Ninja Five-0

Ninja Five-0
Action - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 1 save
1 player

Also known as Ninja Cop in Europe, although this Hudson-developed Konami-published game was made in Japan, it was never released there and is available only in the West. Strange how that works. But it does work, because Ninja Five-0 is without a doubt one of the crown jewels of the GBA library.

As the name suggests, you control a ninja that's also a cop. That means that in addition to killing bad guys, you'll also be rescuing hostages. Some missions have people you must save before you can clear them. Luckily, that doesn't slow down the pace at all. Armed with a sword and upgradeable shurikens, you'll make quick work of the enemy. But the coolest part of the game is the grappling hook. A mix of Bionic Commando and Umihara Kawase, your grappling hook can grab any wall. You can pull yourself up toward the wall with it, extend it to drop you down further, or swing on it 360 degrees to reach higher ground. Mastering the grappling hook is an absolute necessity, and transforms a standard action game into an awesome one.

The difficulty is also well balanced. It is a challenging game, but not to the point where it's frustrating. A stage might take several tries before you clear it, but that's exactly what I love about it. You'll learn to see the patterns. You'll learn to use the layout of the stage to assist you. It's pure old school feel, and I'm loving it.

But perhaps it's in that old school feel, that I wonder if Ninja Five-0 could be more. Don't get me wrong. It's a very well made game and is a blast to play through. Yet, it doesn't pioneer any new territory and that's where I feel it falls short. The grappling hook is certainly fun and contributes a lot to game design. But it's something we have seen before. What's worse is that level design follows a cookie cutter formula that reminds me of DOOM: kill enemy, get the yellow key, backtrack, open yellow door, break box, get the the red key, backtrack, go through red door, stage clear. It got a bit repetitive and predictable. It's also not very long, with only about 15 or so stages.

Still, despite its shortcomings (which probably sound worse than they actually are), Ninja Five-0 is an excellent game. It's got tons of polish all around, and it's pretty fun to play. For pure 2d action games, it doesn't get much better than this. There's still one thing that confuses me though. Why was this never released in Japan?