{"id":19484,"date":"2019-10-16T00:01:34","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T00:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=19484"},"modified":"2019-10-05T13:53:47","modified_gmt":"2019-10-05T13:53:47","slug":"the-ninja-saviors-return-of-the-warriors-ps4-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/16\/the-ninja-saviors-return-of-the-warriors-ps4-switch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors (PS4, Switch)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Taito Corporation has had a very important part in the history of video games.\u00a0 They made such greats as Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, and a phenomenon you might remember called Space Invaders.\u00a0 They\u2019ve always tried to innovate in the arcade scene, and one thing they did in the mid to late 80s was make a couple of arcade cabinets that were three screens long!\u00a0 The first one was a 2-D shooter called Darius, which I loved.\u00a0 The second one I wasn\u2019t into as much, but it was certainly more popular and lasted longer in arcades (from what I noticed), and that was The Ninja Warriors.\u00a0 It was a 2-D side scrolling beat \u2018em up starring a male and female ninja team who were actually robots (this was the 80s after all).\u00a0 Anyway, after this hit, other companies followed suit with multi screen games of their own, like the arcade version of Tecmo Bowl and later, Konami\u2019s X-Men arcade game.\u00a0 So, back to The Ninja Warriors.\u00a0 Years later, they made a sequel on the Super Nintendo called The Ninja Warriors Again.\u00a0 They had to ditch the three screen format, but they added new characters, enemies, and better graphics.\u00a0 And now they\u2019re back once again with The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors.\u00a0 It\u2019s a port of the SNES game featuring more enhanced graphics, sounds, and added unlockable characters.\u00a0 It kind of makes me think of if the game were on more advanced 16-bit hardware, like the NEO GEO.\u00a0 Why the name change, though?\u00a0 I think it may have to do with the popular American Ninja Warrior game show<\/strong><\/a>, which probably has more clout.\u00a0 Anyway, The Ninja Saviors is available to download on PS4 and Switch, but reviewed on PS4 here.<\/p>\n

In the new game you can play as the male or female ninja androids from the original arcade game, as well as a new mantis-like character.\u00a0 There are a couple of unlockable new ninja robots as well.\u00a0 You\u2019ll travel from left to right beating up military baddies, with a boss at the end of the level.\u00a0 By pressing up or down as well as the attack button, you can use special moves (unique to each character), as well as a screen clearing bomb move with the circle button.\u00a0 But be careful as these deplete your battery meter.\u00a0 It\u2019ll fill up over time, so you\u2019ll need to use these moves sparingly.\u00a0 When you run out of energy, it\u2019s Game Over.\u00a0 You can continue at a checkpoint, though.\u00a0 You can play the game on normal as well as an unlockable Hard Mode.\u00a0 And there are time attack modes available for each level you complete.\u00a0 You can play the game solo or with a friend, too.<\/p>\n

I do like the 16-bit enhanced graphics and classic styled gameplay, and it\u2019s nice to see Taito still making games.\u00a0 But I\u2019m also torn because this game really isn\u2019t my cup of tea.\u00a0 For one thing, the game is way too hard.\u00a0 They could\u2019ve fixed this for me by either adding an easier mode or letting you continue right where you left off.\u00a0 Otherwise, I guess it\u2019s not a bad game, I\u2019d only just recommend it to fans of The Ninja Warriors franchise.\u00a0 You can also try the original The Ninja Warriors through the Arcade Archives downloads, but I don\u2019t know how it works with three screens, and I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s worth 8 bucks.\u00a0 Personally, I can\u2019t wait for Taito\u2019s next game which comes out in the coming year: Bubble Bobble 4 Friends.\u00a0 That one is more my speed!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Blood, Fantasy Violence, and Mild Suggestive Themes.\u00a0 The enemies do ooze out goo when you hit them, but the \u2018blood\u2019 is green so it looks like they just drank a lot of Ecto Cooler.\u00a0 But I know a lot of Japanese game companies do this with their blood, they make it a silly color like that.\u00a0 You also slash a bunch of enemies with knives and blades, but they just fall over and scream when defeated.\u00a0 Some of the female enemies wear skimpy outfits, but ironically, the main female ninja protagonist is fully covered.\u00a0 But then, she\u2019s also a robot, so, yeah.\u00a0 At any rate, I played games like this as a kid and turned out OK, but younger gamers may get frustrated at the high difficulty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taito Corporation has had a very important part in the history of video games.\u00a0 They made such greats as Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, and a phenomenon you might remember called Space Invaders.\u00a0 They\u2019ve always tried to innovate in the arcade scene, and one thing they did in the mid to late 80s was make a couple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19484"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19486,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19484\/revisions\/19486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}