The Legend of the Mystical Ninja/Ganbare Goemon: Yukihime Kyuushutsu Emaki (SNES, 1991)
Graphics-8 Sound-8 Control-7.5 Challenge-7.5 Story-7
Level Design-7.5 Frustration-7.5 Fun-7.5/?* Originality-6.5
Overall Score-7.5
*2-player
+
Good bosses (most have two or more phases)
Some innovative level design (makes pretty good use of the rotation and scaling, the bridge to the Yuruki(?) castle with air filled floating platforms (buoyancy), blackjack room before the fourth boss, double plane segment in the mountains - Shinobi)
2-player co-op (you can carry the other player on your back making platforming less frustrating, player 2 can join in at any point)
Can block some shots
Great art direction (japanese mythology), Very good animation overall
Comical tone overall (goofy/silly, slapstick)
Some hidden paths with power ups and some hidden money items in town (one optional boss in the mountains)
Good variety outside of the town segments
Decent-nice cutscenes (some aren't skippable though)
Weapon and item inventory
Three levels of armor and helmets (1 in GG2 NES)
Temporary health bar upgrades (don't carry over between chapters/zones)
Upgradeable special move/jutsu move power ups (collect or buy scrolls - each 10 scrolls levels up the move and using a move spends 10 scrolls; some are pretty interesting such as the tiger mount and the temporary flight ability)
Mini-games (FP view mazes - meh, snake - decent, whack-a-mole - alright, throwing game - so-so, gambling - good for skipping grinding in emulation, arkanoid clone/tear down the wall - alright, air hockey - ok (2-player only, odd controls), gradius level 1- good besides the lack of auto-fire on the main shot and the lack of a reward for beating it, quiz - pretty good and some questions actually change although it can be annoying how the opponents answer before the question is even asked, memory/concentration - so-so (the opponent is a bit too good and it ends prematurely))
Auto-mapper feature during the FP view maze segments
Save feature and password save (have to pick the second option after picking continue in the main menu to load a save, the latter saves more of your inventory?, overly long passwords)
+/-
Boss rush near the end (not all of them)
No safe spots (frequently respawning enemies in town, time limit)
No way to gain 1-ups?
No life (HP) or shoe power ups from enemies
Enemy drops disappear pretty quickly
Turning around while attacking cancels the attack (unlike in Castlevania for example)
Can't replay previous chapters/zones
Elephants work like checkpoints here (warped you out of the FP view dungeons in GG2)
Healing items work automatically when you reach zero HP
Can't move around inside houses
Discourages harming some animals but not others
Some resource management (limited item inventory)
Few NPCs in town (sometimes women appear and you can collect them to gain money... or you can kill them and lose some money)
Can't attack while flying
Annoying extra bounce after taking a hit however if you press forward in mid-air you'll skip it (kinda similar to Streets of Rage)
-
Some control/interface issues (poor jump height control (overly high default jump height), no mid-air control during tilted view segments, somewhat slow text and screen transitions, have to briefly let go of the d-pad to cancel an attack while on the ground, attacking upwards in mid-air stops your forward momentum, no area maps - areas are generally fairly small and straightforward but the town layouts can lead to some tedious backtracking, tile-based movement in FP view dungeon segments)
Lose speed+main weapon strength+HP from each taken hit (money takes a while to accumulate in most areas, poor speed leads to not being able to dodge some enemies)
Short invincibility time after taking a hit
Some cheap enemy placements
Need to take a hit at the end of the bridge level?
