Ninja Gaiden (NES) James and Mike Mondays 

It was fun watching Mike do his runs of this on Twitch. The no sub weapon, no death run was tense.

Before you think, you must FEEL

The AVGN Ninja Gaiden Episode was so great precisely because the Nerd could't beat Ninja Gaiden even with the help of the ninja master. :D So it all worked out in the end.

I want to see James fulfill his destiny and beat this game once and for all!

I got this for Christmas the year it came out, played it all day and only made it to the end boss on stage 3. My neighbor came over that night and we were up until about 1 and he got us to level 6. Finally called it a night and he asked to borrow it and the next morning I called him and asked if he played it anymore and he said he beat it. Called BS and when he came over later that day he popped it in and beat it with ease. Dude could master any side scroller in just a few hours.

My all-time favorite castle crumble animation isn't even in a video game, but in a pinball machine. In Medieval Madness, when you shoot a pinball into the castle with a lowered drawbridge and open gate, the towers all spring outward and back up repeatedly while all the lights flash. And the machine holds your ball the whole time so you can enjoy the whole thing before it spits your ball back out to you.

I love how cinematic it tries to be even though it is on the NES. It paved the way for more games to have cutscenes and an engaging story along with the gameplay.

This is like when you're showing your parents how awesome you are at a game and they love you so much that they are trying to be supportive and look interested.

A lot of that stuff connects. In Vampire Hunter D from 1985 there's a crumbling castle at the end and Lupin the 3rd and the Castle of Cagliostro has sunken, Roman ruins hidden next to the castle, which is all very reminiscent of the Castlevania games that were made shortly after.

It seems James is actually following the ninja path. He just see, feel, think with his arms crossed while Mike plays the game, this is just perfect, we love that.

Damn, Mike just bulldozing the game while casually chatting.

27:31 I swear Mike says "Annnd clunk, we're here" which would be an awesome subconscious shout-out to Arcus.

The fact that you were able to beat Jaquio all in one try is amazing, Im impressed

If you think about it.. it's pretty surprising how impressive this game is. Short but powerful cut scenes at that time and without eternal loading screens, getting right back in the action packed gameplay. It really is a true excelent for all these years that this game has been around. I believe that many games can learn from this and apply it to the new generation of games. Shorter loading screens and short but powerful stories in-between gameplay to make a game truly fascinating and spectacular to retain the power for years. Thanks for this video James & Mike, awesome to see Ninja Gaiden content back, cheers!

Majora's Mask broke James' soul. 😃😃😃😃

Get the spin slash Get the spin slash Get the spin slash

The big winsmill throwing star has a use - if you dodge it on its return, it'll whip around wildly trying to get back to you, and you can sometimes clear a whole room just by avoiding it. It also wrecks "non-boss" parts of bosses, like the gake demon dog ot the head/tail of the final boss in one hit.

Man, Mike made that look easy and explained everything so well it actually gave me a bit of a confidence boost to dust it off and try it again. I’m like James and just gave up after a certain point lol

I love how Mike guided James through the games showing him tips.

"Ryu, your safe!" What about his safe?

"I want you to see the whole thing from beginning to end" *skips intro*

27:31 I see we have another Arcus fan.

Watching Mike talk through how to play this game was like watching a humble professional pianist, who doesn't know how good he is, teaching a friend about the depth of complex concertos when all they really asked him for was some beginner tips for party entertainment.

if you haven't played the game you can't imagine how difficult this is

Way to go Mike on your no deaths no sub weapon run

James and Mike Mondays is my favorite series in your channel. Just two friends playing a game together and having fun.

Ninja Gaiden has one of the best music in NES. Stage 4-2 was so hype back in the day. Im even left speechless that the NES can even produce such great sounds. The beat was fantastic.

Watched Mike beat this with no deaths or sub weapons. Guy is a champ

*Yes.* Please do more book stuff James.

The Ninja Gaiden Nerd episode is easily in my top 3 Nerd episodes, so good.

27:33 Thumbs up if you got the "clunk" reference😁

I used to get that red star and jump or duck when it comes back... creates a poor man's shield if you keep avoiding catching it

One of my first games for NES

Loved playing this game when I was a kid but I could never beat it! Loved watching this.

The game is only over when you make it over

Classic game, but some levels can be sheer torture

The reason for the final boss health refill is because, once a boss is beaten, the gae is programmed to refill your health and drain your weapon energy to tally up an end-of-stage score. Note that you lose your subweapon after any one of the three endbosses, too. WHen you come back in a different life, however, it doesn't make you refight the bosses you've beaten, so that "reset" simply does not happen.

AVGN: Ninja Gaiden Part II...Revenge of the Nerd...?!

