#48: The Legend of the Mystical Ninja

Released In: 1991
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami

      Kid Ying and Dr. Yang set out on a journey across Japan to defeat various evil bad guys in this offbeat Konami platformer. Along the way you'll molest gray cats to upgrade your weapons and play a whole bunch of minigames. Then you'll defeat a shogun and rescue a princess. It's good times.

Syd Lexia: Any game that includes the first level of Gradius in its entirety as a minigame is okay by me.

greeneyedzeke: To this day, when I mention Legend of the Mystical Ninja, people look at me like I have two heads. But come on, people, the game is available on the fucking Virtual Console and, according to the gaming media, everyone in the world owns a Wii.

Anyway, the graphics were colorful, and you could do this weird two-player co-op thing where one guy would ride on the other’s back, meaning that one player controlled both characters’ directional movement while the other one just whacked the buttons a lot to hit stuff. It’s like the criminally overused device from every modern day shooter where one guy drives the tank/hummer/copter and his buddy mans the turrets, only in Legend of the Mystical Ninja it was fun. The best part, though, was the vast array of minigames you could play in the towns. I’ve always been a sucker for gambling and diversionary tactics in my video games, which probably explains why I still hold out hope that someday Yu Suzuki will show up on my doorstep with Shenmue III in his hands.

Valdronius: I'm always a little wary of English translations of Japanese things. They tend to remove anything associated with unfamiliar Japanese legends, and replace it with ridiculous attempts at comedy. This game is pretty odd even without the localizations, what with Dr. Yang's hair growing into his nose, and the way Kid Ying shimmies along the ground if you crouch and move. The game is very fun though, despite its weirdness. If you score some pussy it makes your stick grow, and if you pick up a girl on the street, you get paid. Sweet. It even has entertaining minigames. All in all, it's a great game.

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