I read about this game in Nintendo Power, rented it, and loved it. I made it to the last boss and almost beat him. That was many many years ago and I was in love with ninjas at the time. I tried playing this game a couple years ago and my love for it is gone. I doesn't look as great or control like I remember. I would like to finish it though.
Retro Game of the Week: Wrath of the Black Manta
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 On 11/08/2014 at 03:41 PM by The Last Ninja See More From This User » |
You kick butt and take names in this mediocre ninja action game
If you haven't noticed, the NES is home to tons of ninja games. I guess ninjas just feel at home on the blocky 8-bit console. Among all the ninja games is Wrath of the Black Manta, developed by AI, published by Taito, and released in 1989. As is usually the case, it's an action platformer starring a radically cool ninja. WotBM (I'll simply refer to it as "Wrath") tries to be like Ninja Gaiden, but fails miserably. The action is not as fast and the cutscenes not nearly as good.
The story is very basic. Children are being kidnapped in New York City, so the ninja known as Black Manta decides to rescue them. He uses the info obtained from one of his master's students to locate some of the kids. The story is told via cutscene (similar to Ninja Gaiden), but these cutscenes are very bare bone. The same picture is used over and over again throughout the course of the game, and sometimes only a head is shown without the neck or body. Seriously? The laughable dialogue doesn't help either.
Before the game starts, you get to choose one of four special attacks, known as ninja arts. These are done with certain button presses. You can hold B to charge up your fire ring, or down B to use the art of invisibility. As the game progresses, you learn more ninja arts and can switch them at any time by pressing select. These are pretty cool, although most of them are useless and they last for too short a time to do any real damage. Ninja stars are your main weapon; Black Manta has an unlimited supply of them. Get close enough to an enemy and he'll pull out the knife!
Wrath has a much slower pace than you would think. Black Manta is not crouched and ready to move like Ryu Hayabusa; he stands upright and walks like a gentleman. You'll find notes scattered throughout the game, usually telling you to shoot at a wall to reveal a hidden door. Don't believe these notes, as shooting at walls does nothing. If you manage to grab a bad guy by the throat, Black Manta will interrogate him, but most times nothing useful comes of this.
Levels are not in simple left to right order, surprisingly. Your mission is to rescue kids, meaning you'll have to explore a little. However, this isn't Metroid, so "explore" simply means look for rooms and check them. Every now and then you'll find a kid, who will give you a hint about something. Somehow the kids you save always know about hidden doors in walls. The sprite art is also horrendous! These are some of the ugliest kids you'll ever see.
The level design in Wrath is just awful. A lot of things get recycled, such as sewers (every level has a sewers section where you jump up and down pipes). At first, the level starts with something unique, but quickly reverts to old tropes (meaning sewers). Most rooms you enter have the exact same enemy placement. All of this same-old feel makes the game drag big-time. Enemies are a bore since they use the same guys throughout the whole game and throw in some army dudes at the end to switch it up (except they still use the other guys too).
Near the end of the game, you find out that the bad guys want to get the kids mixed up with drugs. In other words, drug dealers kidnapped the kids. So Wrath actually has an anti-drug message! Kinda cool, I guess, since this was the 80s. Black Manta says "You guys are scum!" Actually, pretty much this whole game is scum.
I say "pretty much" because the boss battles are actually unique and interesting. They're bizarre, such as the second boss--a totem pole that shoots fireballs at you, and even more bizarre--a voodoo warrior who floats around and just looks creepy. How did drug dealers get these guys? The boss battles are decent, but certainly don't save the game.
Wrath does have unique parts to it, such as at the end of the game when you ride up an elevator and have a behind-the-back ninja star throwing section. But these unique parts are in the minority of the game, meaning most of the game is boring and monotonous. The music is also bad. The same song plays for every level, and that song gets annoying! Finally, to defeat the boss of the game, you have to use four different ninja arts on him. Which ones? How? I couldn't figure it out, sadly. This bizarre game is beyond me!!!
Final Verdict--3 Stars: It's Okay
And so, Wrath of the Black Manta gets my wrath. This game is scum. With a ho-hum story, terrible dialogue, awful level design, and sheer monotony, this is one ninja game which needs to stay in the shadows. It's not completely awful, but those good moments are far too rare. Even those cool ninja arts can't save it. What a shame, Black Manta, what a shame. And those kids! Creepy!
Join me every Saturday as we take a look back at all kinds of retro games, good and bad.
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