Return of the Ninja (Game Boy Color) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of Nastume's 2000 action-platforming game for the Nintendo Game Boy Color, Return of the Ninja.

Return of the Ninja is an old-school platformer posed as a follow-up to Natsume's 1990 NES classic Shadow of the Ninja (   • Shadow of the Ninja (NES) Playthrough...   ) and the Game Boy game Ninja Gaiden Shadow. It retains several elements from Shadow, but a number of significant changes to the general design make this one more of a spiritual successor than a direct sequel. Strangely enough, it never saw a release in Japan, despite its being made by a Japanese company.

You still get your choice between one of two ninja to play as, but the stages are no longer simple left-to-right, linear affairs. This time out, our ninja heroes explore stages (some of them rather maze-like in their layouts) looking for mystic artifacts of some sort. You still get different weapons and charge attacks, and now stealth mechanics have been incorporated into the game. They're fairly simplistic - more Bionic Commando than Metal Gear - but they are reasonably well implemented and add some good variety to the gameplay, though they tend to slow the pace of the action a bit more than I'd ideally like.

There is much more exposition this time, and the entire game now takes place in old-timey Japan rather than modern-day New York like the first two games, and this was a change that I definitely appreciated. The graphics are sharp and well-defined on the GBC's display and the cinematics look good, but the soundtrack unfortunately doesn't begin to compare to the awesome chiptunes in the NES and Game Boy games. The tracks are far less memorable and even occasionally verge on grating. I found them to be a huge letdown, but then Natsume's name on an 8-bit cart does bring some expectations with it.

Subpar sound aside, Return of the Ninja is a good little platformer. It's nowhere near as iconic as the earlier games, nor is it as fast or as fun, but it's a respectable effort with a lot of merit. If you don't go into it expecting an experience of the same caliber as Shadow of the Ninja, you'll find a lot to like about this retro throwback.

*Recorded using a Retroarch LCD shader to mimic the look of the original hardware

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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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