The Last Ninja

The Last Ninja is an action-adventure computer game that was developed and published by System 3 in Category:1987 for the Commodore 64. As the first in the Last Ninja series, it set the standard for the unique look and feel for its sequels.

The Last Ninja contains a blend of exploration, puzzle solving and combat. The object of the game is to journey to the palace of the evil Shogun Kunitoki to destroy him and retrieve the sacred scrolls. As the player progresses, Kunitoki's henchmen become more challenging as they learn the ways of the ninja.

Story
After two hundred years of Fujiwara Clan rule, whose lifestyle was the most extravagant of any Shogunate, the farmers and common men decided to leave their homes and travel to the Togakure mountains where they established the Ninjutsu, The Mystic Shadow Warriors. Four centuries later the Ninjutsu had become the most feared warriors of their day, feared by even the powerful Samurai. Their mastery of weapon craft and mind control ensured swift and complete victory over their enemies from the years of arduous training that forged mind and body into a death-dealing machine.

Kunitoki, the evil Shogun of the Ashikaga Clan, has long envied the powers of the Ninja brotherhood and would do anything to acquire their knowledge. To this end he has sworn an oath to their total destruction. Once every decade all Ninjutsu must travel to the Island of Lin Fen where they pay homage to the Shrine of the White Ninja and receive further teachings from the Koga Scrolls.

Seizing the opportunity Kunitoki summoned forth all the spirits from the depths of the Nether World and flung their full force against the amassed Ninjutsu. None escaped the wrath of Kunitoki. Nothing stood in the way of the Shogun achieving his ultimate goal, the knowledge of the Ninja. He set sail for the island of Lin Fen with an elite force of his Palace Guards and Samurai officers to begin the arduous training of his troops and thereby creating a new era of Ninja under his control.

Unknown to Tokyo, Japan, the last Ninja, had escaped his wrath. When all his brethren had left for the pilgrimage he had been ordered to stay and guard the Bunjinkan Shrine. This tradition had existed since the dawn of the Ninja as a safeguard should any natural disaster befall the brotherhood when it amassed at Lin Fen. Armakuni was not pleased he had been left alone for he was to be granted the next level of honor at the reading of the scrolls; now he would have to wait. Word soon reached Armakuni of the unnatural disaster that had slain his brothers and gathering all his courage he swore to wreak a terrible and bloody revenge on the Shogun and all his followers.

The Island of Lin Fen is a natural fortress with unassailable cliffs surrounding its coast. Having visited the Island when he was a young acolyte he knew the secret passage that would lead him to the Palace of Lin Fen. Armakuni's confidence was short lived as he discovered the pathways were not as he remembered them; what unforeseen hazards lay in wait for him?

Ports

 * Originally designed for Commodore 64, its music was composed by Ben Daglish and Anthony Lees on the SID chip that set the game apart from the other conversions. It featured 11 full-length songs, each lasting between two and five minutes, when most games for the C64 had only one or two tunes.
 * The Amiga version Ninja Remix was a direct port from the Atari ST, developed by Eclipse Software Design. It was faithful and highly playable despite lacking some of the sound atmosphere and fulfillment of its Commodore 64 predecessor. Furthermore, the opponents were seen as easy to kill in comparison to the Commodore 64 release.
 * The Apple IIGS, had colorful graphics, but at a lower resolution. The in-game music was virtually non-existent, with music only played before the start of a new level. Poor controls were the biggest issue, with inputs coming from either the keypad with open-apple as the fire button or toggling over to the joystick with J. However, unlike the Commodore 64 version, the player could save with CtrlS and restore their current position in the game with CtrlR.
 * The MS-DOS conversion had relatively primitive EGA graphics and was unable to match the unique 16 color palette of the Commodore 64.
 * The Acorn Electron and BBC Micro versions used only 4 colors instead of 16 and sprites instead of the complicated distortion routine the C64 used to change 2D base graphics into 3D. The changes were required to squeeze the game into 25k per load (instead of the 60k available to the C64).
 * The Color Computer version was never released, but a nearly finished development version was displayed at the 2007 CoCoFest near Chicago. According to one of the developers, the game was based on the C64 graphics.