Welcome back to the Ninja Gaiden Love/Hate series! In this entry, we’ll be looking at Ninja Gaiden Shadow, a prequel to the NES trilogy released for the Game Boy! I’m always super leery about Game Boy spin-offs of console games: the handheld was extremely under-powered, so the idea of playing an ultra-precise and difficult Ninja Gaiden game on one sounds like a nightmare. That said, how does Ninja Gaiden Shadow actually play in practice? Read on to find out…

Love

• New Platforming Tricks – You’d think that Ninja Gaiden Shadow would be content to just coast of the gimmick of being a handheld Ninja Gaiden game, but it actually has a couple fantastic additions to the 2D side-scrolling formula. First of all, you can now press down + jump to hang and/or drop from the platform you’re standing on, which is super useful and opens up new platforming options. The flashiest new addition though is the grappling hook, which has a surprisingly long range that allows you to reach platforms above you that are out of your reach. I love this thing, not only is it useful for the platforming, but it’s so cool being able to dodge an enemy attack by throwing the hook and climbing to safety in the nick of time!
• Reasonable Level of Difficulty – It’s no secret that I haven’t really enjoyed the extreme difficulty of these old-school Ninja Gaiden games, but I feel like Ninja Gaiden Shadow strikes a pretty reasonable level of challenge. For the most part, it’s not too bad, and there’s enough health pickups that mistakes don’t feel excessively punishing. The last couple bosses are tough, so it’s not like the game is excessively easy either!
• The Wrestler Boss – Most of the 2D Ninja Gaiden bosses have been pretty forgettable, but Ninja Gaiden Shadow has a boss who is, hands-down, the best boss in the series thus far. It’s a pretty simple fight against a wrestler, which plays out like any other boss in the series… except that this guy has a little minion who you cannot damage. This little bastard will flip around the arena and grab onto you, slowing your movement and making it so you can’t get away from the boss. The resulting fight is still not particularly difficult, but it’s hilarious trying to dodge this gremlin and shake him off before the main boss beats you down!

Mixed

• Strips Out Most of What Makes Ninja Gaiden Good – Ninja Gaiden Shadow has had to make some heavy compromises in order to function on Game Boy. The platforming is much less precise than on NES, you only get one ninja art that you can use, the narrative is practically non-existent, and the game’s performance is quite poor. That said… I can’t put this in “Hate”, because I got some enjoyment out of my time with Shadow, so there must be some fundamental strength here that they’ve retained which is keeping things fun.

Hate

• Boss Health Feels Excessive – While Ninja Gaiden Shadow is a pretty easy experience, it does have one particularly frustrating flaw. Due to the hardware limitations, there’s no display showing how much HP a boss has remaining. This would be fine, but I swear that the bosses feel like they take more hits to kill than they did on NES. This gets particularly annoying on the last couple bosses, who require precise maneuvers to avoid getting hit, and you won’t be able to do enough damage to them without dying if you do not perfect your jumps and dodge timing. This is particularly relevant for the goddamn genie boss, who flies around out of reach for 80% of the fight. You might only manage to get in one or two hits at a time before he becomes invulnerable again, making the entire fight an absolute slog.

Ninja Gaiden Shadow makes me question how much I can take hardware limitations into account when judging a game. Taking into account the Game Boy’s limitations, this is a pretty good game. However, by the standards of the Ninja Gaiden franchise, this is a pretty lackluster experience. And, judged entirely on its own merits, Shadow is an incredibly short and mediocre curiosity. It’s a bit of a weird situation overall. I got enough fun out of Shadow that I’d at least recommend checking it out if you’re into 2D side-scrolling action-platformers, but it’s far from a must-play experience.