Ninja Commando

Did You Know?

• Each character has fighting game-style input commands that unleash scroll-based ninpo special moves.
• The gameplay is similar to the run-and-gun classic Ikari Warriors.

Plot

An elite group of three young Ninja Commandos—Joe Tiger, an American descendant of the Kōga-ryū ninja; Ryu Eagle, the 23rd descendant of Fūma Kotarō; and Rayar Dragon, a British female ninja trained in Iga-ryū ninjutsu—must team up to stop the villain Spider and his Mars Corporation from using a time machine to destroy the past and control the future. The heroes chase their enemy through seven time periods, including the Sengoku period in Japan, Ancient Egypt, the Stone Age, China's Three Kingdoms era, and World War II.

Release

Ninja Commando originally released for Neo Geo arcade machines on May 29, 1992, with the Neo Geo CD version following on October 31, 1994. It was re-released on the Wii's Virtual Console in North America on July 14, 2008, and in December 2008 as one of five games in the PlayStation 2 compilation ADK Damashii.

Reception

In June 1992, Game Machine ranked Ninja Commando as Japan's eleventh top-grossing table arcade cabinet, beating Raiden. RePlay listed it as the tenth most popular arcade game. GamePro called its graphics phenomenal and praised it as an excellent two-player Neo-Geo cartridge. Three Game Informer reviewers gave it scores of 6.75, 8.0, and 8.75 out of 10, while Famicom Tsūshin rated the Neo Geo version 25 out of 40.