Timeless Vengeance , Hatred And Too Difficult – Last Ninja Trilogy –

“Everything was better in the past.”
It’s a phrase I’ve heard countless times from older generations—and while there may be a grain of truth to it, it’s also far from the whole story. So, how well does that sentiment hold up when it comes to retro gaming?

Revisiting the games of your childhood can be a mixed experience. Some titles that once felt groundbreaking might now come across as clunky or frustrating. What was once mind-blowing can sometimes feel painfully outdated. In some cases, it’s best to leave those memories untouched—cherished snapshots of a time when gaming felt magical, not measured by frame rates or pixel counts.

This is my retrospective of The Last Ninja Trilogy for the Amiga.

Last Ninja 2 was and still is one of the best games of all time on the Commodore 64, the Amiga port/version, on the other hand, was one of the major letdowns back in the day of C64 to Amiga ports.

Last Ninja 2 was the first game in the series to make its way to the Amiga, and fans—myself included—were beyond excited when it was announced. A 16-bit version of one of the most impressive 8-bit titles of its time? It sounded like a dream come true. Sadly, that dream turned out to be more of a rude awakening.

What we got was a lazy port. The graphics were a huge letdown, with the Amiga version looking virtually identical to the Atari ST release—clearly a case of minimal effort and zero platform optimisation.

The music, while technically of higher quality, still fell short of its full potential. That said, it remains the highlight of the Amiga version and stands as the game’s strongest redeeming feature.

The gameplay, well, it does look, feel and sound like a ” Last Ninja ” game, but as soon as you start “playing” it, that is when you realise how bad this port is. Everything feels “off” and slow, how they managed to make the redraw so slow is beyond me. There was no need to emulate this part of the C64 version, now was it?.

The controls simply do not work, i felt as if i was about to break the controller when i just moved around, and this was back in the day when the game came out. i really don’t want to think about how my 40-year-old hands would tolerate it today.

Together with all the above came a very imprecise fighting system and jumping system, which made the game much more difficult than it should have been, and that comes from a really hard game in the first place.

The second Last Ninja game to be released on the Amiga was Ninja Remix.

Ninja Remix is actually Last Ninja 1 and was released a few months after Last Ninja 2 on the Amiga; it was supposed to fix all the bad press from the former Amiga release.

Ninja Remix had a new developer and a new engine, and to top it all off, the developer had the chance to fix stuff that they and System 3 did not like from the original C64 title.

Ninja Remix came out as a better release from the start; it felt much more refined and even managed to make some parts of the game better than the original C64 version. Why they chose a new developer and a new engine for this release was pretty obvious and certainly not a bad move. This game turned out to be the best Ninja release on the Amiga.

So, did everything finally come together? Not quite.

While Ninja Remix looked promising, the gameplay still felt dated. Yes, the original C64 version had its quirks, but this port did little to modernise or refine them. If the goal was to stay faithful to the original, then mission accomplished—but personally, I think a few smart tweaks could have gone a long way.

That said, the graphics and movement mechanics were a clear improvement over Last Ninja 2 on the Amiga. For once, it felt actually playable, without triggering the urge to smash your joystick in frustration.

The soundtrack hits the right notes too, respectfully reimagining the iconic C64 music while making the most of the Amiga’s superior audio hardware.

All things considered, Ninja Remix stands out as the best entry in the Last Ninja series on the Amiga.

Last Ninja 3 is a tough nut to write about.

The C64 version of this game was the first one with a new developer; the old team had left the series, so a new team jumped in, a very risky move and one that could ruin the whole franchise. The C64 version ended up as one of the best-rated games of all time with an average score of 94% (?).

The Amiga version once again arrived with a new engine, a new developer, and—true to form—a release date just months after the previous game.

By the time this instalment hit the shelves, most Amiga gamers had adopted a cautious attitude. The hype wasn’t quite there this time around; it felt more like a “let’s wait and see before we get excited” kind of situation.

But that didn’t last long. Just hours after its release, BBS boards lit up—not just with the usual activity (piracy rumours included, perhaps), but with genuine excitement from fans. Comments like “IT’S AMAZING!”, “THERE ARE NEW LEVELS!” and “THEY FIXED EVERYTHING!” started flooding in. The buzz was real.

There were quite a few things about LN3 that intrigued me; it was not identical to the C64 version, it had a new level that was not in the C64 version, and it had more bosses and such in it.

The Amiga version turned out to be another broken game, sadly. The control system was far from good, even though they tried to make it better than the old games.

The new level was cool at first, but it ended up being far too difficult/frustrating for its own good.

LN3 bored me back then, and i bet it would do so today also.

I really wanted to love this game, and to be fair, it is a good game. But at the same time, it felt like another missed opportunity. It stayed true to the franchise, which is commendable, but I kept asking myself: why didn’t they take the chance to evolve it more? A deeper redesign or some bold changes could have made a world of difference.

I should also mention that I never fully clicked with the C64 version either. Yes, I did complete the cartridge version back in the day, and I’ll admit—it felt great to beat it. But the Amiga version? I never made it to the end. Why? Honestly, I can’t say for sure. Most likely, it came down to a mix of boredom and frustration that eventually wore me down.

The Cd32 version of LN3 came with a walkthrough for level 1 in the game, a nice touch since the console was more aimed at the casual market than the Amiga computers per se.  Was it needed, though?.

The puzzles in LN2 and 3 were better than in the first game; you had to play it a bit to figure it out.

The CD32 version came 3 years after the floppy version and for the new chipset (AGA), but it didn’t take any advantage of it, just like all System3 games on the CD32. A few MB on the whole CD was used and the only thing that was changed was the cover art.

A missed opportunity yet again!.

It is amazing really, 3 of the best games ever created ported into an average series in another format, and no, i am not being overly harsh here.

The games are ok enough, but compared to the masterpieces that the C64 versions are, one has to wonder what the hell went wrong. 3 different teams, 3 engines and a whole new format, and it turned out like this?.  Amazing.

Try them for yourself, enjoy the amazing music and try to look past their faults as the games are good and certainly a fun trip down memory lane.

Thanks to Hall Of Light and Wiki for screenshots, Box shots are from my own collection as always.

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