Ninjas! Anyone who lived through...well, the last 50 years, knows that the ninja has been a powerful pop culture fixture. Usually, they are the bad guys in old martial arts movies, then heroes in later ones, then just generic character tropes. We are going to explore what a historical ninja actually was, and then we're gonna talk about ninjas in video games. I probably can't fit them all in, but I will touch on as many as I can, so put on your black pajamas, grab your throwing stars, and let's go!
What is a ninja, historically speaking? Essentially, they were trained in the arts of ninjutsu, but not to be assassins, as is a popularly held notion. They were spies. Infiltrators. People to get dirt on your political enemies. Sure, some of them did kill people, but that was not their primary purpose. They were not typically called "ninja," but instead "shinobi," and even "nokizaru," which means "the monkey on the roof." They had all sorts of crazy contraptions to help them do ninja shit, from grappling hooks to chain whips, to weird shoes that resembled a bellows they'd use to walk over water. Ninjas had the gear. They have taken on a cultural impact, which is far from what they actually were. Brave fighters, sneaky assassins, masters of stealth and intrigue. They are painted like that all over pop culture, and we love it.
Video games with ninjas. That's the primary point here, so let's talk about a few. Ranked in no particular order.
Since we started with the language of the ninja, we shall analyze "Shinobi," which was a 1987 arcade game later ported to the Sega Genesis.
The basic concept is that you apparently are carrying around a giant burlap sack full of throwing stars, and you huck limitless amounts of them unto your enemies. Thought you were bad, ass-butt? Have a blade to the face from 30 paces, bitch. You can also punch and kick people if you close the distance…but me? I'm opting for just more metal stars. A classic game.
Ninja Gaiden
Yeah, that one, on the NES. If you're old enough to remember it, you will remember a lot of swearing and throwing the controller. Thankfully, Nintendo thought to make their controllers out of adamantium or some shit. Classic NES "let's make this hard, but not have too many levels" bullshit. Respawning enemies who did not relent, bitch-ass bosses, and not enough power-ups. Still a classic. I'd play it any day, but likely still end up throwing my controller just like I did 40 years ago. They have continued to make Ninja Gaiden games into the modern day, and gamers seem to regard the 2005 Ninja Gaiden Black as one of the best, with 3D hack-em-up action, and that wonderful element of having the player get angry at the game.
TMNT
Who could write about ninja games without writing about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? There are well over 50 TMNT games across various platforms, and the series continues to this day. I'm not exactly sure now how, er, "ninja-y" they really are, but we loved them, all the same. The original comics were actually not silly, but bloody and dark. Shredder was only in one issue, and when defeated, they invited him to commit seppuku (which is ritual suicide by cutting your guts out and having someone cut off your head), but he opted to pull a pin on a grenade, and try to take them all out. That said, the TMNT NES game (which your humble author is currently trying to beat on a dare, and is, as a result, swearing a lot) was written by a sadist who makes you want to blow yourself up with a grenade as well. The arcade-style beat-’em-up games are fun, though not an exercise in futility, and the modern ones are more immersive.
Strider
I certainly hope nobody is going to say Strider is not a great ninja game. You bounce all around like you were made of Laffy Taffy, have a killer wall jump, which is better than the one in Ninja Gaiden, and a sword that just keeps getting bigger when you get power-ups. Is that a metaphor for something? I don't know, but this game is awesome. You beat the fuck out of robots in a cyberpunk dystopia, using your futuristic ninja sword and ability to climb on the scenery.
Wrath of the Black Manta
It was on the NES and was rather frustrating. I know I'm talking a lot about old-ass games, but this was indeed a game about a ninja. In fact, the plot is that he is rescuing kidnapped children from some kind of drug gang, but this is actually not important to gameplay. You
can, but it provides no bonus, except possibly to your sense of digital morality. He rescues kids, or not, and uses the subtle arts of murdering people to progress through the game and defeat the final boss, whose name is "El Toro," and is neither a bull nor a lawnmower.
Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
Moving on from the early era, we have 1998's Tenchu. This game was very much stealth-oriented, like a ninja should be. You don't go around just whacking people with a sword and hope for the best. You gotta be sneaky. Classic PlayStation 1 graphics, so, as good as it gets for the time it was made, but 3D graphics were really not there quite yet. Graphics or not, it was a fun game, with grappling hooks, rope-walking, and murdering people from behind before they see you.
Ninja Baseball Bat Man
This is a side-scrolling arcade beat-’em-up game from around 1993. The gimmick is that Japan apparently wanted to combine its love of baseball with ninjas. Robot baseball ninjas, to be exact. You go around fighting various baseball enemies in a standard brawler game format. Every single thing is baseball-related. Everything. The power-ups, the boss fights, the casual enemies. Baseball. Period. They gave us sushi, we gave them baseball, and they ran off a cliff with it on this one. There is an arcade in Portland that has this rather rare game, so I have played it. How could I not? It’s actually more tedious than fun, but if you ever see it, play it, so you can say you played Ninja Baseball Bat Man.
Ghost of Tsushima
A very colorful and surprisingly picturesque background for a 2020 game about a ninja slaying Mongols during the first Mongolian invasion of Japan, because they were being fuckbuckets. Yeah, they tried a couple of times in history, but clearly did not conquer Japan. Possibly because of ninjas. High accolades in the gaming community led to this game doing very well. It's the 21st century, and we still can't get enough of ninja games, but this is a long way from the NES.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
This contemporary game, set in the Sengoku period, when there was a lot of fighting and political dick-sucking to unite Japan, features a ninja (because duh) and is set in a historical setting. However, the game also has rocket launchers and flamethrowers, which I am fairly sure were not around back then. The plot is to fight a warlord to accomplish this unity, and your character is sorta-kinda immortal, yet can absolutely be killed. Lots of weird Japanese magic comes into play, but hey, video games don't give a fuck about making sense; as long as it's fun, let's do it.
That's about as many as come to mind, but there are a zillion ninja games out there, so this was an interesting topic. I could write for years and not cover them all.
Practice your stealth, achieve your goals, and throw motherfucking shuriken at anyone who gets up in your face!
Peace and swords,
-Wombstretcha
Wombstretcha the Magnificent is not dexterous enough to be a ninja, wrote the word "ninja" 33 times in this article, is a wall-jumping enthusiast, writer, and retired rapper from Portland, Oregon.He can be found at his website, Wombstretcha.com, on Twitter/X/whatever as @Wombstretcha503, and on MeWe and (begrudgingly) Facebook, as "Wombstretcha the Magnificent."
