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As a kid I wanted to be a ninja so bad that I snuck around in black pyjamas and grew bamboo in my backyard. I was certain that sooner or later a passing ninja master (on holiday in Australia) would notice and train me, a’la Mr Miyagi (I’ve since heard that he prefers bonsai to bamboo anyway). My childhood idiocy didn’t end there though, because I wanted to be a ninja so bad that I played Last Ninja Remix on my Amiga and convinced myself that it was the "ninja’s nunchuks". How wrong I was...
The Last ninja Remix is a remade C64 game that got ported across from Atari ST, so straight away it just reeks of quality. Essentially the game is a fine blend of puzzle solving, exploration, walking backwards and combat. Now, playing as a ninja, you’d expect the controls and character movements to be fluid and intuitive. Well, you’d expect wrong grasshopper, because it’s actually quite difficult to turn yourself around in this game. This results in you spending a great deal of time moon walking around the place. The issues don’t stop there though, because some of the jumping puzzles require you to “trail-and-error somersault” across a river and land perfectly on seemingly pixel thick rocks. This can reduce your 3 lives pretty quick, because highly trained ninja warriors can’t swim.
Combat in this game is ridiculously easy once you find your trusty katana sword (which can be obtained in all of 10 seconds). The only time your sluggish foes really lay into you is when they manoeuvre behind you (which is a regular occurrence when you’re running around backwards like an idiot). Your ninja is trained to use various other weapons like nunchuku, smoke bombs, a staff and shuriken. This is assuming you can get him to awkwardly squat in the exact pixel to make him obtain said weapons of death.
The sound consists entirely of an awesomely oriental song that can really get stuck in your head. Ten minutes later it’s an okay tune. Five minutes after that you’ll commit hari-kari. Other than that the game is completely devoid of any sound effects. In my reviews I usually like to write a decent sized paragraph about sound, but with what this game has given me, I’ll just adlib some sound effects they *should* have been included. Hiyaaahhh!. WhhaaaaSarrrrrr. Smash.Crunch. Nyogoramaiiiiiiiiii!!!!. Ka-shing! And basically, every sound effect from IK+.
The graphics of Remix are quite pretty, and while it doesn’t exactly push the Amiga to its limits, it’s a decent conversion. One issue I do have with Remix is the disorientating level design, which has you exiting from one angle and entering at a completely different one. This greatly hinders the exploration aspect of the game.
I’m really of two minds with this game. The nostalgic, childish part of me still considers this game a classic, but the sensible, gardening part of me thinks that watching bamboo grow is much more entertaining.
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Crisp and pretty visuals. Everyone loves that close-up graphic of the sweaty ninja.
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It certainly is a memorable tune. Memorable, because it polluted your ears non-stop while you spent ten minutes trying to pick up the sword.
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I've played shopping trolley simulators that had better controls than this game.
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| Don't ruin it, leave this one in your ninja obsessed memory. |
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Get Amiga Forever with pre-installed Workbench, games, applications, and much more.
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