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Oh, I remember Ninja Gaiden. I remember renting it and spending all day trying to get to the last level. I remember staying up late to get past those damned flying jetpack ninjas leading up to the final boss. And I especially remember dying at that boss and getting sent all the way back to the beginning of level 6, instantly rendering hours of progress null and void.

Normally this would send me into the kind of little kid rage that would end with yet another row of teeth marks on my NES controllers (oh come on, like you never got mad enough at a game to want to bite something), but this time, after spending several seconds staring in disbelief at the blue-and-gold background at the start of level 6, I started to laugh.

I had to laugh. For once, losing at a game wasn't due to my lack of skill. The game knew I was going to win eventually, so it changed the rules at the very last second. Ninja Gaiden had cheated. As far as I was concerned, I had beaten the game.

I could probably go back and beat Ninja Gaiden for real if I wanted to, but I don't. I'd much rather play Ninja Gaiden II, which had a more balanced difficulty curve, and it never erased long stretches of progress as punishment for not instantly recognizing and exploiting a boss's attack pattern. Also, it's got those awesome orange ninja ghosts who follow you around and help you kill giant birds.

Ninja Gaiden III doesn't have any awesome orange ninja ghosts. It does, however, have limited continues.

Now, I don't hate myself nearly enough to play far into Ninja Gaiden III, but I'd imagine that getting sent back to the beginning of a level after you die at a boss is slightly less frustrating than dying and getting sent back to the title screen.

Limited continues aren't an issue in most sane NES games, but this is Ninja Gaiden we're talking about here. You need unlimited continues simply in the interest of fairness. Sure, Ninja Gaiden III balances things a little more in your favor with some new features -- being able to see which powerups are inside a crystal before you hack it open is nice, and the new extended-reach sword is a great addition -- but the fact is that you're still going to make limited progress between deaths thanks to Ninja Gaiden's traditionally ridiculous and often unfair level of difficulty, and you're probably not going to be playing nearly as much of the game as you'd like before you run out of continues and are forced to start over from the very beginning.

It's fun, though. It's at least as fun as the previous two Ninja Gaiden games for the first few levels, and some people say that the game as a whole is actually the least difficult of the series. If the first two Ninja Gaidens didn't make you wish that they were breathing, physical beings just so you could have the opportunity to strangle them to death, you'll probably enjoy Ninja Gaiden III just as much.

Just remember, though, that Wii Remotes are expensive, and they probably don't taste very good. Please don't bite them.

Here's the first part of a one-life speedrun. Watch out for the lava!

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