Game 21: Little Ninja Brothers (NES) - Taking No Prisoners, Sparing No Lives

This is a pretty good summary of the game

My plan may come to halt once I near the end, but the game is a bit more manageable now that I've skipped nearly every boss. Every time I find one I leave town and head off in another direction. It's done wonders for my survivability.

You don't sound brainwashed at all

I arrived in the town of Yokan to find everyone praising Blu Boltar as some sort of savior. Of course, once I heard he was in town I knew my next step: leave. Actually, I did try my hand at reaching him once, but failed miserably. It's obvious something fishy was going on around there, and confirmed this when I found some resistance to the Yoma Clan underground.

That's more than I've seen them do so far

In their midst were two celestial beings (a dog and a monkey), but they were just uselessly bickering. Why? They forgot why. "So what's it going to take to make them to stop," I wonder. Oh, Jack just said, "stop," and they did. With their help I learned how to use the 'M' bonus I was collecting. The bonus appears randomly from blocks, and once I have six I can now use a special Mighty Ball attack.

And, all it does is turn the enemy blue

I also received a new sword after participating in a running goal, which I again passed by losing. I'm not sure what the point of those screens are since they're easily completed at even a moderate pace.

I tried using the sword during my assault on Blu Boltar, but the hit box is really finicky

I filled back up on supplies since I collected quite a bit of gold during that attempt. Previously I stated I can only carry 8 of each type of item, but I spoke too soon. There's an item that will fully heal Jack, but I guess the developers thought it was overpowered and limited it to one. One! Well, I guess I'll just move along to the next town.

No relation to Roger

In the middle of nowhere I met the rabbit celestial being. He acted more as a sign post and fortune teller. At some point I'm going to need to bypass a Fire Castle to reach Mt. Cone-Rum, and face the great demon King Gulp. Before I left, Rogee pointed me towards Shorin, the town of Kung-Fu.

Is that a question? Also, gesundheit

Shorin offered up some new armor (Lee's Robe (Bruce?)) and a new protective talisman (sigma). There's also a Golden Claw somewhere in town. It remains quite hidden. The town holds the key to the Blue Bell, but it's only offered to the most worthy fighter in all of Shorin. The fight to the top is tough. I'm still not sure how to beat the first monk, Hoe-mer.

That's a nice ball and chain, but it doesn't seem to go with your hit box at all

I'll struggle with him later. Nearby was another Yoma Clan chateau, which held the only candle in all the world. The match I had bought earlier turned out completely useless in the cave to the west of town. Getting to the candle was difficult, once again the tower had one particular set of enemies that proved the game wasn't going to let me off easily.

Here, have some invisible enemies that shoot projectiles

With candle in hand I made my way through the cave. I was surprised to find myself face-to-face with a samurai. Not that a samurai in this world is surprising (especially when there are other enemies that are much more out of place). It was the fact the battle was turn-based. Here I thought that was saved for bosses, and that's what I mistook my first encounter for without realizing the game had changed the rules.

Tiger Tank is much more surprising

I realized after I beat the samurai, and squandered half my healing bun reserves, that these were random encounters. There's absolutely no reason to even consider battling enemies in this fashion. I ran from them all; even QP Fox, who seems to be some kind of special enemy as he's the only one named when I fight him in action battles.

Normally it just says 'enemies'

Are you the same QP Fox, or does QP stand for something?

A desert awaited me on the other side of the dark cave. Here the game decided it would bestow both types of luck on me. With an obscene encounter rate I worried I might not make it very far, but I was able to run from the majority without issue. The remainder I battled or used a skateboard to escape. I passed by the Fire Castle, and made my way to the town of Chatzy.

I double dog dare you!

It's strange to reach a town this deep into the game, and find it nearly devoid of better equipment. There are a couple of new throwing items, but they're much too expensive and very situational. A fire shield looked promising; however, when I tried to purchase it I was told the mirror shield I had would sell for four times the amount, and thought better of giving up such a prize.

I'm starting to wonder how long this game actually is

To the north of town is another cave, but my candle wasn't bright enough to light the way. Instead, a shop in town sells a torch for 1000 sen, and I only had 100. I figured it was a good time to head back to the evil queen while I try to save up for the torch.

This must be the deeper darker cave

This time around the evil queen didn't stand a chance. The combination of six levels, Lee's Robe, and Talisman Sigma allowed me to dodge and deflect nearly every attack. It was quite the 180.

This is the last half of the deflection antimation...
nice try Google... anyone know an easy way to create GIFs? If so, I'll promise more animations

As promised, more animations.
This is with Easy Gif Animator, which seems to mostly work, but in the 2 minutes I played around with it I can't find a way to adjust framerate (this is at about half speed). I still have 18 uses left on the free trial though, so unless another option presents itself I'll keep messing with it.

With the evil queen banished, the lily spirits took back their castle. The melody that played afterwards was very pleasant.

One might almost say it's almost magical... like, magic... of Scheherazade... go buy our other game

I now had the antidote, but when I arrived in town I realized there was no way to actually use it. I was told to put it into the spring, but how? Maybe I just wasn't at the right place, maybe there was a hidden area to the town, maybe if I just trip into the lake...

Uhh, 'use' button? Where are you?

Maybe if I just stumble upon the correct square

With the antidote in the spring everyone in town returned to normal, or at least their own version of normal.

Don't worry about Jimmy, he's always been that way

The mayor was very eager to thank me, offering anything I desired in reward for my service. I requested the prism bell, and now we're up to three. I'm fairly sure one resides with Blu Boltar, and I know for certain the blue bell is at Shorin. This means I'm only about half way through the game. Maybe I can get through it this week.

The password is now taking up all character spaces

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