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*** This review may contain spoilers ***
As I said before, this game is the most balanced of three. It's long, with a decent story that can even surprise you sometime, great sound and graphics.The main character, Ryu Hayabusa, is a ninja warrior who is very agile and skilled in combat. After his father got killed in the first game, he met Irene Lew(He met her before, but only in the end you get to know her real name), who (guess what) disappeared, and Ryu has to rescue her(OK, sounds boring and predictable so far, right).The story starts when Ashtar(the main bad guy)hears from one of his minions that Jaquio(the main bad guy from Ninja Gaiden)is dead. The intro leaves you a little bit confused, but don't worry, everything will be explained in the end. The game starts in an urban area next to the Railway station, where Ryu meets the first boss, and Robert T.S., a new friend who will help him throughout the game.Gameplay: 99/100 This game has the best balance between length/difficulty. It's not as hard as the third, or the first game for that matters, but it still requires you to try hard in order to finish it. Ryu learned some cool new moves, and controlling him is much easier now, due to more comfortable control scheme. No other game in the series or wider can compete.Graphics: 96/100Well, you can't say that this game doesn't have terrific graphics(animated scrolling backgrounds are the most appealing, say snow, slime, or fire especially). I'm not saying that the graphics is not great, it is, just that the third game used all of NES-es potential, and looks even more better.The environment of the game is very rich, with all the colors matched to make the game very vivid and colourful, so good that you'll forget that Nes can show only 16 colors(this solved the problem from the first game that had really bad matched backgrounds). Cutscenes are superior compared to the ones in "Ninja Gaiden". There are much more sprites, and it all looks very smooth.Sound & music: 95/100 Sound fits well in all of the environments, and the music really adjusts the atmosphere right(Say, in the castle level I really got the feeling that the wind is blowing through every window). Again, the third part is technically better. Sorry.All in all 97/100. A game that appears only once in a lifetime, a true gem of its genre.
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