Ultimate Guide: Ninja Spirit
One of the most stylish ninja-themed arcade games of the Eighties, Irem’s Ninja Spirit mixed side-scrolling beat-’em-up action with innovative shoot-’em-up mechanics to create something totally unique Words by Mike Bevan
This fast-paced arcade game never gets much love, so Mike Bevan is rectifying that
ention the word ‘Irem’ to any seasoned gamer and chances are that the first thing they’ll think of will be the company’s flagship shooter series, R-type. But perhaps one of the Japanese coin-op developer’s lesser known claims to fame is the fact that in 1984 it created the first side-scrolling beat-’em-up, Spartan X, better known to western audiences as Kung Fu Master. The game was also one of the first to feature an exclusively eastern setting, a sprawling pagoda inspired by the Bruce Lee martial arts movie, Game Of Death.
In 1988, a year after the release of R-type, Irem returned to the side-scrolling brawler with two coin-op titles – the New York-based Vigilante, and a rather more intriguing return to a world influenced by eastern mysticism, Ninja Spirit.
Released in Japan as Tsukikage: The Legend Of
The White Wolf, the title screen announces “the last way of the ninja” in Japanese script, and the gameplay owes more to arcade games like
Shinobi and Black Tiger than Kung Fu Master, while very much being its own katana-wielding, shuriken-flinging beast.
Ninja Spirit’s admittedly superficial plot concerns lone hero Tsukikage (translated as ‘Moonlight’ in English) on a quest through Japan to avenge his father, who has been murdered by a mysterious sorcerer demon. In gaming terms, this equates to running a gauntlet of seven increasingly challenging stages in which scores of constantly spawning enemies try to kill you with lightning accuracy, which this being an Irem title isn’t overly surprising. From Moonlight’s first appearance in a ruined shrine he’s beset by ninja baddies lunging through the air at him with daggers, throwing knives in multiple directions, and even trying to spear him from under the floorboards.
Luckily our protagonist is equipped with a set of four useful weapons, a katana (Righteous Cloud), throwing stars (Swirling Leaf), bombs (Bamboo Thunder), and a nifty sickle and chain (Rising Dragon). The default weapon, the katana, is probably the most useful for the majority of the game, as it slices in a wide arc above Moonlight’s head, and effectively blocks most projectiles. Throwing stars are useful at range and can be powered up to be flung rapidly three at a time. Bombs are extremely powerful and best used against bosses, while the sickle and chain also blocks enemy bullets, and can be swirled around the screen in the game’s coolest looking attack move, the downside being that it’s a little slower than the other weapons.
All weapons can be upgraded once by picking up power-ups left after killing orange ninjas, with the katana being top priority as