Previous Next

It's not all Bruce Lee videos and black polo necks if you're a ninja, you know. A few members of this well-hard brotherhood of sword-wielding orientals actually have to do a bit of work to earn their daily dim sum.

The arduous labour in question is to rid the world of a tribe of eastern bad guys whose crimes, though they remain nameless, are the kind that even the likes of Fu Man Chu would shudder at.

Grasping one of four handy weapons - sword, Deathstar, dynamite or lassoon razor blade - the feisty ninja hurls himself into battle, laughing in the face of swordsmen and tweaking the nose of diving wolves. He leaps boisterously against perilous rock faces and scoops up crystals which conjure up shadow ninja spirits, extra energy or emergency flame ropes.

Who needs Mars Bars when life is as exciting as this?

Let's face it, when you've got a mediocre coin-op, even the most accurate conversion couldn't turn it into the hottest thing since curried chili. On the action scale, Ninja Spirit is more of a very mild chicken curry; a fun but unoriginal slash-'em-up with mega jumps and a choice of weapons to give it that extra dash of style.

On the whole, Activision has made a pretty good job of the conversion - the graphics are faithful to the original and feature a few nifty animated weapon effects. On the downside, the collision detection is dodgy and the controls are a tad on the sluggish side.

It all adds up to a fairly standard ninja slicer which some people might find just a touch too hard.

Identical to the Amiga version right down to the ninja slippers, the ST looks and sounds exactly the same; it's good - but not that good.