Ninja Gaiden - One Life Challenge, beat the game

So the official "One credit challenge" over at the (new, improved!) talking time forums is gone, but one member issued a challenge that I took personally. He managed to beat a game, not just on one credit, but on one life. It wasn't just any game - it was Ninja Gaiden.

This game has such amazing memories for me. I got it for my 10th birthday and loved it almost immediately. It just jumped out at me. This platformer featuring a ninja (during the late 80s/early 90s, ninjas were automatically awesome) totally did it for me. It played wonderfully, despite there being some glitches that showed through at the corners. The sticking to walls gave it its own unique feel. And the scenes in between levels (cinema scenes, the instruction booklet called them), gave the game a story as good as my ten year old mind would have hoped for. They made me identify so much more with the main character, Ryu Hayabusa. I used to play through the game, speaking all the dialogue in the cinema scenes, giving each character a different voice (Ryu's voice was my natural voice, of course).

To sum up, I love this game (and its sequels). I love it so much that used to play through it yearly (lately that has changed to bi- or tri-yearly). I love it so much that I use its seminal cinema scene as my avatar in any video game related forum I post to (see the picture in the upper left corner of the title of this blog).

When I heard someone else had done something that I had never done with this game - with my game! - I knew I could not let that stand. So I girded myself and played the game for the first time since 2004.

And I was rusty - It took me two tries to even beat it on one credit.

Finally having done that again, I knew there was one obstacle I would have to overcome in order to beat it on one life: beating Jacquio with no ninja art. You see, at the end of the game is a boss rush of sorts. After you get through stage 6-3, you face the Masked Devil, the Jacquio, and then the demon Jashin one right after another. Your health is restored after each battle, but after the first one, you lose your ninja art and all ninja magic power. So basically, if you want to beat the game on one life, you need to be able to beat the Jacquio and the demon with just your sword. I had beaten the demon with only a sword before, but never the Jacquio.

I tried several times on my own to come up with a strategy to beat him. I was getting a little further, but the best I was able to do was knock him down to half his health. Feeling slightly defeated, I decided to look up some FAQs to see if they could help. Getting a strategy from one of them, I attempted to put that to use. I failed, but I saw how it could be implemented to win. After two or three more tries, I had finally defeated Jacquio with just the dragon sword.

Now came the hard part of beating it in one life. You see, while I pretty much know the game inside and out, things can change slightly depending on what pixel you are on when you jump. And nobody is perfect. So I made many mistakes, dying in levels before the end. When I finally got to the end bosses, I had trouble with the demon and died there twice. Also, I decided if I were to attempt such a monumental task, I wanted to document it. I had my digital camera out and was snapping photographs to document my progress along the way. The need to do this interrupted my flow every so often and caused some death. Finally, though, I did it.

I beat Ninja Gaiden on one life.

I put together a pictorial essay to document it.

All is right in the world.