Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos | |
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North American box art (NES version)
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Developer(s) | Tecmo |
Publisher(s) | Tecmo |
Director(s) | Masato Kato |
Programmer(s) | Yoshiaki Inose |
Artist(s) | Masato Kato |
Writer(s) | Sarah H. Hideo Yoshizawa Masato Kato |
Composer(s) | Ryuichi Nitta Mayuko Okamura |
Series | Ninja Gaiden |
Platform(s) | NES, SNES MS-DOS, Amiga, Virtual Console |
Release date(s) | |
Genre(s) | Platformer |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Review scores | |
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Publication | Score |
AllGame | |
EGM | 9/9/9/8 |
GameSpot | 7.5 of 10 |
IGN | 8.5 of 10 |
Award | |
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Publication | Award |
Game Players | Game Player's NES Excellence Award, 1990 |
Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos, known in Japan as Ninja Ryūkenden II: Ankoku no Jashin Ken (Japanese: 忍者龍剣伝II 暗黒の邪神剣?, lit. "Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword II: The Demonic Sword of Darkness") and as Shadow Warriors II: The Dark Sword of Chaos in Europe (alternatively known as Shadow Warriors II: Ninja Gaiden II), is a side-scrolling platforming video game developed and published by Tecmo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). This is the second installment in the Ninja Gaiden trilogy for the NES and it was released in Japan on April 6, 1990 , in North America in May 1990, and in Europe on October 27, 1994 . The game was later released for the Commodore Amiga and DOS-based PCs by GameTek in 1991. It was then released for the Virtual Console North America service on October 15, 2007 for the Wii and on August 22, 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS.
The events in Ninja Gaiden II take place one year after the events in the first Ninja Gaiden game. It is about an evil emperor named Ashtar who, after hearing of Jaquio's defeat, devises a plan to take over the world and engulf it in darkness through an evil sword called the Dark Sword of Chaos. A U.S. Army agent named Robert T. Sturgeon recruits the game's protagonist Ryu Hayabusa and tells him that he is the only person who can stop him. The game received positive praise in previews from Electronic Gaming Monthly and Nintendo Power and continued to receive high ratings and coverage, being nominated for several awards from Nintendo Power in 1991. Overall, reviewers have said that visuals and controls of Ninja Gaiden II improved over its predecessor while maintaining a high level of difficulty for players; the game was criticized for having a more generic and predictable plot. The game maintains lasting appeal among players, with one reviewer saying that Ninja Gaiden II is "a challenging experience the likes of which gamers in the 8-bit era lived and died for".