Taito's The Ninja Warriors

Here's a bonus "lost" video for you folks to enjoy. This past summer I visited Hershey Park in Pennsylvania. Before I went to go on all the rides I stopped into the arcade really quick when they where just opening to get a video of a game you don't see often. From 1988 it's Taito's triple screen The Ninja Warriors! I was shocked to see that they still had the game up and running. Due to it's age and having three old CRT screens I was surprised to see that it looked just as good as it did when I was a kid. I remember playing this at Hershey as well in Disney World and Taito's other three screen monster, Dairus.

The game takes place in the distant year of 1993 where Banglar the Overload of Darkness rules the land. It's up to a pair of two robot ninjas to defeat the army and blah, blah blah...it's a side scrolling beat em' up, who cares about the story. The cool thing in the game is how your character takes damage. It's a lot like The Terminator where the Ninja's head's peel off revealing their robot forms and their chests also burst off as well before they end up exploding in flames.

The game was ported to a number of home computer consoles and it had a remake on the Super NES. In the US the game was simply called The Ninja Masters but in Japan the game was called, Ninja Masters Again. The remake gives the characters a lot of new tools and combos they don't have in the arcade. In the arcade version you're limited to just your sword and ninja stars.

(Sorry the video is so short, it's impossible to play the game well and film at the same time)