NES Games No One Played: Letter L

I’ve got a pretty extensive NES collection and have for years been writing about the best games for the system while also trying to collect every title. As such, I feel like I’ve spent tons of time playing all the great games while the lesser known titles usually come in the mail and go straight onto the shelf. I wanted to make more of an effort to explore the entire library of the NES, not just the classics, and so I’m trying out some buddies I either popped in and immediately out or never played in the first place. Since I’ve got them organized alphabetically, let’s continue on with the Letter L.

• Letter A can be found here
• Letter B can be found here
• Letter C can be found here
• Letter D can be found here
• Letter E can be found here
• Letter F can be found here
• Letter G can be found here
• Letter H can be found here
• Letter I can be found here
• Letter J can be found here
• Letter K can be found here

LAST NINJA | 1991

On the cover it says “Game of the Year” which I’m sure made every other game developer at the time think “oh shit, I can just put anything I want on the front cover?!?” Well, I’m sorry to blow your minds, but all advertising is false, and Last Ninja is not Game of the Year, Month, Day, Hour or even Minute. It can have Game of the Second though, there’s plenty of those to go around.

A few strong hints as to this game’s crappiness arrive at the very beginning. The first is this bizarre squished ninja face that stays stuck to the lower right hand screen. It’s so poorly rendered and scaled that it resembles more of a squished prune than a person. Second is the bleep bloop sound of a one note repeating soundtrack which is usually a sure sign that a game was designed by people who did not understand how to program music. Furthermore, the start screen immediately gives you the option to “turn sound on or off”, so for sure they knew how repetitive and grating it was.

Then there’s the game itself. If you thought this was going to be a Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, or even Bad Dudes style game then well… uprise it’s an isometric viewpoint “action” “puzzle” game! I use quotation marks here because the “action” is awkward knee nudging and the “puzzle” elements are mostly punching some random object to make doors open. You make your way from screen to screen, trying to figure out where to go and what objects you can interact with and along the way there’s enemies who come right at you forcing you to fight them. The problem here, aside from the extremely lackluster combat and hit detection, is that they don’t die once you deplete their health bar, they just lie there until they feel better again and then they come right back after you. This is extremely problematic for a game where you’re supposed to take your time figuring out what everything in each room possibly does because not only are the graphics so muddled that you can’t tell what anything is but the object design is so cryptic that obvious interactable things like a tuba or binoculars do nothing. Then on top of that you’re only given a short window between these tedious brawls to figure out what you can and can’t do before one of those fallen ninja boys recovers from his hangover and ends you.

I appreciate the uniqueness of Last Ninja, a puzzle combat hybrid that doesn’t resemble other similar titles like Nightshade or Defenders of Dynatron city, but nothing about this game works. If the graphics, sound, and controls were all terrible (which good lord they most definitely are) but the puzzle solving was King’s Quest levels of engaging then this could get a pass. Hugo’s House of Horrors looked like shit but the adventure aspects were really fun so the shortcomings didn’t really factor. Last Ninja however has zero redeemable qualities.

Well, I did kinda love that the high score title is titled “Tip Top Ninjas”, mostly because that’s probably the least gangsterish thing you could ever say to a ninja.

“Sup my ninja? You keeping things tip top?!”

<Throws shuriken at your face>

Similar Games: Prince of Persia, Immortal, Defenders of Dynatron City

LITTLE NINJA BROTHERS | 1990

Speaking of genre hybrids, here’s an RPG game where the combat is Zelda style instead of turn based, the heroes are ninjas (who are both brothers AND little), and most importantly it’s two player co-op! Say what?!? That’s unheard of! Seriously though, two-player co-op games are pretty hard to come by and most of them are sports game or beat-em ups, so to find something an RPG game that you and a buddy can play simultaneously would’ve blown my eight year old mind!

The main story (which you cannot skip, believe me I tried) is that a evil dude named Boltar has taken over the country of “Chinaland”. No that’s not a typo. Jack and Ryu, Los pequenos ninjito hermanos, are training on a mountain with Master Roshi who gives them some money and sends them off to save <sigh> Chinaland. So you start off in your typical RPG world map: you go to the nearest town, grab some items, head out to the map again to battle more enemies, return to the town to rest and buy more stuff. Rinse and repeat 8-bit RPG action. When you do run into enemies, there’s a screen that shows you the bad guys, the level of difficulty they possess, and the option to fight them or run. That’s a nice touch. If you fight, it turns into a single screen arcade style beat-em up similar to Kung Fu Heroes where you fight a certain amount of enemies before the mini-level is complete.

The first time I played this I had my wife play as the second character. She’s not a huge video game enthusiast, so after 15 minutes talking to townspeople followed by her character immediately dying in the first fight, she abandoned Little Ninja Brothers. I was still content to just wander around fighting enemies and exploring the map, but since I couldn’t really figure out where to go or what to do, I tabled it for the time being. Later I played it solo and followed more of a walkthrough which indicated that to advance beyond the first town you’ll need to learn a Dragon Kick. And how do you obtain this technique? Well, you’ve gotta race for it of course. Well, the race is the kind of carpal tunnel inducing mashfest that mars games like Track and Field or Crash and the Boyz Street Challenge: you press A repeatedly as fast you can while awkwardly trying to jump kick into balloons as you go. Get more points than your opponent (either by kicking balloons or winning the race) and you can move on. Fail, and you have to do the race over again. THERE IS NO OPTION TO TRY AGAIN LATER, YOU MUST WIN IN ORDER TO PLAY THE REST OF THE GAME. It is so much harder than you think it is and by your fourth try the space between your thumb and forefinger will be on fire. And sadly, there are several more of these un-skippable finger punish games ahead of you.

