Ninjas and Werther’s Original

Ninjas. I mean, the word screams cool. Right? Open a 1980s Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, find “cool,” on page 382, and the definition reads something like this (paraphrased):

1, A light chill. 2, Calm. And 3, Ninjas.¹

Days gone by, I’d hitch a ride home after Friday night lights, maybe catch The Tonight Show. That Carson guy could tell a joke; he ruled television after local news signed off. But if I stayed awake long enough, when the hour gets thin, the networks ran what I like to call the truly classic movies.

And the best of the bunch? American Ninja. I haven’t checked my sources here, no Wikipedia-style references, but I’m sure this epic swept the Academy Awards in 1985.² Heck, the next four sequels surely took home the trophy too. Don’t look, just trust me. That’s what this site is about, tossing sources into the wind and embracing a certain feeling. Or am I getting this site confused with Facebook?

If you haven’t watched my pick for the 1985 Academy Award winner, the plot follows the mysterious Joe Armstrong. The first ten minutes hit like a joyride, action-packed romp where he discovers long-buried martial arts skills when his military unit is ambushed by the fabled Black Star Ninja Clan. Who doesn’t have dormant ninjitsu knowledge? Of course, there is a government conspiracy. Our hero Joe is framed as a traitor. And vengeance becomes the quest. Recovering from his amnesia and reconnecting with a famed Japanese master, Joe fights through the bad guys, rescues the colonel’s daughter, and defeats the villains, cementing himself as the “American Ninja.”

The crowd cheers. Well, I gave it a standing ovation; I remember the late-night cicadas humming along in perfect rhythm too.

Did I mention the ninjas in the penultimate act wield laser-beam cannons on their wrists? Yes, that’s next level cool.

Movie Rental Glory

If you’ve stopped reading, I’m guessing you’re already online, trying to track down movie aficionado perfection on your streaming service of choice. Stop right now. I repeat, Do not do this. Instead, I highly encourage scouring eBay for a Betamax player, hooking it up to a Zenith-style tube television, and finding the original release. Modern televisions ruin the special effects, they wash out the laser beams and don’t give Joe’s story arc justice. Something is lost in translation.

If you want to fill your ninja fix, try “The Octagon,” released in 1980. American Ninja perfected the genre; however, this is the movie that started it all. Another terrorist training camp, called… ahem… the Octagon. The place is ruled by Seikura, the evil mastermind, who happened to have an estranged adoptive brother played by the greatest action movie star of all time. Yes, Chuck Norris. He doesn’t sleep. He waits. This movie follows the perfect formula with betrayal, flashbacks, flash sideways, and a climactic showdown between half-brothers.

But no moviegoer cared about the mastermind.

You see, Seikura’s Octagon was managed by this enforcer, a red-masked ninja. The cloaked figure wielded sai, trained the troops with raw power and intimidation. There was a certain quiet intensity to him, a silent, nearly unstoppable presence behind that Darth Vader-inspired mask. Pure menace, the villain who never needs a backstory. Personally, I rank him high on the Iconic ‘80s Villain List. Granted, Chong Li from Bloodsport sits on his own pedestal, same shout-out to The Kurgan from Highlander. Ricky Bobby, Talladega Nights fame, had this to say about this romp, “It’s a movie. Very good. It won the Academy Award… best movie ever made.” Sorry, that’s American Ninja, followed closely by The Octagon.

Why?

Yes, ninjas. Always ninjas.

The Soul of the Nintendo Entertainment System: Ninja Gaiden.

Do you remember this one?

Created by Tecmo, this was a special game. Built from the ground up for the platform, the play differed from its arcade parents. This was a side-scrolling, platforming beast rivaling Contra. To win, one needed to master precision jumping, a sticky wall-climbing mechanic, and subtly shifting enemy patterns. Those damn flying birds in the third act are absolutely relentless. Somehow, they’d pummel my hero into pits and missteps and devour my continues. Think Dark Souls before Dark Souls.

