I actually had no idea this game existed before this week. This was a suggestion from @gunstarred who I figured, given that his recent blogging has been focused on the risible Simple 2000 series, was leading me up the ninja garden path. As it turns out, Kaze Kiri: Ninja Action is a pretty neat game, albeit not a particularly complex one. It reminds me of one of the games I covered last year, Ninja Spirit, and how I ended up enjoying that a lot more than I thought I would. Maybe I just like ninjas a whole lot.
Kaze Kiri: Ninja Action is a 2D side-scrolling Ninja Action game (their words, not mine) that starts fairly basic with its enemies running in and getting slashed by the protagoninja. As you get further into the game, the enemy's behavior starts getting harder to cope with, as they become far better at blocking your projectiles and adopt strategies like hitting you from a range with spears or swarming you from multiple directions. It feels like the game took the template of that old beat 'em up classic Kung-Fu Master (a.k.a. Spartan X) and built on it, taking the linear, flat stages and recurring enemies running in from either direction and adding a whole bunch of options for your protagonist. It'll be easier to describe it in the screenshots, though, so let's have at it.
"I Wanna Make a Game!" "Great, What's It About?" "Ninja Action!" "Great, What's it Called?" "Ninja Action!" "Here Is 60 Million Dollars."
Welcome to Kaze Kiri: Ninja Action! "Kaze Kiri" means "wind fog". I guess it's a ninja thing. Or a flatulence thing.We open on a familiar scene of samurais transporting nobles prior to the discovery of the wheel.The noble in question is Princess Anime. This is before she fell on hard times and had to sell flowers in the slums of Midgar.But wait, ninjas in bulky, noisy armor suddenly appear."Hey guys, can you hear that? It kinda sounds like a bunch of metallic *thunk*ing noises. Are we near some heavy machinery?"The noble samurai are accosted by ninjae! Ninjii. Nin... lots of ninja! Guy in the back is freaking out.They're no match for the mighty Metal Porcupine."Save me, Cloud!""I need a brave warrior to go save my daughter. You, the mysterious spiky-haired anime guy in purple who just appeared out of nowhere. You're the only one. Probably."Wouldn't be a ninja game without a big, scary Japanese castle to invade.Honestly, this intro so far has been pretty great. I remember how the original Ninja Gaiden was revered for being the first game to introduce cool intro cinematics, and it feels like Kaze Kiri is continuing in its spirit. This came out in 1994, for the record.The dude just sprints through a crowd of ninja as he heads to his destination. If only the rest of the game was that easy.So here's what the game looks like proper. This intro bit is kinda sedate, for all the flaming arrows people are shooting at me. I'm given this grace period to learn the basics: Kaze (I assume that's his name) can throw kunai and swing his sword, which appears to be contextual depending on how close an enemy is. He can also jump.Ideally, you don't want guys this close (or to put their hands there, yeesh), but fortunately this game has a throw which helps create some distance.This is the real first stage. Man, that's a brown looking level.I feel any ninja game's success is contingent on how cool it looks, and Kaze Kiri meets that requirement. Enemies have ninja star projectiles, but you can bat them out of the air with your sword (which splits them in two) or by throwing your kunai at it.Hitting forward twice performs this Mega Man-esque slide which makes it easier to get past enemies if they surround you. It also hurts them, in many cases.I was wrong about the Kung Fu comparison earlier: You actually go DOWN these stairs. Game changer.Running across this bridge, you'll see dudes just jump out of the water and off the screen. It's a neat effect, but I don't know if I actually ever fought any of these jumpers.Here's the first boss. He's completely immune to kunai, so you have to get in close to damage him. His attacks hurt and reach pretty far, but there's plenty of telegraphing. He's not the quickest guy under all that armor.You can even throw him if you get close enough, which is an impressive feat of strength. Dude must weigh a ton.I'm taking a circuitous route to the castle, it seems. Now I'm in some sort of underground passage.Now there's guys with spears to contend with. The combat's progressed from "swipe at a guy when he gets close" to "try to find a gap in the enemy's defense while dodging their attacks". You end up deflecting blows a lot while running and jumping and sliding around looking for an opening. And this is with every enemy from here on out. It's not quite as enervating as it sounds, but rather it makes every little one-on-one clash feel like a proper fight, even if they're usually over in seconds (ninjas, natch). It's impressive for a game that would appear at first glance to be far less sophisticated than other brawlers from the early 90s.I actually won this fight, despite appearances. I should explain how progress works in this game: there's a green "Enemy" counter at the top right. Rather than being the enemy's health, this tells you how many enemies you need to defeat before moving on. Enemies keep coming regardless of where you are in a stage, but once that bar empties you're allowed to move on. It does mean that the game can get kinda repetitive, but given how easy it is to run and jump past everything, I suppose they felt they needed to force you to do at least some fighting. The title is Kaze Kiri, not Lazy Kiri.The basic ninja enemies are getting ever more devious. These guys are weak, but they show up in great numbers and try to surround you.I eventually meet this guy, who might be the enemy ninja from the opening cutscene. Unlike the big armored guy, this is a real fight.He fights like you do, moving around and using his agility against you. Eventually, he starts teleporting around and breathing fire at you, which is something I'm fairly sure I'm incapable of doing. He also peaces out before you can kill him, so I imagine we have a Protoman scenario on our hands here.This part's great. The old "bamboo breathing tube" bit.And then I start scaling this wall. It's all very familiar ninja fiction clichés, but I admire the craft in animating this climbing sequence, given that I probably won't be climbing anything again in this game.The parallax scrolling with the background looks good too. I think I should probably call it quits at this point. I mean, I'm at the top of the castle already. How much more game could there be?
I don't think what Kaze Kiri does is particularly new or impressive, but it's certainly made with a lot of attention to detail. The gameplay is both repetitive and demanding of the player's attention. The way stronger enemies will block many of the more obvious, basic attacks means you have to improvise often to kill them, and the different enemy types all have their own tactics. The bosses, too, can get pretty darn serious. It's one of those cases where you're unable to rely on boring straightforward attacks and end up flipping and jumping all over the place, distracting enemies with kunais while you close the distance or finding a way to get past their guard, all the while looking really cool while doing so. It makes you feel like you're having more fun, even if you're just plowing through the same group of bad guy ninjas over and over.
It might not be a stand-out forgotten gem from the PC Engine CD-ROM library, but if all it is is some great audio and well-animated (well, in short bursts) cutscenes layered over a competent 16-bit brawler, I'm content with that package.
