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Another ZX Dev MIA remake developed using the Mojon Twins MK2 engine with a script by the Pat Morita Team. Well, it was in the contest, inspired by Last Ninja II, but I'm not exactly sure what it's a remake of as it's certainly inspired by pretty much every Ninja game you can think of! Ninjakul 2 came in at 7th place with 11,892 points, in the 2018, ZX DEV MIA Remakes contest.

Already with two other ZX Spectrum games under their belts - Fantasy Zone: Escape From the Pyramid (2016) and Gimmick! Yumetaro Odyssey (2018), Antonio J Perez and Igor Errazking have teamed up once more to release Ninjakul 2 under the Pat Morita Team publishing label. Igor did the graphics and Antonio created the code and sounds.

After his brother's death, Akul, The Last Ninja of his clan, will claim his revenge by defeating the Opium Mafia: The Gunshi Clan.

Controls are left, right, up, down, jump, use weapon, change weapon (toggle sword or shuriken). Keys can be redefined, no joystick options though. There are three difficulty levels to choose from: Easy, Normal and Hard. The game has a playable introduction where you play as Akul's brother running along the top of train coaches and finally falling victim to the trap laid by The Gunshi Clan.

After some cut-scenes, you are presented with a map of Hong Kong with five points located on it labeled 'A to D' and the fifth labeled with a '?'. You can visit the lettered points in any order you wish. Each location contains a sacred scroll. Once you have collected a sacred scroll ('Loo rolls' I call them as that's what they look like to me) and completed the stage via its exit you get to select one of four powers; Double Jump, Super Speed, Spectral Vision and The Super Sword. When all four scrolls have been collected you will be able to select the final location marked as '?' on the map where you will face Paco Romita, the big boss. Lives are shown top right. You start off with six of them.

Player energy is top left. Enemy Boss energy is underneath it. Bottom left shows your selected weapon. Along your journey you will encounter many foes who will succumb to your weapons including Ninja's, Crows, Ghosts, Zombies and Tie Fighters (WTF?). You'll also find shuriken and extra lives in the form of hearts. Location 'A' is Hong Kong Park. On this level you navigate your way along a path and then make your way through the treetops onto a building. Then back to a path where good use of the fence comes in handy when avoiding spikes. Location 'B' is Happy Valley. This is quite a small stage and requires you to have the Double Jump power. Ghosts and Zombies hang out here.

Location 'C' is The Harbour, You must run along the harbour quay and enter a large submarine populated with mini tie-fighters (again WTF?). Location 'D' is The Market. You must navigate through the market by climbing as high as you can and jumping from one skyscraper to another. There's a smelly boss waiting for you at the end of this. The level design is fairly impressive and sneaky with quite a few surprises.

The graphics are gorgeous and completely different depending on which stage you are playing. Audio is fabulous. The title screen tune is typical far eastern fare. The cut-scene music, map tune and in-game tracks are all excellent and there are high quality spot effects throughout the game for almost everything you do.

I was impressed with the fact that dispatched enemies did not simply reappear when you returned to the same screen. They only came back if you died. The different styles and sprites for each location are great. Being able to play each location in any order enhances your enjoyment. Although some do need you to have certain powers, like double jumping before you can complete them.

The scale of the game is also impressive. It feels massive.

The lack of checkpoints, especially for the Hong Kong Park level. It's a bit irritating to get through over a dozen screens and then die and be taken right back to the start of the stage. I also wasn't keen on the fact that blocks you couldn't throw your shuriken through didn't have the same effect on the enemies shuriken. They could throw theirs right through them.

This is a solid, quality game that ticks most of the boxes. The presentation is second-to-none, from the start menu, to the cut-scenes, to the game itself. I'll still be playing it long after you've finished reading this.