Everygamegoing


The Last Ninja
By Superior/Acornsoft
Acorn Electron

 
Published in EGG #013: Acorn Electron

The Last Ninja

The Last Ninja was one of those games that, in the Eighties, just "looked good". That may well have had something to do with its iconic and very mysterious publicity, which consisted of a pair of eyes glowering at you surrounded by darkness. It may have also been related to the fact that the Commodore 64 version of the game had been doing the rounds for some time and had garnered a good reputation. Or perhaps by the late Eighties anything that had that Superior/Acornsoft logo on its cover practically demanded your attention. Most likely it was a combination of all three.

The game is a psuedo-3D graphic adventure in which you pay Armakuni, the so-called "last ninja" of the title. Your quest is to traverse the six levels of the game, kill or avoid all the guards you encounter, solve the puzzles, stick your sword through the evil Kunitoki and then read from the sacred scrolls to learn the "secrets of the Ninjitsu". You move diagonally left, right, up and down using the standard ZX*? game controls. You fight your adversaries by holding down the Return key and using the same controls. Then there are further keys to use an item (Space), hold an item (H) and to jump across the swamps you come across (J, K and L for short, medium and long jumps respectively).

Many Electron owners remember its incarnation on that machine with some fondness because it was a really "different" type of game to anything that appeared before, or after, it. The levels are small, but exploring each of them turns up some surprises - the dragon that reduces you to ash if you attempt to pass, the cave paths of level two that must be carefully navigated lest you plunge to your doom and the giant archer on level six who you'll only pass by pixel-perfect "wall hugging". But, and I say this as more of a realist rather then to rain on its parade, isn't it really irritating a lot of the time? The jumping, for example, is really awkward. You have to position your ninja in 3D and then jump him "forward", sometimes onto platforms that are in 2D.

The Last Ninja

And then there's the "fighting". The same technique of holding down Return then alternately tapping left, up, left, down, left, up makes short work of the "wimpiest" level one guard to the "strongest" level six one. It's not particularly interesting, or indeed edifying, to always win.

Then there's the multi-load element to the levels - if you get to a certain screen on each level, the next level automatically loads in. When this happens, there's no going back... so what happens if, for example, you missed finding (or didn't pick up) one of the items on an early level that you absolutely need to make progress in a later one? For example, you need the claw on level two in order to climb the cave wall. If you didn't find it (on the preceding level), the wall is impassable. Not only that, the game is now "stuck" on level two because there's no ability to restart from scratch... so your only course of action is to reach for the Break key!

There are odd quirks to the game too. The fighting is already far too easy but after only a few screens you'll find a smoke bomb and a set of throwing (shruiken) stars. Both these kill any guard on contact... so you simply walk onto each screen, fire one of them at him and he dies. Every time. There's not much call for your ninja "skills" when you're equipped with the equivalent of a machine gun to mow down your unarmed enemies, is there?! The "bullets" for each shooty thing are meant to be limited but, due to a quirk in the game, if you lose all your lives on each level, you restart that level with the shooty things all fully loaded. So every time a fresh level loads in, it's just a question of hitting Escape to quit and Space to start and that quirk gives you practically infinite ammo.

The Last Ninja

And finally there's the level sizes and the puzzles themselves. Levels are actually very small - once you know your way through them you can traverse them in just a few minutes. And there's only one route through them too - The Last Ninja isn't really a graphic adventure in any sort of "traditional" sense, because there's only one way to go. You can carry as many objects as you like, so you might as well pick up everything "just in case" it's the solution to a future puzzle. And as for those puzzles... well, obscure isn't the word. You won't work out the answers by using your brain; you'll work them out by just randomly holding the different items you've found and seeing which one works to pass whatever foe currently bars your way. (Apart from the level one dragon, that is - he needs to be shot between the eyes with a smoke bomb for some reason!)

Despite this catalogue of criticism however, I do have to admit that it does still look and play remarkably well. The multi-load level feature allows for each level to be "themed", and levels may be small in size but they are large in code because all of the screens are awash with colour and feature graphics that are, for the Electron, absolutely superb. Believe me, as someone who has tied his fingers in knots trying to get further than screen three of the awful monochrome Last Ninja 2 on the Spectrum, I am acutely aware of how badly the Last Ninja games can be converted.

On release, The Last Ninja was, perhaps predictably, raved about with Electron User calling it "fast, furious and totally addictive" and A&B Computing applauding such an "exciting, graphically interesting and different" game. It went on to appear on Superior/Acornsoft's budget compilation Play It Again Sam 12 and was later also re-released on Superior/Blue Ribbon's budget label. Of all the releases, it is the first that seems to be the easiest to find, and at time of writing was usually commanding a very respectable £5 - £10 depending on condition. If you're looking for a boxed version of it to add to your Electron collection, be aware that it came supplied with a "fold-out" sheet of instructions inside the box and a coupon that could be filled in to enter a prize competition if you managed to complete the game (Not hard!). The more expensive sales are those that include these extras.

Dave E

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