Lil’ Ninja

Intro

Ninjas eh? You couldn’t move for ’em in the 80s, they were everywhere. If you chucked a shuriken in a computer games shop back then, as well as a lifetime ban and a criminal record, there was a fair chance it would land on a game that featured ninjas. Ninjas have always been a big feature of 8-bit games from Clive Townsend’s Saboteur to System 3’s Last Ninja. (Which ironically wasn’t the last ninja, it wasn’t even the last Last Ninja).

Aside from the odd Ninja Turtle re-re-re-re-re-reboot however, you don’t quite see them so much these days, which I suppose is fitting as they do make a living out of being stealthy. What we have here though is a game that’ll bring back ninjas in a big way, or should that be lil’ way.

Lil’ Ninja sees you taking on the role of the titular tiny ninja, and your task is to rid 20 castles of pesky demons and restore order to the land.

Gameplay

Lil’ Ninja is a game I played for the first time during a Twitch stream (I really want to get back to doing those someday) and I’m not too proud to say I had no idea what was going on. The first thing to strike me were the cute little graphics with LOADS of enemies bouncing about all over the screen like a kids’ party at an energy drinks factory.

Initially it felt pretty overwhelming, rather than using up to jump and fire to fire your weapon, you use down to chuck shurikens and the fire button is used to jump. Your main character moves at such a fast pace & so do your (many many) enemies, add to this the fact that it’s not immediately obvious what you are supposed to be doing and how you actually complete a level, and it can be a rather brutal experience.
Time to take a step back then & read the instructions! To progress through each level, you must collect a certain number of flaming torches from the castle. Each torch can only be collected once the requisite amount of demons have been destroyed, this is done by pelting them with shurikens and collecting their bouncing flashing souls (no really).

Once it clicks boy does it click! The feeling you get from suddenly knowing where to go and what to do is quite the rush. Before you know it, you’ll be firing off shurikens left, right and centre and dispatching demons, collecting the numerous power ups and ploughing through those levels. This is a real “in the zone” kind of game, think of how satisfying it is frantically mowing through enemies in Robotron or Tempest and you get the idea.

As anyone that knows me knows, I’m a sucker for single screen arcade action and this one really hits the spot. Everything fizzes & pops and the sheer number of enemies this game throws at you is so impressive, with the game never slowing down no matter how many of the little swines are on the screen or how many throwing stars you’ve thrown.

The power ups are really clever too, with seven different types regularly appearing to keep you topped up with various goodies.

As mentioned above the graphics are so cute, I love how much character John Davies gets into his “smol sprite” games and this is no exception.

Verdict

You probably have the impression that I enjoyed this one a lot, and you’d be right. In fact I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that once you get the hang of this game, it’s up there with Bomb Jack, Bubble Bobble and Black & White as one of the finest single screen arcade games to grace the ZX Spectrum.

The game is available on real cassette from Teknamic and I strongly recommend grabbing a copy as the presentation is just stunning. All in all, a pretty impressive package.

Info

Release Date: 21 August 2023
Original Publisher: Joesoft
Machine Type: ZX Spectrum 48k/128K
Price: Digital Pay What You Want / Cassette: €7,90
Digital Download: https://snagultoof.itch.io/lilninja
Cassette: https://teknamic.com/product/lil-ninja/