By: Derek Yu

On: December 23rd, 2010

Jonathan “pixeltao” Lavigne, who you may recognize as having worked on the Scott Pilgrim video game, has just released Ninja Senki, a lovely platformer that’s spread across 16 brutish levels. The phenomenal graphics are what drew me to the game in the first place, but it’s really fun, too. Even though the game mechanics are standard (the hero, Hayate, throws ninja stars horizontally and has a small double-jump), there’s a nice variety of enemies and environments, and the challenge is tough but not unfair. You get 2 lives but can continue at the beginning of a stage at the cost of 100 points (you restart with the points you had when you started the level).

My main criticism of Ninja Senki is that I would have preferred perhaps 8 slightly longer and harder levels over the current 16. It felt a bit drawn out by the end, and seeing each environment a second time was unnecessary, in my opinion.

By the way, if you’re wondering why Jonathan chose to use NES-style graphics and music but also the GameBoy’s resolution (I know you are), he answers in the comments of his blog:

I chose the GB resolution as a constraint simply to force myself to keep the sprites small while still having a good size ratio on screen. Because often when you make a game, you get too excited and start to make everything too big and too ambitious and you end up never finishing it. So, that was simply another limitation to help me stay focused.

Constraints are good!

TIGdb: Entry for Ninja Senki