Beat in slow motion mode. I first tried playing it normally and lost all my lives within a few minutes. Then I slowed it down, save state every few seconds and actually learned how to play. This game was a bit more like Ninja Gaiden than a beat em up, with the constant influx of low hp enemies and the lack of plane to move around. Instead there was only 2 layers to jump between. The enemies were relentless and I found I took most damage from not being able to move and turn around fast enough to deal with the weakest ninjas coming from all directions. Damn contact damage. They died in 1 hit while the stronger ninjas took 2. Holding turbo attack was effective but I mostly used the normal button and properly timed my attacks. Crouching and attacking did a kick which I think had slightly better reach than the standing punch. Some enemies could only be hit high or low, and some changed which they were vulnerable to by crouching or jumping. The other button did a jump so useless that it was not worth using. Holding up and jumping did a high jump that I used for the little bit of pit jumping, jumping over shurikens thrown by white ninjas, and occasionally jumping over enemies entirely. Sometimes the best play was to avoid enemies rather than fight. There was also a back kick which I did not figure out how to perform reliably, and a spin kick from pressing both buttons at the same time and that was not useful. After beating the game I read there was a charge up punch by holding attack. I did the 1st stage again on normal speed to try it out. It killed 2 hit ninjas in 1 hit, seemed to have a bit more reach and maybe area effect and could be held while moving around so might as well use it, but it did not obsolete the basic attack. I did not test it with weapons though, which also 1 hit killed every ninja. It seemed like the knife was slower than unarmed while nunchucks were better. There were some rare enemies, like dogs, fire ninjas, and big guys, that only showed up a few times and were definitely under utilized. The bosses almost always killed me until I figured out the pattern. The Kisurigama guy and staff guy were too unpredictable for me to figure out though, so I took a few hits during the boss gauntlet at the end. The final boss was laughably easy, like he didn't even try to fight.

This game was not much fun due to the sluggish controls and cheap enemies. It did have some interesting stage design and effects. Not a bad game but not good either.

6.0/10