Mystic Warriors

Mystic Warriors: Wrath of the Ninjas is a ninja-themed side-scrolling shoot-’em-up released as a coin-operated video game by Konami in 1993. It was developed by the same team that also produced the earlier arcade game, western-themed Sunset Riders, and features similar gameplay to its predecessor. The game’s controls consists of an eight-way joystick and two buttons for attacking and jumping. Like in Sunset Riders, the player can jump between higher or lower levels, as well as slide. The player character attacks primarily by shooting an unlimited supply of shurikens/daggers, or using his/her weapon at close range. The game includes some improvements that were not included in Sunset Riders, such as the ability for players to change characters after they lose a credit as well as a life gauge that allows the player to sustain up to four hits from enemy attacks before losing a life. The player must defeat box-carrying enemies in order to obtain power-up items. These includes a shuriken power-up that can increase the player’s shooting power by up to two levels (which differ between characters), food (sushi, tempura, udon, sukiyaki) that will replenish the player’s life gauge, a blue orb with the kanji shinobi (忍) that will surround the player with a barrier for a limited period, a yellow orb with the kanji chikara (力) that will destroy all on-screen enemies, and various kinds of jewelry for extra points. There are a total of nine stages in the game, in which its own boss awaiting to challenge the player. Like in Sunset Riders, each player will be graded at the end of stage by how much they shot the boss; the player with the highest hit percentage will receive bonus points.