Console Corner: The Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors review

A love letter to 80s and 90s gaming.
Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gamingNinja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gaming
Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gaming

Gamers of the 80s and 90s will remember the beat-em-up classic Ninja Warriors, well now it has been reinvented for Nintendo Switch and PS4.

Ninja Saviors: The Return of the Warriors was released last week and immediately grabbed my attention.

I don’t know if it is because my daughter starts secondary school this week or whether the Switch has rekindled the gaming joy of my youth but I have found myself increasingly drawn to retro nostalgic gaming of late.

Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gamingNinja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gaming
Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gaming

So this remaster of the 1994 SNES classic, which itself was a console port of the 1987 arcade game, was right up my street.

And it did not disappoint.

The plot - for those new to the game - is prime 80s/90s beat-em-up.

In a dystopian future, the world is dominated by a dictatorial regime ruled by a dwarfish mutant creature who calls himself Banglar the Tyrant.

Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gamingNinja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gaming
Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gaming

Banglar commands an army of brainwashed human soldiers, vicious mutants and non-sentient combat robots.

It is up to you to restore order. And you have a choice of five very different characters to help you do just that.

Ninja is a hulking tank armed with nunchucks perfect for steaming through hordes of bad guys.

The more lithe Kunoichi offers a more agile playing style and deadly jump attacks.

Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gamingNinja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gaming
Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gaming

Kamaitachi boasts a scythe and speed of attack. There are also another two additional characters to choose from in ROTW in the form of Yaksha - a very short female ninja with extending arms - and Raiden, who is a colossal mechanised shinobi ninja robot. NSROTW features enhanced graphics as you would expect but also adds new gameplay elements.

There is 16:9 widescreen support, local two-player co-op mode and a rather cool option to select music from the arcade and SNES games.

The crowning achievement, though, is the depth to the combat. If beat-em-ups from the 80s and 90s died a death in the noughties it was solely down to a lack of depth. Button mashing became a thing of the past and the repetitive nature of these side-scrolling fighting games quickly became old hat.

In NSROTW, though, there is a quite frankly unbelievable amount of depth to the combat, to the point I’m not even sure I have fully discovered all the moves and combos yet and I’ve been playing solidly for over a week.

Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gamingNinja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gaming
Ninja Saviors Return of the Warriors is a love letter to 80s and 90s gaming

I have been playing on the Switch and it has been great having a game that is excellent both docked and in handheld mode.

NSROTW is competitively priced (£16.99 digital download) and if you want to immerse yourself in some genuine top class nostalgic action, look no further, it won’t let you down.

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