The Ninja Warriors

The Ninja Warriors was a side-scrolling action game by Taito, originally released for the arcades in 1987. It is notable for being one of the few arcade games to use Taito's triple-monitor hardware alongside the first two Darius games and Warrior's Blade: Rastan Saga Episode III, giving the game a widescreen presentation that was rather unique for its time.

The game is set in a dystopian future where Banglar, the President of the United States in 1993, issues martial law on the nation, with the military having total control over the law. A group of anarchist scientists decide that it is time to revolt against the government. Knowing full well that approaching the military themselves could be considered an all out suicide mission, the scientists create two androids that can sustain various forms of damage in order to do the mission for them. The robots, code named "Ninja" and "Kunoichi", are sent by the scientists in order to end Banglar's tyranny once and for all.

The game was ported to the PC Engine and Mega CD in Japan, while versions for all the popular computer platforms (such as the Amiga and Commodore 64) were released in Europe in 1989. A pseudo-sequel was released for the Super NES in 1994 titled The Ninja Warriors Again.


 * Action Bomb:.
 * Ambidextrous Sprite: Averted with the player-characters. If a bullet or other major attack hits an arm or leg, the robotic framework will be exposed there, and stay on that limb. In other words, if your right leg is exposed while you're facing right--meaning it's the near leg--then if you face left afterwards, it's the far leg that's exposed. Played straight with anything else (notably the kusarigama warriors--if they turn, they'll change which hand has the sickle and which the flail).
 * Anticlimax Boss / Zero Effort Boss:
 * Attack Drone: The 3SVO bots (white robot enemies that fire out a damaging laser).
 * Beef Gate:
 * Breath Weapon: The Fire Ninjas (guys in orange with brown hair) could do this standing and crouching, and they were Bosses In Mook Clothing as their fire breath could down you in 3-4 consecutive hits.
 * Collision Damage: The actual way damage is registered. Even touching a bazooka soldier when he's just standing in place harms you.
 * Color-Coded Multiplayer: Notable in that the female character is Player 1 in the arcade version, as well as the default character in the console ports. The PCE port lacked the 2-player co-op mode, allowing instead the player to select his or her character, as well as choose from one of eight palettes.
 * Kunoichi
 * Ninja
 * Degraded Boss: The first boss, a Kunoichi, reappears later as a regular grunt. Likewise, the same goes for Iron Claw (the Shao Khan-lookalike armed with a iron ball and chain), although the grunt versions have copper armor rather than silver.
 * Determinator: The player-controlled androids are programmed for a single purpose: Kill Banglar.
 * Epic Flail: Used by Iron Claw.
 * Head Swap: Kunoichi and Ninja are almost identical, save for their colors and the fact that Kunoichi has a mane of blond hair flowing from the back of her mask, while Ninja has a scarf the same color as his outfit.
 * Highly-Visible Ninja: Both player characters, as well as some Mooks.
 * Japanese Ranguage: One of the game's BGMs is titled "Are You Lady?" on the official soundtrack.
 * Katanas Are Just Better: The female ninjas use these.
 * Killer Robot: One of the enemies. While weak, it could fire out a very deadly laser.
 * Ninja: In addition to the player characters, some of the enemies are also ninjas.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The player characters are ninja robots.
 * Nintendo Hard: You will be dying many many times. And since you only get one life per quarter...
 * Palette Swap: The first boss is a palette swap of Kunoichi, but with red hair instead of blonde and armed with a long sword instead of the player's kunai daggers.
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: As a near-constant rule, if you can see an enemy's eyes (even the dogs'!), they're this. The only exception is the higher-grade, teal-uniformed dagger soldiers, but their glassy-teal eyes aren't much of an improvement.
 * Tank Goodness: You'll be attacked by tanks a couple of times each in Stage 2 and 4; shoot the driver to put it out of commission.
 * Timed Mission: Evey mission is timed, with a counter at the bottom counting down. You die if it reaches zero. It gets reset if you die before then, of course.
 * Skele Bot 9000: Tsuchigumo.