Revenge of the Ninja (Mega CD)

 Of the four eighties Japanese laserdisc arcade games that got ported to the Mega CD by Wolfteam, this one, originally entitled Ninja Hayate, is definitely the least well-known. Maybe because the port was only released in North America, for some reason? Either way, it is very much one of these old arcade laserdisc games, so if you hate QTEs, you might as well stop reading now: there's nothing for you here.

 

If you are still here, you might wonder what Revenge of the Ninja does  to stand apart from its stablemates. The answer, unfortunately, is not very much. In terms of how it actually plays, it's probably the simplest of these games: there's prompts for the four cardinal directions, and to press a button. No sudden quizzes like in Time Gal, no second button like in Road Avenger/Road Blaster FX, and thankfully,  none of the awful crosshair aiming nonsense from Cobra Command/Thunderstorm FX. 

 

In fact, the one time the game mixed things up a little in the time I spent playing it was an absolute negative: a sudden choice between three directions, two of which led to a death, with no way of knowing which was the right one. Some Rick Dangerous memorisation nonsense right there. Other than that, the main difference seems to be structural. The stages are a lot shorter than in most of these games, sometimes only consisting of four or five inputs. Furthermore, after the first stage, and before the final few, the middle stages seem to appear in random order, which is kind of interesting. Though it does mean that you're seeing action scenes in total isolation from each other, and there's a loss of story cohesion there.

 

In summary, Revenge of the Ninja is the second-worst of the four "interactive anime" games on the Mega CD, though it is still a lot better than Cobra Command, which I personally consider to be near-unplayable. If you've been through Time Gal, Road Avenger, and the 3DO game Strahl, and you still want more 80s anime with QTEs dotted throughout, then you might want to give Revenge of the Ninja/Ninja Hayate a try. But not a moment sooner!