Time limits (doesn't reset when entering the sidescrolling part of an area which discourages moving back and forth between sub areas, can buy time in some areas though)
Somewhat unforgiving hit detection around projectiles (bird bombs, dragon boss+the hit box for its head) and when near certain enemies
Trial & error (some paths that just take you backwards in a level, second to final stage, boss patterns - chapter 6 boss in particular, some blind jumps - can't look down/up, can't tell what the jutsu powers will do when buying them, no fast way to make money in chapter 8 so you should save up before it since there's also a lot to buy there)
No dodge or run moves
Some grinding required unless you cheat at gambling (passport, translation book, jutsu powers+healing after training for them as the training actually drains half your health)
Can't tell most houses apart from the outside (only restaurants)
Repetitive town areas
No options
No gyro/temporary invincibility item
Jutsu moves don't carry over between chapters and can only be used in sidescrolling segments (makes the tiger move useless in chapter 2)
New gear doesn't show on your avatar (Wonder Boy in Monster Land)
Some chapters are overly short (no sidescrolling level in chapter 2 - just a boss fight, no sidescrolling level in chapter 3/amusement park, some don't have enough exploration)
Easy squid boss
Small blasts from the bomb sub weapon+it's pretty weak and you can't control how far you throw them
Some slowdown in 2-player
Partial safe spot vs the final boss
Level Design-7.5 Frustration-7.5 Fun-7.5/?* Originality-6.5
Overall Score-7.5
*2-player
+
Good bosses (most have two or more phases)
Some innovative level design (makes pretty good use of the rotation and scaling, the bridge to the Yuruki(?) castle with air filled floating platforms (buoyancy), blackjack room before the fourth boss, double plane segment in the mountains - Shinobi)
2-player co-op (you can carry the other player on your back making platforming less frustrating, player 2 can join in at any point)
Can block some shots
Great art direction (japanese mythology), Very good animation overall
Comical tone overall (goofy/silly, slapstick)
Some hidden paths with power ups and some hidden money items in town (one optional boss in the mountains)
Good variety outside of the town segments
Decent-nice cutscenes (some aren't skippable though)
Weapon and item inventory
Three levels of armor and helmets (1 in GG2 NES)
Temporary health bar upgrades (don't carry over between chapters/zones)
Upgradeable special move/jutsu move power ups (collect or buy scrolls - each 10 scrolls levels up the move and using a move spends 10 scrolls; some are pretty interesting such as the tiger mount and the temporary flight ability)
Mini-games (FP view mazes - meh, snake - decent, whack-a-mole - alright, throwing game - so-so, gambling - good for skipping grinding in emulation, arkanoid clone/tear down the wall - alright, air hockey - ok (2-player only, odd controls), gradius level 1- good besides the lack of auto-fire on the main shot and the lack of a reward for beating it, quiz - pretty good and some questions actually change although it can be annoying how the opponents answer before the question is even asked, memory/concentration - so-so (the opponent is a bit too good and it ends prematurely))
Auto-mapper feature during the FP view maze segments
Save feature and password save (have to pick the second option after picking continue in the main menu to load a save, the latter saves more of your inventory?, overly long passwords)
+/-
Boss rush near the end (not all of them)
No safe spots (frequently respawning enemies in town, time limit)
No way to gain 1-ups?
No life (HP) or shoe power ups from enemies
Enemy drops disappear pretty quickly
Turning around while attacking cancels the attack (unlike in Castlevania for example)
Can't replay previous chapters/zones
Elephants work like checkpoints here (warped you out of the FP view dungeons in GG2)
Healing items work automatically when you reach zero HP
Can't move around inside houses
Discourages harming some animals but not others
Some resource management (limited item inventory)
Few NPCs in town (sometimes women appear and you can collect them to gain money... or you can kill them and lose some money)
Can't attack while flying
Annoying extra bounce after taking a hit however if you press forward in mid-air you'll skip it (kinda similar to Streets of Rage)
-
Some control/interface issues (poor jump height control (overly high default jump height), no mid-air control during tilted view segments, somewhat slow text and screen transitions, have to briefly let go of the d-pad to cancel an attack while on the ground, attacking upwards in mid-air stops your forward momentum, no area maps - areas are generally fairly small and straightforward but the town layouts can lead to some tedious backtracking, tile-based movement in FP view dungeon segments)
Lose speed+main weapon strength+HP from each taken hit (money takes a while to accumulate in most areas, poor speed leads to not being able to dodge some enemies)
Short invincibility time after taking a hit
Some cheap enemy placements
Need to take a hit at the end of the bridge level?
Time limits (doesn't reset when entering the sidescrolling part of an area which discourages moving back and forth between sub areas, can buy time in some areas though)
Somewhat unforgiving hit detection around projectiles (bird bombs, dragon boss+the hit box for its head) and when near certain enemies
Trial & error (some paths that just take you backwards in a level, second to final stage, boss patterns - chapter 6 boss in particular, some blind jumps - can't look down/up, can't tell what the jutsu powers will do when buying them, no fast way to make money in chapter 8 so you should save up before it since there's also a lot to buy there)
No dodge or run moves
Some grinding required unless you cheat at gambling (passport, translation book, jutsu powers+healing after training for them as the training actually drains half your health)
Can't tell most houses apart from the outside (only restaurants)
Repetitive town areas
No options
No gyro/temporary invincibility item
Jutsu moves don't carry over between chapters and can only be used in sidescrolling segments (makes the tiger move useless in chapter 2)
New gear doesn't show on your avatar (Wonder Boy in Monster Land)
Some chapters are overly short (no sidescrolling level in chapter 2 - just a boss fight, no sidescrolling level in chapter 3/amusement park, some don't have enough exploration)
Easy squid boss
Small blasts from the bomb sub weapon+it's pretty weak and you can't control how far you throw them
Some slowdown in 2-player
Partial safe spot vs the final boss