Ninja Five-O

Man, it pains me to put a negative review for this game. So the developers remastered this game's banger soundtrack for this port, which I would like to believe was to compensate for the GBA's audio hardware limitations. The problem is that they did a really. really bad job at it, and they broke the game along the way. First, the treble is now so loud that it completely drowns out the rest of the music, and the softer instrumentation for the main melody aggravates the problem. All you can hear is a rapid and irritating "CHIKA-CHIKA-CHIKA-CHIKA-CHIKA-CHIKA-CHIKA-CHIKA" almost all the time while playing. It doesn't matter if you set High Quality Sound to On or Off, you're stuck with it, with Off being the least worst offender. What baffles me is that you can literally listen to both the original and remastered soundtrack in the game's menu. Why isn't there an option to actually use said original music in-game as well? But somehow that's not even the worst part with this remastered soundtrack. The worst part is that sometimes it just... stops. No reason. It just stops. All you have left of the audio are the sound effects. I'm pretty sure that's not an issue in the original game. Y…

I've completed the first two levels, the bank and the harbor so far. While the game seems like a basic straightforward port of the GBA game, it does play really good still. Basically you are a "cop" ninja. You go around levels killing enemies and saving hostages from the bad guys. You can kill the hostages though so be careful! Some of the levels require you to save all hostages before you can finish the level. If you accidentally kill one, just go back into that room to redo the room. Otherwise once you kill an enemy, they stay dead. You can pick up items such as hearts that heal you, points pickups and also power up pickups. You start at level one and a power up pickups will get you to level 2, where you do more damage and have better shurikens. I only got to level 3 power because once you get hit, you drop a level in power (there are only 3 levels of power). So this makes it so you want to be careful and thoughtful. Nice touch. The game not only includes Ninja Five O but also Ninja Cop and a music player and a museum. Like I said, kinda barebones port but it's a really good game and now you dont need to spend $800 to play it!! I'm definitely going to finish it and I can se…

A now-incredibly-expensive GBA cult classic returns and you don't have to shell out hundreds of dollars for it anymore. Shinobi with a dash of Bionic Commando. Great fun!.

Finally, my favorite GBA game comes to steam, and i dont have to pay thousands for a copy

Finally a hidden gem is given the attention it deserves. It's not revolutionary in the slightest, and there are quite a few shortcomings (it would be nice if there were more musical variation, for example), but this is a very solid and underappreciated action platformer in the Shinobi/Shadow Dancer mould. The grappling hook mechanic is very finely tuned and requires mastery if you're going to get anywhere in the Hard or Time Trial modes. The price is a bit steep, but it's a bargain compared to trying to source an original copy on the second-hand market. Well worth it for retro action fans.

It's good.