Last Ninja 3 Longplay (Amiga) [50 FPS]

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Developed and published by System 3 in 1991

So, having played and recorded every other Last Ninja game on the C64 and Amiga, I felt duty-bound to finish the series by doing a longplay of Last Ninja 3 on the Amiga.

Surprisingly, it's not just a straight copy of the C64 version. It shares many similarities, but there are different screens, items to collect and even an entirely new level that isn't even in the C64 version.

Unfortunately, these additions don't make up for the game's shortcomings, of which there are many. In fact, it took me several days to record this because I just wasn't enjoying it.

Firstly, it's much, much harder than the C64 version, which wasn't easy to begin with.

Much of this difficulty can be attributed to the control scheme. Armakuni is stuck rigidly to the isometric viewpoint and can only turn at angles of 90 degrees and run in straight lines. This is made worse by the fact that the developers included a huge number of holes, cliffs and traps to fall down/into; far more than the C64 version.

Combat is, as ever, punishing to say the least. Most enemies need to be defeated twice before they're killed outright and they'll do huge amount of damage to you, even if your bushido meter is full. As always, you can avoid combat by jumping as the enemies freeze whilst you're mid-air (hence why I jump a lot in the recording), but you lose bushido if the opponent is still alive when you leave a screen.

Perhaps the most unforgivable problem with the game was a bug on the final level whereby collecting the crowbar before the quill pen meant that you couldn't create the final scroll; unless you have the scroll, Kunitoki doesn't attack and can't be killed. It wasn't until I replayed the level and found that if I collected the quill then the crowbar, the scroll appeared in my inventory.

The game isn't a total travesty, however. The graphics are very nicely drawn/animated and the music by Sonix Systems and Reyn Ouwehand is pretty good, although I still prefer the C64 version.

Ultimately, the game is just far too hard to enjoy. Trying to complete the foundry level with the precision jumps between the floating platforms was a complete pain.

If System 3 ever do an HD version of the LN games, I sure hope they base them on the C64 versions and not the Amiga ones.

Enjoy!

#retrogaming
#amiga
#lastninja