I glanced at the game’s colorful instruction card, located beneath the Plexiglas bezel that encircled the monitor:
Regain the KANTEN CASTLE from the evil hands of the traitor, ZAEMON!!
The NINJA group called PUMA is obstructing princess KURUMI’S way!!
Defeat their leader, NINNIKU and proceed to the castle!!
The instructions featured cartoon renderings of Kurumi, the gun-wielding big boss Zaemon, and his blond-haired underling Ninniku, along with a helpful diagram showing what the game’s three control buttons did. One turned the princess invisible for a few seconds, making her immune to attacks. The second made her throw a knife in the direction she was facing at the moment, and the third made her throw a knife in the forward direction only, toward the top of the screen, allowing the player to fire while moving in another direction.
“Umm, Wade? Please tell me you’re not reading the instructions right now,” Shoto said, sounding deeply amused.
“You’ve never played Ninja Princess before, have you?” Aech asked.
I sighed. It sounded like Kira Underwood was the one sighing.
“Yes, I have,” I replied. “But only once or twice. Six or seven years ago.”
“Great,” Aech muttered. “This should go well.”
“Relax,” Shoto said. “Sega Ninja is standard run-and-gun fun. I’ll walk you through each of the sixteen levels. Some of them are pretty difficult to clear. But you can handle it.”
“Arigato, Shoto,” I said, as I slapped the Player One button. “Here goes nothing.”
I rested my right hand on the joystick and my left over the three control buttons.
The game began with a brief animation, showing Princess Kurumi changing out of a fancy silk kimono into her red kunoichi garb, as the poorly translated message PRINCESS’ES ADVENTURE STARTS is typed out above her, one letter at a time. Then a familiar warning appeared in the center of the screen: PLAYER 1 START, followed by a rectangular map of the kingdom showing my current position at the bottom, and the route I would have to follow to reach Kanten Castle.
Then the first level or “step” of the game appeared—a sprawling green meadow, covered in patches of colorful flowers and strewn with the occasional tree or giant boulder. My tiny pixelated avatar appeared at the bottom center of the screen, and in that instant I was back in the zone. I wasn’t Kira Morrow, or Parzival, or Wade Watts. The controls became an extension of myself, and I became the vengeful Princess Kurumi, clad in blood-red silk and armed with an infinite supply of throwing knives, intent on reclaiming my stolen kingdom at any cost.
Four blue-clad ninjas in black hoods appeared from the top of the screen and charged toward me. While I was dispatching them with my throwing knives, a fifth ninja clad in gray appeared, descending upon me much more quickly. But I took him down, too, just before he struck me with his sword. Then I began to run forward, toward the top of the screen, dispatching more brightly colored ninjas as soon as they scrolled into view.
Ninja Princess, aka Sega Ninja, turned out to be much more challenging than I anticipated. But once I got a feel for the controls and the gameplay, I was rockin’ like Dokken—especially when I had Shoto whispering pointers into my ear.
“Just touching an enemy doesn’t kill you in this game,” Shoto said. “They actually have to strike you with their weapon. Ninja Princess was one of the first games to do that. It’s a much better game than Commando, and it was released three months earlier. In fact, I would argue that Ninja Princess is probably the first true run-and-gun game.”
“Unless you count Front Line by Taito,” Aech said. “Released in ’82.”
“I don’t,” Shoto replied. “It only has one level that repeats over and over—”
“Dude, it’s a game where you have a gun and you run,” Aech replied. “How do—”
“Can you guys debate this subject later, please?” I interjected. “On your own time?”
“Sure, Z,” Shoto replied. “Sorry. Hey! Get that shuriken power-up!”
In the game, I grabbed a small power-up dropped by one of the ninjas I’d slain. As I did, the theme music changed to a more heroic tune, and instead of throwing knives, my character began to hurl giant black shuriken, which could take down multiple enemies in a row, when they were kind enough to line up for me.
When I reached the end of the first level, Zaemon’s golden-haired secondhand man Ninniku appeared and attacked me with a giant boomerang-like weapon. I dodged it, then lined up with Ninniku and began to unload on him with my shuriken.