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Ninja Gaiden for the Sega Genesis?!?! What!!!?!?!?

RetroRalph·video·20m 12s·analyzed·May 28, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.019

TL;DR

RetroRalph reviews the unfinished Sega Genesis Ninja Gaiden beta, highlighting gameplay bugs and incomplete mechanics.

Summary

RetroRalph reviews an unreleased Sega Genesis version of Ninja Gaiden that was approximately 60% complete at abandonment. The game features a mix of arcade and Nintendo version gameplay elements but suffers from significant bugs including off-screen enemies, non-functional jump kicks, diagonal movement issues, and game-breaking collision detection. Despite the unfinished state, Ralph suggests the game could have been enjoyable if these issues were resolved.

Key Claims

  • Ninja Gaiden for Sega Genesis was approximately 60% complete when development ceased

    medium confidence · RetroRalph states 'I think they said it was up to 60%, I think, finished' during gameplay commentary

  • The game was developed in 1992 but never released

    high confidence · RetroRalph directly states 'One thing I did find out that this game came out in 1992' and 'it never actually came out'

  • Jump kicks do not deal damage in the Genesis version, rendering them non-functional

    high confidence · RetroRalph repeatedly demonstrates and comments 'The jump kicks do nothing. It's ridiculous. That's one of the things they did not program into the game, is the jump kick doing any damage.'

  • Characters in the game sometimes spawn off-screen, forcing players to locate and hit invisible enemies

    high confidence · RetroRalph observes during gameplay: 'sometimes the bad guys are off the screen. and you have to figure out where they are to hit them. It's so weird.'

  • The game features diagonal movement when pressing left/right, which creates control issues

    high confidence · RetroRalph notes 'moving left and right, he moves in a diagonal pattern. That's messed up.'

  • Enemy AI includes a game-breaking bug where enemies fall off screen and die automatically

    high confidence · RetroRalph observes 'It's funny, the bad guys just fall off the roof. It's great' and demonstrates multiple instances of this occurring

  • The Genesis version borrows enemy types from the arcade Ninja Gaiden game rather than the NES version

    high confidence · RetroRalph explains 'the bad guys in this are from the arcade game' and notes the absence of certain NES enemies like birds and bats

  • English story dialogue is incomplete and cuts off mid-sentence in some cutscenes

    high confidence · RetroRalph observes 'The English doesn't finish all the way through on some of the cutscenes' and demonstrates this during gameplay

Notable Quotes

  • “It's the worst Ninja Gaiden game I've ever played.”

    RetroRalph@ 7:00 — Direct assessment of game quality despite acknowledging unfinished state

  • “I trusted this would be a good game. I was betrayed.”

    RetroRalph@ 10:25 — Humorous commentary riffing on the game's betrayal narrative and his disappointment with gameplay

  • “If they could fix some of the bugs in there, some of the extremely game-breaking bugs that you guys saw in there, if they could fix some of those things, actually the game would be amazing.”

    RetroRalph@ 18:52 — Assessment of game's potential if bugs were resolved; suggests core design had merit

  • “See, that's what I'm talking about. Like, this game, like, it's so easy. Like, the bosses, you don't even have to do anything. You just get them in a corner and just juggle them.”

    RetroRalph@ 14:29 — Notes difficulty balance issues, suggesting bosses may not have been properly tuned in the incomplete build

  • “This, as far as you go, ninja. It's funny, the bad guys just fall off the roof. It's great.”

