button to perform a screen-covering super move. This is just a single character, but everyone else has a moveset comparable to his, and I'm not even mentioning how you can combo-into a few of his attacks. And there are probably moves that I haven't discovered yet. And this is exactly why the game NEEDS an in-game movelist.

 The game is incredibly fun because of just how much you can do. At times enemies can feel endless, but most of those can be offed in a single hit. Regardless, if you mean to beat the game you'll have to learn how to juggle fighting multiple enemies on a single lane at the same time. Honestly, it's a lot of fun. After finishing the game with my boy I immediately took out Yaksha for a spin, and had just as much fun discovering how she played, and I had to change my entire playstyle to fit hers! Kunoichi was pretty fun to use as well, while Kamaitachi didn't really gel with me, I'm usually not much of a fan of glass cannons. The game is 8 stages short, and they are pretty short, but the game is highly replayable.

 One area in which the developers deserve a ton of praise is on the sprites, as both new characters looked straight out of the original. In an era where 16-bit sprites are ignored in favor of 8-bit sprites or 3-D models, the new spritework is simply brilliant. A few of Yaksha's hook-attacks look a bit too fluid and modern, but I think it actually adds to her less-than-human movement. This game is a pleasure to look at, and it has been redesigned to look great in widescreen, with no screen-crunching or compromises, at least not as far as I could see. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't gonna play this game right now, but I took it out for a spin, since I wanted to try it out, but it hooked me until its end!

 Besides the main single-player mode, beating the game unlocks a Hard mode, which I'll admit I didn't try since I really don't care about bragging rights. There's a new mode, which was one of the things I was looking forwards the most with this remaster: Multiplayer. But it sucks! Both the energy gauge as well as the health bar is shared, which, you know, kinda sucks when the game is rather tough since playing with a less skilled player means that you have to be extra careful as not to get hit to make up for their mistakes, and it also means that both players will be fighting for the energy gauge. I'm glad the main game is so much fun, because it made the disappointment of the multiplayer mode not hurt as much. As much. While hardly a long game, being able to save midway through a run would've been a welcome addition, as it stands, once you decide to play the game you are in it for the long-haul.

 Well, The Ninja Saviors - Return of the Warriors succeeds with flying colors as a remaster. It's the same game it used to be but with more content. And I love that they put effort into adding more stuff to a SNES game. It helps that the gameplay is SO good. That said, one has to admit that it falls short in a few areas, like the new multiplayer mode or the lack of a movelist. The game great, so it's not too hard to look past that, but it feels like a bit of wasted potential to make the game even greater. Regardless, I hope we get more SNES remasters done this way. The right way.
 8.0 out of 10