So many hours of my childhood were spent on this game! I remember being blown away by the cut scenes, especially the one where Ryu’s father and the other ninja jump and clash in the air and one falls...

@32:42 - hearing Mike explain what took me like 3 solid weeks of constant grinding is humbling, liberating, and maddening all at the same time 👻

Wait... YOU CAN JUST HOLD THE BUTTON TO WALLJUMP?!!!... FUUUUUCK!!! My whole life has been a lie.

I could never finish this game I’d get close but never did it.Much respect to everyone who has beat this game cause it used to haunt my dreams in 1989

I finally get to see people who shared the same memories as me. This is cool man. Revenge Of The Shinobi was another one.

Drinking game: shot every time you hear the word "spinslash!"

Everyone that beats this game should get a medal.

Merry Christmas James and Mike and everyone at Cinemassacre

It’s kinda wholesome that the whole point of the video is basically a friend showing another friend they can beat a hard game. “I just want to show you I can beat it. And talk about it.”

My tricks to beat ninja gaiden if you died on the final boss is just to get back to the door before the boss and die, so you'll get full health back, and it's not a long run to return to the end boss, so it's fairly easy to get back to the boss full health. (and if i'm not mistaken there's a potion on the last screen before the boss)

James is Just Sitting There Thinking "When's It My Turn?"

If you guys are looking for a Ninja Gaiden esque movie you should give Revenge of the Ninja a shot. Ninja comes to America and tracks down an evil ninja in at the time contemporary New York I believe, but could be mistaken. Its 80's cheese and kinda schlocky at times but its probably the closest to a Ninja Gaiden movie we ever got.

Mike is a beast!

The birds in this game are the reason why every time I see a dead bird on the sidewalk, I feel a little better inside.

Mike, you were using the down-slash trick (the one to get repeated slashes) a lot to hit the orb and the final boss, but it's unfortunate you didn't explain that trick to James because that's a very important trick to know for this boss.

Blaster Master & Ninja Gaiden are my fav NES games. Both hard AF games I never finished.

He beat Ninja Gaiden without dying? Okay that is more impressive than beating Battletoads and I have beaten Battletoads before.

I remember a (maybe) glitch I exploited as a kid, climb as high on a side wall as possible and let Jaquio hit me so I'd be knocked up in the corner. All I had to do then was slash when he flew by, neither he nor fireballs could touch. As a kid, this was my favorite series after Castlevania & Mega Man. Legendary difficulty. Thanks, great vid!

Take a shot every time he says spin slash

11:47 they missed a golden opportunity for a “knowing is half the battle” joke

Saw this when Mike was playing it on his own with no sub weapon and no deaths. O_O Fun watching him beat it again but in whatever form. ^_^ Ninja master indeed.

As a Ninja Gaiden speedrunner it is fun to see Mike do some speedrun tricks in this video.

Everybody knows about the Jasons (named "Jackson" in the game) in the first two Ninja Gaidens, but nobody even mentions that this first game also has the Blind Dead!

Episode idea: James, "The Nerd", beats Ninja Gaiden and then trains the ninja to beat it... Making the AVGN the true ninja!

Merry Christmas, James and Mike! Thanks for everything the past 10+ years!

I got into this game real heavy because of you guys. One game that’s super difficult, but also super fun. Thanks for everything.

I beat this game back in the day - literally about 25 years ago - picking it up again about year ago I still have the muscle memory to play the game like it was yesterday. You have to play it soooo much that once you get to the level to beat it, it'll be with you forever.

This was crazy to watch through. It's amazing how easy Mike makes it look, but I know how much harder it is when you actually try it.

One of the things I've always loved about these videos is the fact they DON'T use constant jumpcuts! Feels so much more natural and real without them. Keep it this way!!

This episode is food for my soul, i found out about “AVGN” randomly searching about ninja gaiden around 2013 and ive been hooked since!!!!...... Hey mike love watching your full game play throughs, cant wait for mike and tony tuesday’s tomorrow

James seems highly interested in learning all the speedrunning tricks

This was one of my favorite games from my childhood. ❤ The directing and music of this game are awesome. I went back Ann. Played. It a couple of years ago and the directing was the thing that blew me away, then the music. I think this game is responsible for me liking games that make me angry haha.

I remember doing all those tricks as a kid. So many ninja gaiden memories. 👹

There are so many games I couldn't beat back when I was little, and this was one of them. Only took 38 years to do it lol. Great run Mike. Have a great Christmas guys.

Looks like Mike memorized everything in the game.

Fav NES game

That "who's there" girl after level 1, I always thought she looked like 80's Geddy Lee.