Granted, the ‘80s were the challenging games era—too many choices, think Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Battletoads, and Super Mario without any warping cheats. What made Gaiden special was the storytelling. This was one of the first to leverage anime-style cutscenes after each sequence or chapter. You’d fight through a level, best the end boss, and the next chapter would unfold.

About halfway through the game, there is what’s known as the climb. At the summit, the screen breaks, and your character stares off toward a castle across the plains. The music even shifts; it’s iconic. This single scene made the game epic, showing off the challenge ahead, what needed to be done, while making the levels ahead bigger than what they turned out to be. That’s what solid storytelling does, it makes the ordinary extraordinary.

I loved every moment. The jungle stage. Climbing through more mountains. The duel with Bloody Malth; that’s a name, teased in the game’s instruction manual as the man who killed your dad (but later retconned in a future installment, a plot point the Young and the Restless producers rehashed frequently).

There was nothing like this game. That’s why I fired up the console, wielded Ryu Hayabusa’s blade regularly. Before each run, I had this ritual where I unwrapped a Werther’s Original (such buttery goodness), blew on my fingers, and cracked my knuckles. Yes, I had built a routine, a muscle memory, before going to work. I knew every jump, every weapon location, every enemy respawn point—I could clear the first three levels blindfolded without taking a hit.

And so, because I’m the greatest Ninja Gaiden player like ever, at least in the splinter of my own mind, when a new chapter was announced in March, I was amped. This wasn’t a sequel or remake from the PlayStation and Xbox versions. As an aside, those were great games too, possessing a certain kinetic energy, hacking and slashing with reckless abandon. These were designed to make you feel unstoppable.

But this announcement was more than glorious, it was NES reimagined. Ninja Gaiden Ragebound.

Tugging on Nostalgia

The preview highlighted its 8-bit graphics chops. The same Ryu Hayabusa running along a 2D plane, sword at the ready. I love how Ryu sprints, one hand ready to fling a shuriken (or throwing star) while the other grips the sword strapped to his back. Nobody runs like this, it’s absurd. Yet, here is Ryu dashing over uneven jungle ground, urban centers, and along a train’s roof. When the YouTube credits finally rolled, I cheered. Glorious.

And… well… um… it’s great. But with a caveat.

It looks like Ninja Gaiden. Plays like it, too. The bosses are bigger. The levels are longer. Yet, the team tweaked the core game mechanic ever so slightly; guessing they had reasons. The old style; I know this is, ahem, blasphemous, probably doesn’t hold up. I won’t spoil the story but due to a merging of characters across ninja clans, our powerful hero wields two types of attacks. Certain enemies are red. Others glow blue. To progress, one has to map weapon to the enemy type. Think reflexes with a color-combo twist.

And when it works, the game feels amazing. Hit the red enemy with a projectile, power-up, and then knock out its opposite. However, if you don’t sequence the bad guys just so, Ryu is pulverized quickly. Think those darn birds from the original’s third act: once their beak gets a taste, restarting is the only option.

That’s why I found this off-putting; the game felt more like a puzzle of order than a climb to the tower’s peak. The original had a certain style.

You Can’t Always Go Home Again

That doesn’t mean this isn’t a fabulous game for the train ride or cross-country flight. The review scores reflect an achievement. However, my frame of reference was off; I wanted to climb the mountain again, with a button press, travel back in time thirty-plus years.³ I wanted to feel that cinematic masterpiece one more time. The dueling ninjas. CIA-level intrigue.

And, sadly, this happens in life, we want to rekindle those ninja-like memories with former coworkers, the roar from college football Saturdays, or the clack of an IBM typewriter.

It’s glorious.

Just don’t get lost in what worked before; memory is fallible. And, more importantly, find joy in new discoveries, the fresh climbs. Look for them, don’t fight it, even if you have to see the color before tapping the proper button. Or you might miss the next magical moment when the baroque symphony hits its crescendo. Sure, I could power on the original, watch Ryu run roughshod across the plains, but, maybe, this time, I’ll let that perfect game remain a memory.

Footnotes