Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
Introduction
Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom was developed and published by Tecmo, released on the NES in Japan in June 1991 and North America that August as the third and final entry in the original NES Ninja Gaiden trilogy. Ryu Hayabusa returns once more, now investigating the assassination of his father and a related conspiracy tied to an ancient sunken ship holding a powerful artifact, fighting through the same fast, precise side-scrolling combat and wall-jumping platforming that had defined the previous two games. This entry notably removed some of the enemy-respawn patterns and screen-scrolling tricks that had made parts of Ninja Gaiden II especially punishing, resulting in a game many players found more fair, if still demanding, than its predecessor, while trimming back slightly on the cutscene-heavy storytelling that had become one of the series’ signatures. Though sometimes viewed as a smaller step forward than the leap from the first game to the second, Ninja Gaiden III closed out the original NES trilogy on solid footing and remains a well-regarded action platformer among fans of the series.
