Irem made some great games for the TurboGrafx...R-Type, for instance, was a great shooter. Ninja Spirit just so happens to be a great action game. Sure, it's pretty mindless, but there's always something happening. It's madness...and to boot, there's ninjas in it! Ninjas! They make everything better! This doesn't seem fair, does it?

[GRAPHICS]

While not bright and colourful, the graphics for Ninja Spirit are very impressive. The screen is almost always cluttered with enemies without slowdown, and bosses are immense. Plus, there's lots of cool explosions. It's pretty impressive, really, when taken as a whole ... the weapons all look very nice, the sword has this sort of trail of rings that follows it once powered up, and the black powder sticks (or whatever the hell they're called) produced these pleasing blue explosions.

These are some of the finest graphics on the TurboGrafx, in my opinion - the only thing that, in my opinion, would have improved things a tad would be more colours...but as it is, it looks dark and moody and fits the game like a glove. Very nice.

Pretty explosions

[SOUND FX/MUSIC]

Sounds aren't remarkable, but they're good...that's all there is to it. They're far from back, but not noteworthy - not much else to say.

Even more gratuitous explosions!

[GAMEPLAY]

This game can be a serious amount of fun...jumping enormous heights, wielding a readily available arsenal of weapons, cutting a path through the never-ending stream of ninjas, flying fireballs, airborn wolves, umbrella soldiers, flying kite ninjas, ninjas with rifles, and countless other enemies.

There's also power-ups! Some improve your weapons, others give you shadows or yourself, who follow you around and do what you do - except die, that is. They can really come in handy when fighting bosses, or defending yourself from oncoming shurikens.

The bosses pose a significant challenge, and you only stand a chance if you have at least one shadow companion and a powered up weapon. Otherwise, you're as good as dead.

As good as this game is, sometimes the gameplay gets a little boring...it's not really simplistic, but slashing at ninjas over and over again starts to get old after awhile. Still, this game'll take awhile to beat, and like I said, it can be a whole lotta fun.

If you hadn't already guessed ... dis sucker's a boss

[OVERALL]

It's worthy of purchase, most definatly, yes! Get it! It's fun! It's action packed! And it even looks nice! If you can find it, get it. It's one of my favourite TurboGrafx-16 games... Here's what I thought, at a glance:

[GRAPHICS] - 9.3/10

[SOUND FX/MUSIC] - 7/10

[GAMEPLAY] - 8/10

[OVERALL] - 9/10 (not an average)