    RetroRalph@ 9:09 — Commentary on unintended consequences of level design and physics bugs

Entities

RetroRalphpersonJon HeypersonRalphpersonNinja Gaiden (Sega Genesis)gameNinja Gaiden (NES)gameNinja Gaiden (Arcade)gameSega GenesisproductContragameOperation Seagame

Signals

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Genesis version attempts hybrid approach combining arcade Ninja Gaiden enemy types with NES Ninja Gaiden narrative and level structure, suggesting development team was integrating mechanics from multiple sources

    high · RetroRalph explicitly notes 'the bad guys in this are from the arcade game' while story elements resemble NES version

  • ?

    product_strategy: Ninja Gaiden for Sega Genesis cancelled or abandoned at approximately 60% completion in 1992

    medium · RetroRalph states 'I think they said it was up to 60%, I think, finished' and game never reached commercial release

  • ?

    product_concern: Multiple game-breaking bugs identified in Genesis Ninja Gaiden including off-screen enemies, non-functional jump kicks, diagonal movement issues, and physics bugs where enemies fall off screen

    high · RetroRalph directly demonstrates these bugs during gameplay commentary and identifies them as reasons for incomplete state and potential cancellation

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.061

0:00
Hey Retrospecters, welcome to another Ralph's Retrospect. We're going to take a look at a game that didn't actually come out, and it was for the Sega Genesis. And what game is that, you ask?
0:10
Ninja Gaiden, for the Genesis. You may be saying, I've never heard of a Sega Genesis version of Ninja Gaiden. And you'd be right, it never actually came out. So why didn't this thing come out for the Sega Genesis anyway? Was it because it wasn't any good, or were there some production issues? Well, let's take a look at it and see what it's like, and then we'll get into it. So, let's do this.
0:30
Okay, so we're going to get started. Okay, so it's a Sega game. Yep. One thing I did find out that this game came out in 1992 and that the titles are in Japanese, but the game itself has English dub for the story. So I'm going to go into the story.
1:00
Looks like kind of a similar beginning to the Nintendo version. Nijigate. Or Gaiden. However you want to pronounce it.
1:38
Press start button. Okay. Hit start. So the story talks about how he was betrayed by his two friends Jin and someone else.
X-Men
game
2:01
Have you seen this man? Talk to Brute at the boxing gym. Gym? Gym. He knows most everything that goes on around here.
2:16
Leaving a tip, I rushed out of the tavern. But found my way... Oh, and also the English titles. Like the English... The English doesn't finish all the way through on some of the cutscenes.
2:33
Round one! Alright, here we go. Okay, this is really interesting. So, moving left and right, he moves in a diagonal pattern.
2:47
That's messed up. So, one of the things that it reminds me of the Nintendo version, but the bad guys in this are from the arcade game. It's interesting because you have that, whatever it was that I picked up, but it doesn't do anything. There's no extra weapons. You got your normal punch, your attack, you've got a jump. By the way, the jump kick does nothing. You can't actually use the jump kick. You can tell this game was extremely, uh, it's completely unfinished. There's time. The time gives you, lets you get extra time. You double dash, or hit double, tap the directionally does the, does the roll. Alright. Oh, look at that. Oh look at that, there's the first level boss already. Looking for the Brute? Well you found me! Now let's see if you can handle me. Okay. This seems pretty easy. There is one extra move that you can do that takes off a portion of your life. It's this roundhouse, or it's kind of like that flip kick. takes off a quarter of your life to do it so it's kind of cheesy like okay but the the flip kick is a lot like something you can do in the arcade game
4:27
this is way too easy round clear I've had enough kid. I got no beef with you. If it's gin you want, try the Niagara Falls. The Niagara Falls Round 2 This reminds me of one of the levels in Ninja Gaiden the Oh The Nintendo game You guys know what I'm talking about, the one with the railways up top.
5:12
And they've got these dudes with the wooden blocks, the logs. Those are the guys from the arcade game. See ya!
5:26
Yeah, let's go up here. As much as, you know, I love the Nintendo version, this does not have those stupid birds or the bats or whatever it is. They don't exist in this game. Thank God.
5:42
This guy's up on helicopters. They hardly ever hit you. Check out these chicks. These girls with the scuba gear.
5:57
Okay, I think I found a game-breaking bug. Wait, what was that? There's a... There's someone down there.
6:10
