Ninja-Kid (1984)

Utterly stunning between-level images, those colors are absolutely amazing (plus all the Look is great); good Sound too especially with the beautiful start-of-level screen; decent gameplay tho I wish the jump mechanic wasn't so awful (come on this is an arcade game, you should have more variability in the jumps... pro-tip: you can't jump straight up, you press and hold the button while holding a direction in order to go to the next level. another pro-tip: the goal is just to kill all the enemies, not necessarily reach the top); and I mean, cmon, it's a platformer with the ability to fight back! I should love this! If the jump mechanic were better, this would be a top game, since the stun mechanic is great, the bump-into-enemies is cute, and the controls are technically tight like you could jump up to a platform and kill an enemy then immediately drop down and kill or stun one down there. But alas, as it is, with this awful jump mechanic, very passable. I wonder if any of the ports tweaked that. In usual platformer fashion, I pushed through--despite not really liking it much--to the end of the 3 unique screens