Like Faria before it, there’s a ton of potential to this game, but unless you’re a wizard at the race challenge, you’re probably going to find Little Ninja Brothers to be way too frustrating before it has the chance to get way too good. And even if you do get past the racing, the overall experience of the rest of the game is more fun in theory than it is in clunky repetitive practice.

Similar Games: Faria, Crash and the Boyz Street Challenge

LONE RANGER | 1991

A Konami game? Based on the famous TV show? That doesn’t seem very obscure. I mean the Lone Ranger was from the 50’s but even as a kid growing up (without a Johnny Depp brown facing movie to reference) I knew who the Lone Ranger was. Huh, this game was made in Japan but they only released it in North America? Curiouser and curiouser.

I would’ve expected this game to be a typical action platformer in the vein of the Indiana Jones games or something, but instead it’s yet another unexpected top down action RPG hybrid. Neat! There’s a world map, shops, towns and other areas to explore, achievements and items needed to open up new areas of the game, and even townsfolk to talk to. My favorite is the woman who says “I have no idea”. If I were in this game and this random masked murderer came up to me asking questions that would be my exact response too.

There are various places on the map where you’ll run into bad guys who you can punch, but ideally you’ve got a gun and can blast away. I have no idea if someone’s a criminal or a regular law abiding citizen, but I guess if they’re shooting at you they’re evil. I was actually caught off guard by the second town because it just looks like a bunch of couples walking a round until some of the dudes start attacking you! They just looked like they were on an afternoon stroll, why’d I have to kill them and why did I have to talk to their grieving widows afterward?! Seriously, a rule to follow in this game is that unless it’s a woman, shoot it.

Oh snap, there are regular side scrolling action platform stages! AND FIRST PERSON SCREENS WHERE YOU USE THE LIGHTGUN?!? This game has everything! The music is top notch Konami, just amazing. Seriously, it sounds like a lost upbeat Castlevania game. The graphics and spritework are nothing special, but more importantly they’re not detrimental. All in all though, and I’m not exaggerating here, Lone Ranger might be one of the best NES games there is, like top 50 quality. I’ve been delving into the NES library non stop for 30 years and am downright dumbfounded that I never played this game, it’s fantastic. The only thing negative I can say about it is that Lone Ranger uses the dreaded password system instead of a save battery which really works against 8-bit titles. Games like Guardian Legend, Faxanadu, Metroid, etc. are all amazing but I definitely find myself less inclined to revisit them over say Zelda II because documenting and retyping the passwords is just a great big tub of no fun.

Similar Games: Adventures of Bayou Billy, Gunsmoke, Legend of Zelda

LOW G MAN: THE LOW GRAVITY MAN | 1990

In case you couldn’t tell by the overly descriptive subtitle, THE G STANDS FOR GRAVITY. Low G Man was created by KID, who as I’ve mentioned in past reviews were responsible for tons of hidden gems like Kickmaster, the G.I. Joe games, and Mendel Palace. How does Low G Man compare to those classics? Lets…find out.

To start with, the story is way too good. “It was a robot producing exploration planet like any other…large cities…beautiful sunsets…but then THEY came…Let’s send in Low G Man.” That’s the entire intro! Short and sweet! One, the idea that a robot producing exploration planet, renowned for it’s large cities and beautiful sunsets, is a common thing in this universe is pretty awesome. Two, the “They” being described here is this white faced sleeping goblin-bot camouflaged into the background. Yikes! Damn right you need to send Low G Man, that motherfucker looks terrifying!

You’ve got a gun, which stuns robots, and then a spear which can kill them. You can only use the spear up or down like the thrust move in Zelda II. It’s a little awkward because the spear thrust moves down and forward instead of straight down, and I find that most of the time when I’m trying to attack something I miss it completely. Your character’s name is not a misnomer, he does jump like his spring shoes have rockets attached. I’m not entirely sure that this massive leap is useful per se, but I guess it’s better than a pathetic High G hop. You’ve got several weapons to cycle through all of which use ammo a la Sunsoft’s Batman and you can jump into these large robotic vehicles a la Sunsoft’s Blaster Master. Low G Man isn’t a rip-off of either by any means, but the similarities are there for sure. The music is rad, up there with similar titles like Shatterhand or Journey to Silius. The graphics and spritework are decent but not on the level of any of the aforementioned games.

And that’s all I can really say about Low G Man, it’s fine, playable, but a little lackluster especially considering how may great action platformers were released for the NES. There’s no-one in their right mind who’d rather play this over say Mega Man or Power Blade or Kickmaster or Shatterhand or Bionic Commando or Metal Storm or…

Similar Games: Shatterhand, Batman, Journey to Silius

OTHER LETTER L GAMES (CLASSICS)

Legend of Zelda, Legacy of the Wizard, Legendary Wings, Life Force, Little Samson

OTHER LETTER L GAMES WORTH TRYING

Loopz, Little Nemo, Lode Runner, Legends of the Diamond, Little League Baseball

OTHER LETTER L GAMES WORTH AVOIDING

Lunar Pool, Last Action Hero, Lethal Weapon, Last Starfighter, Legend of Kage