There's a game-breaking bug right there. There's that... Ha! I got her! Wow. That's one thing you'll notice, too, a couple times in this game, and I'm sure you'll probably see it, is that sometimes the bad guys are off the screen. and you have to figure out where they are to hit them. It's so weird.
6:33
So I know this game was not finished. I think they said it was up to 60%, I think, finished. So there is quite a bit left of this game. You can tell because the bad guys aren't really that hard. You don't take much damage. So the game itself is not very difficult.
6:50
But some of these bugs, man. And you know, a lot of these things can be forgiven. Is the game fun? It's the easiest Ninja Gaiden game I've ever played.
7:04
Give me the time. The jump kicks do nothing. It's ridiculous. That's one of the things they did not program into the game, is the jump kick doing any damage. Jin told me that you might provide same sport for this humble sumo wrestler so humble whoa
7:43
take that See, like I was talking about how the characters are off the screen, you have to figure out where they are to hit them. The battle over, I turn to find a secret door behind the falls. See how the cutscene cuts him off. Could it lead to gin? Could it lead to a completed back of your skull? That'd be great.
8:14
I don't know if you notice these things here. It looks like you should be able to interact with these.
8:20
Oh, come on. Just like you can do in the arcade game. But there's nothing you can do with these. That's too bad.
8:32
So what do I think of things like the music? The music sounds okay. The attack sounds a little off. Maybe, like, they didn't finish the sound effect or something. Although, it's not annoying, so I'm not complaining at all. Like, you know, you could have those weird sound effects where they're attacking, which sounds really annoying, but... Ah, okay. See if I can hit this guy offscreen. Got it.
8:58
So game-breaking. If it wasn't bad enough that when you move left and right, it automatically moves you downward, but if you fall off the roof, you die.
9:09
This, as far as you go, ninja. It's funny, the bad guys just fall off the roof. It's great. No! See ya.
9:28
Did I just win? Bad guys just killed themselves. They just slid off the roof. That's great. A mask fell from the face of one of my adversaries. It didn't surprise me to find...
9:54
Dun-dun-dun! Who is it? It was Jim I couldn face you after betraying your your trowst Ryu But believe me, I had no choice. I trowsted you, Ryu. I trowsted you. I trowsted this would be a good game. I was betrayed. What do I think of the maybe the stage? the stages. The stages actually aren't too bad. You get into some actually cooler stages coming up. Not that these ones haven't been horrible or anything. These are pretty okay. Okay, that's it. What was that? He did some sort of weird breakdance move! What? How cool is that? So if you do a roll... oh no. Okay, so these guys are a pain in the butt. The only way you can hit them is if you do the, like the, uh, if you get hit and you're blinking, so you're kind of invincible, or if you do the jump kick. The only way. Of course, you lose half, you know, a quarter of your life every time you run into these guys, and they throw a bunch of them at you. There's no way to jump kick them off the, uh, off the stupid bikes. Those characters are ridiculous.
11:21
Now here's some creative, so the creative decisions made. Let's just throw the scuba girls just anywhere. Okay. Sure, why not?
11:32
Oh, this is the bar. Okay. You gotta see this last... Or this boss. This is crazy. I love this stage, though. It reminds me a lot of the first level boss in Ninja Gaiden on Nintendo. Like that kind of stage. What are the scuba girls doing in a club? I don't... It doesn't make any sense. Alright, here we go. Look at this guy! No future, ninja boi! This dude, look at him. He constantly flips you off. What is that? Creative differences. All right. Three hits and he was down. I've never beaten him that fast. I wonder if that was a glitch in the game. It had to have been. But yeah, I love how he just flips you off when you're fighting him. It's like, uh, okay. That mark on his wrist, I was a fool for not noticing it before. It's the trademark for the Star Conglomerate. So they're behind it all." When Ralph found out I was gonna be doing another Genesis game, he actually told me he was, he was actually very worried for me because he was afraid there was something wrong with me because I'm the Nintendo guy, I don't really play Genesis or Genesis games. He's like, are you okay? Is there something wrong? Should I be worried?
13:11
Bosses are getting easy. here we go the star building I'll bet my last shuriken that Rika is behind or is being held somewhere in here what's Jin still doing dead and behind him he just dragged his body wherever he goes or there's only one way to find there's only on way to find out only on way English, you're doing it right.
