The 8-Bit Wars - Shadow Warriors (Ninja Gaiden)

[TL]

Another great 8-bit wars, its Shadow Warriors (also known as Ninja Gaiden) on the Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64.

8bit wars - Shadow Warriors

[TL]

The Lynx version is the best but justice was done here, the Speccy version is excellent.

[TrekMD]

The Lynx version rocks! 

[108 Stars]

A good video, I really like that 8-bit-wars series. Especially since the guy seems pretty fair and unbiased.

Seeing the arcade version it is amazing how close the Lynx port comes. I always was a bit disturbed by the sault-like jumping that felt akward to me, but a great game in general.

Looking at these versions the Spectrum version looks great considering the typical system limitations. And as always, the C64 does scroll nicely, but the dirty color scheme gives me depressions. I mean, the C64 only had 16 colors so there was not much choice for devs anyway; but they are not even put together well here. enemies look like ghosts with their greyish outlines.

The CPC version on the other hand, also as usual, as wondeful vibrant colors and is the prettiest to look at; the lack of scrolling must be irritating when playing though. When you are fighting on the left and while doing so the screen flips and you are suddenly on the right...

[TL]

Yeah the guy who does these videos is great, really nice guy and he knows what he is talking about. Big fan of all his vids and thats why I am posting them here now for others to enjoy and comment on.

What I love about the classic 8-bit war is that all 3 of these machines were so different, they were all better than each other in different ways. There really was no winner when it all came down to it but its sure fun comparing them!

[onthinice]

The Nes had like three versions. Did they release more versions for any of these computers?

[TL]

The Nes had like three versions. Did they release more versions for any of these computers?

The home computers only got a conversion of the arcade game. The three NES games are all original games that play like platformers rather than beat 'em ups. Ninja Gaiden III: Lost Ship Of Doom was released on the Lynx though.

[onthinice]

Thanks Laird! Nice knowing the Lynx has a version of III.

[nakamura]

I really liked the NES version back in the day, even though I know it wasn't well recieved.

As for the micro versions, never played any of the but a great job on the Spectrum version.

[108 Stars]

I really liked the NES version back in the day, even though I know it wasn't well recieved.

I'm not sure how the NES Ninja Gaiden was received back in the day; the NES was of little importance in these parts, so I never cared. But I always thought it was well-received in the US, at least nowadays it is regarded as much more of a classic than the beat' em up we are talking about here.

I would have loved to see the entire trilogy on Lynx; part 3 is good, although the graphics suffer a lot (they kept the entire visibility from the NES on the Lynx screen, but at half the resolution the small sprites became just a mass of pixels).

[TL]

I believe it was recieved really well in the US but really poorly here, where the NES was not successful anyway. I think this is because we already had home conversions of the arcade game and, in the UK especially, we all wanted to see arcade games in the home.

[Rogue Trooper]

Speccy version looks impressive, though not personally keen on the black box around character, know reasons why it's there, but makes characters look like animated cardboard  cut outs.

Amstrad version plays to hardware potential, great use of colour and superb animation.

Knew the C64 version was going to be awful, a promising preview in Zzap64, led to a very dissapointing review.Blocky, washed out graphics, yes it scrolls and SID music superb, but i would'nt want to be playing this.

Playing Lynx version at the moment, just amazing.

[Rogue Trooper]

C+VG score for CPC version:86%

[SnakeEyes]

I thought the CPC version looked the most impressive ( plus that was the version I grew up with )