Collage chaos GO!
In November of 1984, Taito entered the world of animated Interactive Movie for the arcade with Ninja Hayate. It made use of LaserDisc technology to store the animation provided by Toei Animationnote , who'd cooperate with Taito on the better known Time Gal a year later. Although Ninja Hayate has an English option in all versions, it has only been released in the West once, arriving in North America on the Sega CD in 1993 as Revenge of the Ninja.
Coming on the heels of the progenitor of the genre, Dragon's Lair, Ninja Hayate is just that, but set in Feudal Japan. Our hero, as the title spoils, is a ninja named Hayate. The princess, his beloved, has been taken prisoner by the Darkside Ninja Master and so now he has to go save her. While infiltrating the villain's lair, Hayate has to survive traps, a lot of ninja mooks some of which dogs, and the occasional elite minion. There are 18 different scenarios Hayate can find himself in need of surviving, but they aren't all part of a single playthrough. Six stages are selected at random and these are followed by three more stages that are always the same because those three contain (the lead up to) the Final Boss.
Reception of Ninja Hayate was good but not as favorable as those of Dragon's Lair and Time Gal. For one, there are a number of decisions in Ninja Hayate that can't be predicted, leading to Trial-and-Error Gameplay as to, for instance, which of three doors to pick. A second negative is that a lot of death scenes are recycled and few are interesting to begin with, which makes failure boring. Rushed production seems to be to blame here, because there are worthwhile death scenes too. Lastly, the random order of the stages breaks up the narrative. Sure, one stage Hayate could be inside and the next he could be on the roof, but that'd mean Hayate did some adventuring without the player.
The American-exclusive Sega CD port of the game was handled by Wolf Team and happened concurrently with the Time Gal port. Japan-exclusive ports for the PlayStation in 1996 and the Sega Saturn in 1997 also exist, which came bundled with Time Gal as Interactive Movie Action - Time Gal and Ninja Hayate.
By this paragraph, it ought not to be a surprise that Hayate makes a cameo in Time Gal as one of the people applauding her victory. Taito made only one other animated interactive movie, an adaptation of the 1983 film Final Yamato that was released in-between Ninja Hayate and Time Gal, and obviously that's a vastly different game aesthetically and gameplay-wise. Time Gal is therefore regarded as a Spiritual Successor to Ninja Hayate. It's not the only one, either. In 1985, Taito released The Legend of Kage for the 8-bit systems. It's a Platform Game with a similar setting and design to Ninja Hayate, to the point the two main characters could be mistaken for one another.
Ninja Hayate exhibits the following tropes:
- Adaptation Species Change: The ninja dogs are ninja wolves in Revenge of the Ninja, which is fair because most players at first glance think they're wolves. Another change is the tengu, which goes from being a tengu to being a human mutated with animal genes.
- All There in the Manual: For the Revenge of the Ninja version, Wolf Team wrote an elaborate build-up to the events of the game, gave all special enemies backstories, and provided an historical and cultural rundown of the fictional location they reimagined the game to take place in. It is impressive, but none of it is present in the game itself despite that Wolf Team did tweak several things. For instance, the intro still states: "from mysterious Japan [...] comes a new superhero, Ninja Hayate," which doesn't match the manual's claim that he's from Gella. There's also a huge tone difference between the game, being an early 1980s Japanese action-comedy, and the booklet, being a Totally Radical 1990s American work with a hint of ninja craze.
- Anachronic Order: Several of the stages are meant to follow each other. For instance, after fighting the tsuchigumo, Hayate falls through a well into an underground river. Only one stage starts at an underground river, so there's no doubt about the chronological flow. But because the scenarios are randomized, these two don't have to happen in that order, directly after each other, or together at all in one play session.
- Angry Guard Dog: The Ninja Dogs are dogs that are fully trained ninjas. They roam around the castle in search of intruders and if they find any they will kill them. Like proper dogs, they bite, and like proper ninjas, they can use weapons.
- Big Bad: Darkside Ninja Master is the lord of the ninja castle and all the ninjas, youkai, undead, and animals that dwell in or around it. He orchestrated the abduction of the princess and serves as the Final Boss.
- Bloodless Carnage: Ninja Hayate handles most of its carnage with discretion shots, although often you'd expect some blood splatters still to be visible on whatever is being focused on, which usually is Hayate's face. One time no discretion shot is used is in Stage 3 where Hayate gets pinned to the wall with shuriken. Two are piercing his chest and still there's no blood.
- Boss Subtitles: Optional. Players can choose to turn on subs to read the name of each special opponent they encounter. There's no fanfare to it, just a bit of text when the stage starts.
