Games I Love: "The Last Ninja 2"

Lets go way back reader, back to the 80's, well late 80's that is.

Back to a time when gaming computers couldn't render complex images like circles and instead used squares.

The game I will talk about today is my favourite game for the Commodore 64, and your opening display was this:

This was the concole I had before my NES and we used tapes to load our games. I still remember the command to start loading a tape, press "shift" + "run stop" = "press play on tape" The counter on the tape would then load up to 10 or 11 and then you were presented again with the opening scene but with the name of the game you were loading, in this case "Last Ninja 2"

When I bought this game I had not played the first one. I actually bought it as part of a 4 in 1 series called "100% Dynamite." Which looked like this:

and here's my copy of the game itself:

Anyway, lets talk about the game.

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.

The interface consists of the opponents' energy and collected inventory (on the right) and player's health (on the bottom). The world is viewed in an isometric perspective allowing the player to move in eight directions. Movements are relative to the direction Armakuni is facing but restricted to predefined paths (the scenery being inaccessible). Composure and precision must be used when navigating and jumping around obstacles, traps and fatal features of the terrain. By approaching and kneeling at certain landmarks, such as shrines to Buddha and water fountains, an indication of what to collect next is revealed. These items are often hidden in trees or bushes and flash shortly after a new screen has been entered.

Attack moves are executed by combinations of directional controls with the fire button for attacking the opponent's head, torso and legs. Weapons like the sword, nunchaku, staff, shuriken and smoke bombs, can be equipped.

So lets take a look at how the game look and played.

I know what you're thinking, "Paul where can I get this game today?" and the answer is yes. There are plenty of ways for you to play this amazing game.

It was re-released on Wii Virtual Console in Europe in April 2008 as the fifth Virtual Console C64 title, and in North America in February 2009 as one of the first three C64 titles.

But what if you don't have a Wii?

Well head over to The Last Ninja Archives, where they have the game, screenshots, and the soundtrack all ready for you to download.

Puffy64, who is known for making hard rock cover versions of old Commodore 64 games, released an online CD called Last Ninja 2 Tribute CD containing hard rocking interpretation of the musical score of Last Ninja 2: Back with a Vengeance, originally composed by Matt Gray. The album also contains one original tune by Puffy64 called Last Ninja 2 - Hymn.

Dragonforce is known to use the Last Ninja 2 theme as an introtape to their concerts.