13:48
What the heck? Oh, I fell off the board. See, that's one of those weird game-breaking bugs where I just completely fell off. I didn't even see that coming.
13:57
That's so weird. None have ever made it this far and lived to tell it. I'll show you why. Yeah, okay, sure. By the way.
14:18
I thought he was going to tell me why. I'm still waiting. What? I can't hear you. I can't hear you over the sound of you dying. This guy didn't even get a hit off.
14:28
See, that's what I'm talking about. Like, this game, like, it's so easy. Like, the bosses, you don't even have to do anything. You just get them in a corner and just juggle them. Okay.
14:39
Not gonna work here anymore. Uggggh! Check this guy out. He's got my chick. Not bad, ninja! Not bad at all I trusted you Now let see how you fare against a real killing machine This is kind of misleading because it makes you think you going to just go ahead and start fighting him No, you're on another level.
15:16
You actually got a couple levels before you actually fight the guy. Oh, he's standing right there. So this reminds me of the Ninja Gaiden 1 where Jackio drops you down into the weird cave. it's got like the cells and stuff that's what this reminds me of so like I said it's very reminiscent of the Nintendo version but it plays a lot like the arcade version which is okay like I said it's different it doesn't play the same thing as the Nintendo version because I know they've redone that on the TurboGrafx and I think one other system where it plays just like the Nintendo version I guess if you just kick them off the screen far enough they just die I'll take it this reminds me a lot of that board on the X-Men the second level on X-Men for some reason you can see where they've got those bars right there where you should be able to jump up and do like all your kicks and stuff on not interactable in this version It'd be interesting to see if someone actually picked this up and actually finished it, like how well they could actually make this game. This would be pretty cool. Let's kick him off the screen. Insta-kill. And this reminds me of Contra. The last board of Contra. This is actually the, I believe this is the last, the last part. And it's a pretty short board. There's a board in, uh, Operation Sea that's like this too. Oh boy, here we go. You have interfered. Wait, what? I feel like there was probably more to that sentence.
17:08
Let's see if I can kick him off the board. The end! I win. So that's the key. Get him to the left side of the board, then kick him off the side of the board. Rika!
17:26
Ryu? Where am I? Where's Jin? Uh, yeah, about that. I see. Come on, let's go home. Behind us, evil crumbles to dust. before us a promise of good things to come.
17:59
That building behind me is just kind of falling there. It's kind of taking its dear sweet time a little bit.
18:09
The end! I think that's what it says. Or is it? Is that what it says? The end. Or is it? Keep going, keep going, keep going. Any second now. Alright, the end. And I believe it cuts right back to the title screen. Yep, that's it. So alright, with that, let's go ahead and finish this video. Okay, so that was Ninja Gaiden for Sega Genesis, and you can see that the reason why it was never released is obviously because it just never got finished. Is it a good game though? It's unique. that. Good. It's okay. It actually, if they could fix some of the bugs in there, some of the extremely game-breaking bugs that you guys saw in there, if they could fix some of those things, actually the game would be amazing. I think it would be really fun. It'd be a game I think would be worth playing or worth getting on the Genesis. As it is now, not really. So, with that, I think I would give it a retrograde, as is, probably a C. A C is good. It's at least playable you can play it to the end. Give it props for that. The English translation is really funny in some parts.
19:27
But some of those game-breaking bugs like where the characters were off the screen and you couldn't progress until you killed them, that was very difficult. I remember the first time I got to that, I thought I'd have to restart the game all over again. Thank goodness I didn't have to do that. But other than that, okay. Well, okay. And that's Ninja Gaiden for the Genesis. If you get a chance to play it, go for it. You can find it on ROM sites because, like I said, it's a beta. It's not even, like I said, just an incomplete game, I guess. So it shouldn't be any issues getting a hold of it. But yeah, if you liked the video, give me a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel if you want to see more Retro Ralph. Hit the bell for notifications. And we'll see you guys in the next Ralph's Retrospect. See ya.