- Canon Foreigner: Accoring to the manual to Revenge of the Ninja, the action cues in Revenge of the Ninja are actually a guiding light, the soul of Hayate's father aiding him on his journey.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Hayate has to outrun molten metal in the weapons factory. He stays at most three meters in front of the flow for quite a while before jumping out of its path completely unscathed. He also crosses lava at a few meters distance to get to the Living Statue.
- Dangerous 16th Birthday: In the Revenge of the Ninja manual, Desfal is said to have been a fundamentally good person, which her father Lougi wasn't cool with. On her sixteenth birthday, he had Zallen put a curse on her to make her evil and give her snake hair. Not long after, she was killed by Hayate, never breaking free from the curse.
- Dem Bones: The Musya Skeletons are skeletons in full armor that are easily broken but just as easily reassemble themselves. They lie in wait underground beneath the cemetery, but not necessarily in the graves. They open attack by grabbing their victims' legs, immobilizing them so the rest of the army can go in for an easy kill.
- Dub Name Change:
- Several got a name change in the dub. The Yoroi Ninjanote became the Iron Golem, the Hebi Kunoichinote became Medusa, the Gaikotsu Mushanote became the Musya Skeletons, and so on.
- The manual for Revenge of the Ninja changes the names of even more characters. Darkside Ninja Master becomes Lougi the Warrior of Darkness, the tengu becomes Marco Killmore, the hakuhatsuki becomes Zallen the Avenger of Darkness, the Ninja Dogs become the Wolves of Seidenfeld, the Living Statue becomes Vengor, Medusa becomes Desfal, and the Iron Golem becomes Destroyer MPK (Merciless Powerful Killer).
- Evil Laugh: The Japanese version is largely without speech, but the English version throws in a few lines. Medusa has an evil cackle as she reveals her snakes.
- Eye Scream: In Stage 8, a gigantic monstrous fish attacks Hayate. Hayate fights back by stabbing the fish in the left eye with his katana and holding on to stay out of the reach of the fish's mouth.
- Fiendish Fish: There's the Monster Fish in Stage 8 that tries to eat Hayate and a school of fishes, possibly piranhas, in Stage 10 that also try to eat Hayate.
- For the Evulz: There's no motive given in any version of the game as to why the princess is abducted and seems to be done simply because it's the villainy thing to do. Revenge of the Ninja one-ups the other versions by not giving the villains a reason for abduction either and highlighting just how anti-good they are in their bios. The Wolves of Seidenfeld "have been trained since birth to kill all that is good." The ninja mooks "are sworn to spill the blood of any Warrior of Good." And Killmore "lives only to destroy Good." Speaking of Killmore, his backstory is that he looks the way he does now because he was experimented on by Lougi. He's pissed about that, but rather than taking it out on Lougi, he takes it out on everyone who has nothing to do with his fate because he's evil.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: While surrounded by six Musya Skeletons, Hayate grabs one of them and slams the whole horde of them away with their skeletal comrade.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Many death scenes that should be brutal, like Hayate getting chopped up, are avoided with a "cut through darkness" shot and a close-up of Hayate's face comically screaming in a way that doesn't line up with what just happened to him.
- High-Voltage Death: Ninja Master's death is a lucky break for Hayate more than a showing of skill. In escaping the dragon's maws, he climbs up on one of the heads and stabs his sword through it. The dragon is way too big to suffer much from it, but because it's storming the sword draws lightning to it. Ninja Master is thus electrocuted.
- Japanese Ranguage: What should've been "Iron Golem" gets displayed as "Iron Gorem".
- Kite Riding: In Stage 14, ninjas with build-in wing gliders attack Hayate in the treetops. Hayate himself brings out a hangglider he'd stored in his clothes to fight Ninja Master's dragon form and escape with the princess.
- Knife Outline: Many traps that involve sharp things being shot in Hayate's direction don't hit him. Instead, they form a perfect outline of his form and only pierce the fabric of his clothes.
- Living Statue: The Living Statue is found guarding the princess. She's whisked away before Hayate can reach her and the statue comes to life as the game's Climax Boss. The living Statue is huge, has six arms, and a scimitar in each hand. It's destroyed by being tricked into the surrounding lava.
- Man in a Kilt: Technically, Hayate wears a tunic. There are no pants, so due to all his adventuring there are a lot of scenes in which Hayate's white underwear is shown. It's neither played sexily nor humorously — it's just a consequence of his attire in that situation.
- The Many Deaths of You: Each stage has at least one way for Hayate to die and there's 18 stages total. He can be hit with shuriken, stabbed with his own sword, crushed by snakes, eaten by one big fish or many small ones, fail to throw up a rope as he's plummeting to his death, get burned to ashes with fire or lava, and so much more.
