Last Ninja 3

Last Ninja 3

Game No.	448
Voting	7.73 points, 37 votes
Developer	Stanley Schembri, Dan Phillips
Company	System 3
Publisher	System 3
Musician	Reyn Ouwehand
HVSC-File	MUSICIANS\O\Ouwehand_Reyn\Last_Ninja_3.sid
Release	1991
Platform	C64, Amiga, Atari ST
Genre	Adventure, Arcade 3D
Gamemode	Single player
Operation	+
Media
Language
Information	Forerunner: The Last Ninja Forerunner: Last Ninja 2

Description[edit | edit source]

Carried through the eddy of space an time you land as the Last Ninja in Tibet in the Palace of Mysteries. The Shogun Kunitoki, the most almighty ruler of the palace wants you, as the last of all Ninjas, to join his followers through bribery and shows you his innermost sins. No one in this world has until now been able to resist the Shoguns. Only you are now standing between the hitherto existing order and Kunitoki's new world domination of chaos.

Story:
The Ninjas were the most feared fighting opponents of their time and were even feared by the very mighty Samurai. The known mystical shadow fighters were the elitist fighting power of the 9th century in feudal Japan. They can turn their bodies into real fighting machines. Their mighty weapons such as dexterity, stealthiness and invisibility made them invincible, if not even immortal.

Centuries later the Last Ninja Armakuni remembers those fighters. However, he makes a proud and courageous effort to keep up the moral order of the good against the lasting evil and merciless attacks of his archenemy Kunitoki.

Kunitoki is the evil Shogun from the Ashikaga Clan, who has envied the Ninjas for their strength for a long time and who wants to capacitate the knowledge of the Ninjas. To reach this, he has cast a curse against the Ninjas that is supposed to destroy the Ninjas. This curse involved the last Ninja in numerous fights against the evil Shogun.

The fight of good against evil leads Armakuni to the island of Lin Fen, to the shrine of the "White Ninja" in part 1 (The Last Ninja), and to New York in part 2 of the Last Ninja Saga (Last Ninja 2).

"...real hatred is timeless"

Design[edit | edit source]

After the success of the first and second part of the Ninja series, the third part was also designed classically. System 3 continues to rely on the isometric perspective and designs 5 levels. Each level has a different design. Kunitoki has now drawn back to the so-called „Palace of Mysteries“ which is shown in 5 level of each 12 to 16 screens. Alterations in the third part are honour and the „Bushido“ power (which is shown by the colour of the dragon at the lower middle). If the player avoids fights, the character does not win honour and thus loses his Bushido power. According to the manual this is important for finishing the game and for the power altogether.

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5

Concerning the intro, System 3 caps it all off and creates one of the most beautiful intros that the C64 has ever seen (and will ever see). For the end screen they did not work an the same high niveau, but this is also nicely designed.

Intro

The end screen

Concerning the gameplay, the game corresponds to his forerunner Last Ninja 2. They abdicated long walking distances and wild passages of jumping. There is even more emphasis on the puzzles. To find the objects fast, there is an info display (at the upper right) in the game screen.

Hints[edit | edit source]

Controls[edit | edit source]

With/without weapon, no fire button pressed
/ / / = Walking along the way
/ / / = walk diagonally along the way

Without weapon, fire button pressed
First press fire button, then move joystick
/ / / = block enemy, pick up or touch item
/ / = punch
= foot kick

With sword or stick, fire button pressed
First press fire button, then move joystick
/ / / = block enemy, pick up or touch item
= stab forwards
= stab/hit downwards/hit
= stab/hit from above
= foot kick

With nunchuks, fire button pressed
First press fire button, then move joystick
/ = turn nunchuks to raise the strength
/ = block enemy, pick up or touch item
/ = throw nunchuks
= punch
= foot kick

With Shurikan or other throwable items, fire button pressed
First press fire button, then move joystick
/ / / = block enemy, pick up or touch item
/ = throw Shurikan, etc.
= punch
= foot kick

Jump with somersault
First move joystick, THEN press fire button
= Ninja jumps into the walking direction

Required keys
F3 / F5 = choose item and hold in the hand (Holding)
Space = choose weapon and hold into hand (Using)
F7 = pause on/off
F1 = music on/off
Run/Stop = suicide

Items[edit | edit source]

	The mask is needed to fend of gases		The crampons are needed to be able to climb broken ladders, etc. up or down
	The key for a lock		The glove protects from injuries and can be equipped with nails
	The nunchuks an effective weapon		The Shurikan a far-ranging weapon
	The sword an essential weapon		The nails for climbing
	The bellows to spark a fire		The magic potion gets you an extra life
	The rope for climbing		The stick a universal weapon
	The iron bar to cast a key		The scroll is required to be able to leave a level.

Manual[edit | edit source]

A complete manual (PDF) of the game in can be found under "Manual" on C64Games.de

Solution[edit | edit source]

A longplay incl. maps (PDF) and other solutions can be found under "Lösung" in on C64Games.de

Cheats[edit | edit source]

POKEs for the disk version: (with the command: POKE XXXXX, 165 the cheat is executed)

Level	Leves	Energy	Shurican	Bushido
1	28962	26734	25954	26901
2	29207	27153	26373	27320
3	28800	26723	25943	26890
4	29035	26884	26104	27043
5	29192	26577	25803	26744

Voting[edit | edit source]

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
7.73 points at 37 votes (rank 176). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
64er	9	Issue 7/91
C64Games	10	3rd January 2010 - "Highlight" 15849 downs
Lemon64	7,7	3rd January 2010 - 106 votes
Kultboy.com	6,00	15th October 2010 - 7 votes
Powerplay	53%	Issue 8/91
ASM	9/12	Issue 9/91
ZZap64	93%	Issue 91/03

Reviews[edit | edit source]

H.T.W: "Now our Ninja must compete against his arch enemey Kunitoki for the third time. A wonderfully animated intro, almost in movie quality, gets you in the mood graphically and acoustically to an utterly impressive game, which again is shown in isometric view. There are more puzzles than in the forerunners (so you e.g. need to convert the glove with nails to a climbing instrument right at the start) and also a detailled outro but unfortunately also again controls that need getting used to. Despite small points of criticism it is a worthy conclusion of a classic game series."

MontyMole: "I have never understood why System 3 used a completely new engine here. Last Ninja 2 was absolutely fluent and also the controls were no trouble for me. Last Ninja 3 somehow seems unfinished. With exception of the speed, which likes to slow down sometimes, the controls are toally mucked up here. What adds to this is a totally lame level design, uncreative puzzles, collision bugs en masse and a fighting system that does not let you survive three enemies. It is a very great pity. The title can make many points with graphics and atmosphere, but the rest is far behind concerning the gameplay. I give 4 points."

ThunderBlade: "Atmospherically even more dense than the first two parts and graphically the most challenging, which was just realisable - this is Last Ninja 3. This game has captured me, but sometimes also got on my nerves, because finding the items is sometimes a bit difficult. The difficulty grade is high, but just about managable - I will never forget the triumphant moments when a level was played through. As with hardly any other C64 game you have the feeling to merge with the game's character and to be really at these mystical places. For this I do forgive the odd enemy walking on one spot and smaller bugs. The loading times between the Game Over, intro and return to the game were at that time eliminated by me with my RAMDisk system for the SuperCPU (version by DMAgic). Vote: 9 out of 10 - in the long run only Last Ninja 2 is even better."