I found something useful and related to my project on IGN, which is a very interesting and helpful article about the evolution of Ryu Hayabusa, one of my favourite characters.

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The Evolution of Ryu Hayabusa

How the hero of Ninja Gaiden has changed over the years.

by Levi Buchanan

US, June 5, 2008

 

This week, Ninja Gaiden II debuts on the Xbox 360 -- just in time for a really ugly break-up between the out-spoken Team Ninja lead Tomonobu Itagaki and publisher Tecmo. There's no doubting the sheer beauty of Ninja Gaiden II on the 360, and as somebody who has been making Ryu Hayabusa run left and right for over two decades, it's been fun to watch this pretty astounding journey for the ninja extraordinaire.

There's something fascinating -- at least, for old-school gamers -- to watch the evolution of a classic character that has survived the years. The horsepower under the hood grows exponentially with each generation of hardware, and the Ninja Gaiden series has often benefited from such potent increases. I say 'often' because, as you'll see in this evolutionary gallery, that Ryu has not always been given a chance to really put his best foot forward with each advancing generation. Seriously, look at the version of Ninja Gaiden that showed up on the PC Engine (that's Turbografx-16 on these shores) in 1992. It's only a marginally improvement over the SEGA Master System edition.

Speaking of both of those releases, it's important to note that not every game featured here made it to North America. For one reason or another, some of these entries were entirely skipped over. The waning popularity of the Master System is as good of an excuse as any, but it's not like the Turbo was just swimming in games and could afford to flick a franchise like Ninja Gaiden aside. (Although, Ninja Spirit was a pretty fine game and perhaps NEC didn't want the competition.)

So, here is a list of many of Ryu Hayabusa's home appearances, starting in 1989 on the NES and running through this week's breathtaking Ninja Gaiden II. Admittedly, I've skipped over the Game Boy release, Ninja Gaiden Shadow, since it looks not entirely unlike the NES version with a lot less color. And, as you'll see, color has been a major element of the Ninja Gaiden series over the last two decades.

The 8-bit Era

Ryu's 8-bit days started out on the NES, although none of his appearances on that console were ports of the 1988 arcade game. Instead, they were original adventures with cinematic edges that really advanced a storyline. It wasn't until the Lynx version that a direct port of the arcade game could be played with sliding quarters into a slot. The Master System version, which sadly never arrived in America, is actually a port of neither the arcade nor the popular NES games. It's an original adventure will all the jumping and sword-swinging action you'd expect from the Ninja Gaiden series, but there were some minor changes to ninja magic and wall-climbing. Still, if you are a major fan of the series, you should definitely hunt it down, as it is well worth your play time. (C'mon, Virtual Console release...)

NInja Gaiden (NES, 1989)

Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (NES, 1990)

Ninja Gaiden (Lynx, 1990)

Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (NES, 1991)

Ninja Gaiden (Master System, 1992)

16-Bit Ninja

Ninja Gaiden appeared three times on the next generation of hardware, but only one of those editions ever made it to America. Ninja Gaiden Trilogy for the SNES in 1995. The SNES collection packaged the three NES hits with moderate visual upgrades.

The two versions that never arrived in America are for the MegaDrive and the PC Engine, which might be better known as the Genesis and the TurboGrafx-16, respectively. Ninja Ryuenden on the PC Engine is a port of sorts of the NES original, but with not nearly the necessary visual upgrades that you would expect for a game jumping generations. The Genesis game looks a bit better, and it would have been another sorta-original entry in the series... had it actually shipped.

Ninja Gaiden (PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16, 1992)

NInja Gaiden (MegaDrive/Genesis, 1992)

Modern Ninja

After the 1995 SNES release, Ninja Gaiden slipped off the radar for many mainstream gamers, although the series remained near and dear to hardcore fans. The announcement of its resurrection on the Xbox was met with cheers, as was the actual release. It remains of the most gorgeous Xbox games, as well as one of the most difficult. The game has been refashioned a few times into extra packages, like Ninja Gaiden Black (also on Xbox) and Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PlayStation 3.

Ninja Gaiden (Xbox, 2004)

Total Now-Gen

This generation has already seen four appearances of Ryu. In addition to the aforementioned PS3 port of Ninja Gaiden from the Xbox, Tecmo's famous ninja has popped up in Dead or Alive 4 as well as an intriguing Nintendo DS release sub-titled Dragon Sword.

Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox 360, 2005)

Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (DS, 2008)

Which leads us to the brand-new Ninja Gaiden II, which IGN Xbox 360 just lauded in a positive review.

Ninja Gaiden II (Xbox 360, 2008)

And surely this wont be the last time we see Ryu, despite of recent employment issues over at Tecmo. As long as the franchise remains vibrant and popular, we'll be updating this gallery with future forms of the ninja hero.