UTSCENE THAT JAMES DID NOT SEE: Ryu's father tells him that (now that Jaquio is dead) he needs to take the two demon statues and throw them out of the temple before the eclipse occurs. But the ecipse happens, everything starts to shake, and then you fight the demon as the final boss. I liked the way they did it in II with the bad guy's blood activating the altar.

Mike's a fucking legend. Made it look easy. lol

Mike said to never use the red star sub weapon but there's a way to use it, you can used it as a continues attack - -the way this works is to use the rebound of the weapon by jumping over it when it returns and let it pass ( either over your head or jump over it) if you get to know the extremity of the red stars reach you can actually use it as a spinslash remote. i did some crazy shit with this game as a kid xD i practically only got new games on christmas so replaying games was all i did - also i had social anxiety so making friends was difficult :( - so the games were my diversion i remember playing batman returns on Snintendo so much that the windows jumping stage (can't remember the name for the life of me) was as easy as stage one ( -^^)> also i had about 7 of those smoke vails since i never used them, the only difficult part was the batmobile chase because let's face it, it was a blur most the time and you never are sure if that corner was to narrowly taken or to wide and you end up hitting the @#*&^%$#+ lights! xD . I wholeheartedly remember fondly those days were i just came back from school and played kung fu ninja, gaiden, castlevania bionic commando, contra and many more ^^ now you have to cherry pick to find a entertaining like those not that there aren't but mostly they are hard to find

Really enjoy watching Mike play Ninja Gaiden these past few times. He makes it look easy.

Ninja Gaiden NES game series is one of a hardest games I have ever played. But I have enjoyed this much in my childhood. These NES games are still popular among 80's born people....

Ok, next: beat the game wearing Bugs Bunny suit.

I loved the OVA of this game

Eventually, after many playthroughs, I realized how the final stretch works. If you beat the final boss’s first form, but lose to the second, you’ll be sent back. But, once you replay that section, you won’t have to beat the first form again. You’ll go straight to the final form. And, if you die in the last area, you’ll recover in the same spot. It’s only when you die at the final boss that you’re sent ALL the way back. There’s a weird strategic element in staying within the final stretch of stages. Replay until you’re always facing the final boss’s final form. Then, just approach with the Flames ninpo and sufficient ammo. You’re good.

God this game was so hard when i was a kid. I never did get to see the whole game. Glad you did this video

You're winner!

The best ninja gaiden game guide ever!! Matei is like a god to me right now!!

The Ninja Gaiden episode is what got me into AGVN for life, so its cool to see Mike actually go through all the tips to efficiently get through everything AVGN was screaming about. This is cool AF.

It's nice to see someone give this game the respect and attention it deserves, tbh. Thanks, Mike and James!

Bruh... after 30 years, James has never seen the end game cut scenes... and you skip it like it's nothing. I understand you're integral to the videos these days, (and we fans appreciate it)... but who does that?! ... Thank you for all your hard work over the years.

Beating Ninja Gaiden without dying makes beating Battletoads look like child's play

Mike has gotten so good at these old games, it's crazy.

30:38 🎵 "And it you ever saw it.. You would even say it glows! (Like a lightbulb!)" 🎶

Harder than the XBOX version, cause you can't Izuna drop your way through problems

Its cool, interesting, and even kinda hilarious that a video of a couple of men approaching 40 talking about a game that is older than probably many of the people watching has thousands of views on the internet! ROCK ON DUDES!

You forgot one thing, James, you can save you magic power and weapons for whatever final boss you didn't destroy yet. The second final boss is almost impossible with no special weapons, but become way easier with enough rising fireballs.

Wow, that's a good speed run, and to think Mike only lost 1 single life and get to beat all 3 bosses on the first encounter with them and without sub weapons is amazing!

The punishment for dying on the final boss was, in fact, a glitch. But whoever was in charge looked at it, thought it was awesome and decided to keep it in the game. What an asshole. The SNES version doesn't have this bullshit (though it sucks hard enough as it is). EDIT: Found the actual proof on the game's wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_Gaiden_(NES_video_game) , search for the word "glitch"

If I'm not wrong... the conversation at the beginning of the video about the final boss... if you do die and get sent back to 6-1, if you make it back to the boss on the same continue, it doesn't refill your health but you do at least get to continue on the form that you were on when you died instead of having to do all three again. Also, generally the game is smartly designed so that the sub-weapon that they give you is immediately useful for the situation that you're going to be put in... it's not true 100% of the time, but generally it is.

Take a shot every time Mike says “spin-slash”

Wow. When me and my brother used to play this when we were kids we always used to call the fire weapon the "Christmas Tree" because it looked like a lit up tree the way the sub-weapon logo looked. I still call it the Christmas tree. It's sticking right up!