- Mechanical Lifeforms:
- The Iron Golem of Stage 4 is depicted as being alive regardless of his mechanical nature. The Japanese title of his stage reveals that he's karakuri machinery. He wields Fuuma Shuriken, which for him are just shuriken.
- Nothing is confirmed one way or another, but the Darkside Ninja Master is quite alike to the Iron Golem in appearance and powers. It's possible he's karakuri machinery too, at least in his humanoid form.
- Named by the Adaptation: The princess is only ever given a name in the manual of Revenge of the Ninja. Her name there is Terisita, but Hayate calls her Terri.
- Ninja: All grunts, dogs, robots, and some youkai are ninjas. Hayate himself is a ninja.
- One-Winged Angel: The Darkside Ninja Master turns into a huge three-headed dragon midway in his battle with Hayate. Hayate can't actually defeat him in this form, but fortunately there's lightning to help him out.
- Press X to Not Die: While quick-time events had been done before, Ninja Hayate was the first game to display actual on-screen button prompts whenever action needed to be taken.
- Reduced to Dust: Hayate gets three lives per play session. If he uses up his last one, a scene plays in which his body is bathed in light and reduced to ashes.
- Reed Snorkel: Hayate infiltrates the ninja castle in the opening scene through the surrounding bodies of water, for which he breathes through a reed.
- Related in the Adaptation: In the Revenge of the Ninja manual, Desfal is identified as the only child of Lougi. No hint of any sort of familial relation between them exists in any version of the game, including the one the manual came with.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: You'd think in a ninja castle with genuine youkai walking around there'd be no need for fake youkai, and you'd be right but also, why not? In Stage 7, Hayate is attacked by what looks like a kaiju peering down on him through the floor up above. One of its claws reaches for him, but Hayate chops it off to reveal a mechanical interior. He jumps up through the roof to find elaborate machinery operated by a single ninja, whom he defeats.
- The Smurfette Principle: Medusa is the only recognizable female humanoid among Darkside Ninja Master's troops.
- Save the Princess: Hayate's goal as he braves the dangers of the ninja castle is to save the princess. Yes, she's so important to the plot that she doesn't even have a name. She's just "the princess".
- Spikes of Villainy: The Ninja Master's dogs all wear collars with long spikes that look wonderfully threatening, but also impractical. Such collars were designed to protect necks against bites and they're not going to be of use to a human wielding a sword.
- Snake People: The youkai Medusa has snake hair. She's initially depicted with normal hair and it's not clear whether she changes one into the other or if the normal hair is an illusion. In combat, she favors to let her snakes, which are aplenty and can stretch far, do the work.
- Stripped to the Bone: Hayate escapes Medusa by throwing a bomb at her. For a split second, her lower skeleton is visible in the flash. Her upper skeleton is obscured by the smoke.
- Tengu: Stage 12 features a traditional karasu tengu. Less traditional is his ability to breathe fire, which is his main form of attack. He can also fly and wields a katana.
- Trap Master: According to the Revenge of the Ninja manual, the hakuhatsuki/Zallen is responsible for all the traps in the castle.
- Tsuchigumo and Jorogumo: Stage 9 features a tsuchigumo. He is undoubtedly a youkai because he has purple skin and a peculiar amount of warts on his head, but his design evokes the "bandit"-meaning of the term instead of the "spider"-meaning.
- Uncertain Doom: Death scenes related to traps often aren't deaths at all and several other deaths are ambiguous as well.
- Traps that boil down to "spiky things strike Hayate" never hit him. They make a Knife Outline, but that's enough for a life less. In can be argued they're deaths because Hayate is trapped, much like getting locked in also is a no-go, but for instance one floor halberd trap doesn't even do that.
- Some deaths are Hayate falling from a great height, but usually nothing is said about the landing. Some falls end with a plunge into water and out of sight of the camera.
- The Walls Are Closing In: Two traps in the ninja castle involve spiked walls closing in on their victim. They're among the more explicitly deadly traps, with the camera closing just as Hayate's body becomes too flattened to be survivable.
- Walk on Water: In Stage 10, Hayate crosses a dangerous underground river with his mizugumo.
- Wolverine Claws: The tsuchigumo fights with gloves made dangerous with three long claws each.
- Youkai: Several of Darkside Ninja Master's servants are youkai. There's a folkloric ones like the tengu and the tsuchigumo and there's non-folkloric ones like the snake-haired kunoichi.
- Younger Than They Look: The hakuhatsuki is based on the protagonist of Hakuhatsuki, a man who survived a murder attempt by his wife's lover and comes back to avenge himself on the both of them. Characteristic to his appearance is the white hair and general aged look the ordeal left him with.
