According to my Nintendo Switch profile page, I’ve spent 80 hours or more on the NES online colleciton service thing, and a whopping 85 hours or more on the SNES version! And that’s because I think they’re great, and the fact that most of the internet seems to think the opposite because they don’t include Earthbound and other such apparent classics makes it all the more great to me! If I could have any game on there though, it would be F1 ROC: Race of Champions on SNES, closely following by its definitive version of Test Drive II (more here). And not to leave the NES out, I’d take its version of Silent Service. The rest I’m happy to leave to Nintendo, with their often slightly bizarre curation creating a perfect platform for discovery once you’re past all their classics.

I can immediately attribute a lot of the time spent on SNES to Super Mario World, which I fired up out of general interest having never played it before when the service launched a year after the NES one in September 2019, then spent the next two weeks obsessing over finding all 96 exits. I did enjoy a new way to play a lot of old favourites like Mario Kart, F-Zero, Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts and Pilotwings too, but what I’ve enjoyed the most is spending time with some new classics for me, most notably Mario’s Super Picross, Demon’s Crest, Stunt Race and Pop ‘n Twinbee. And I’ve still got The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on my to-do list!

Speaking of Zelda, the original probably stands out for most time spent in the NES collection, though beating my head against its sequel wouldn’t be far behind! By coincidence, I’d just finished The Legend of Zelda on the NES Classic Mini when it appeared on Switch, and immediately restarted it again… Best Zelda ever! As well as going on a bit of a bender with all the NES Marios, the other game I got properly  got hooked on here was Punch-Out, spending hours and hours learning all of its complex rhythms! There were some more great discoveries here too though – Dr Mario would quickly become a close second to only the majesty of Tetris in my favourite puzzlers list, if such a list existed yet. Don’t tempt me! There was Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong 3, Tecmo Bowl, Mighty Bomb Jack and Kid Icarus, and I know I’m in a minority with this, but I need to mention Eliminator Boat Duel here and its redneck take on Micro Machines too!

All great stuff, and I for one couldn’t ask for more of this service. But I will take that rumoured (at the time of writing in July 2021) Game Boy Advance service on top, and if Nintendo is taking requests, V-Rally 3 (no chance), Mario Kart Super Circuit (the opposite of no chance) and Game & Watch Gallery Advance as a wild card, on the assumption we’re getting the rumoured GBA Castlevania collection on there too! Just imagine Mario’s Cement Factory or Octopus in all of the Game & Watch glory on that new OLED Switch screen… Would also compensate for what seems to be a drying up on the existing services too, particularly for NES games, though if it is on its last legs, the latest drop still definitely came up trumps with Ninja JaJaMaru-kun!

This is my absolute favourite kind of game discovery – I had absolutely no idea what this was when I loaded it up for the first time, which in this case is also slightly more forgivable than some of the higher profile omissions from my gaming experience I mentioned a little earlier! Ninja JaJaMaru-kun was a Japanese-only release by Jaleco on the Famicom in 1985, then it got an MSX release in 1986, which then appeared in Europe as Ninja II, the follow up to Ninja, which was the European release of Ninja-kun: Majou no Bouken if you’re still with me! It would be insane to try and unravel this and the rest of the Ninja-kun series here in any detail, but the latter was the first in the series, translates to the very cool Ninja-kun: Adventure of Devil Castle, is also known as Ninja-Kun’s Demon Castle Adventure and Ninja Kid, and was a 1984 arcade, NES and MSX vertically scrolling platformer.

Seemingly named after a character called Fukurokouji JaJaMaru from the Japanese kids TV show Okaasan to Issho, Ninja JaJaMaru-kun sees Ninja Kid return from his hellish castle adventure only to have to rescue the captured Princess Sakura from the evil pirate lord Namazu Dayuu, which translates to something like Catfish Pirate. By the way, I think Ninja JaJaMaru-kun itself means something like stubborn round little ninja. To paraphrase the Switch game blurb, JaJaMaru (Ninja Kid’s name, I think, although I’m now losing the will to live!) must use his throwing stars to defeat the monsters plucked from Japanese folklore that are lurking in each of Dayuu’s many hideouts, each with unique weapons and attacks. The only way to advance is to break the brick floors above him (with his head), then moving up, down and around the level’s platforms the take out these fiends. These broken bricks will sometimes give you power-ups such as invincibility, speed boosts, points bonuses and extra lives, but you need to keep an eye on them because they’ll occasionally reveal a bomb too, and that’s going to obliterate you if you hang around, just like the ones that catfish boy is going to be chucking at you every so often from his perch at the top of the level. Get three different power-ups (or four extra lives) though, and you’re in the big league because this is going to buy you a ride on Gamapa-kun, the giant frog, who’s going to gobble up everything in sight! Princess Sakura will also sometimes drop flower petals from the top of the level, and three of these will take you to a bonus stage where you’re chucking your throwing stars up at Namazu for bonus points, or at a bomb which will move you to the next level.

This all manifests as something like Bubble Bobble meets New Zealand Story with a dash of Rodland (more here), and that, dear viewers, is quite the heady brew as far as I’m concerned! Now, obviously, the first time I played it I didn’t know any of this – absolutely no idea what it was! I’d prioritised that month’s three SNES games, with a quick go on what I think were Joe & Mac, Magical Drop II and Spanky’s Quest. None of them made any impression whatsover so I jumped to the NES app, pressed the “new” or whatever it is icon, a picture with a load of Japanese text on it appeared and I pressed start! My very first impression was Hammer’s 1974 horror martial arts classic The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires; another heady brew, in principle at least… “Hammer Horror! Dragon Thrills! The First Kung-Fu Horror Spectacular!” is what the poster said, and it was some of those things I suppose. Great tagline though! Anyway, the reason for this was the first level’s enemies, and I then spent literally weeks trying to remember what they reminded me of because it wasn’t Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, but it was close. And as I was writing this very paragraph, it finally came to me – the Pionpi from Super Mario Land on Game Boy, the jumping Chinese vampires that keep coming back to life, but here’s a free expert tip: Superball!

Back with Ninja JaJaMaru-kun, so far so painfully NES, but in the best possible way. Apart from the jerky scrolling maybe. But this just looks so vintage NES, with its four concrete floors interspersed with bricks that become holes that you can mostly just about jump over once they’re headbutted, and suitably Japanese decoration, from sliding paper doors to gravestones to willowy trees on a mostly solid coloured background. These will change as you progress through levels, as will the enemies; they start as our vampire ghost lady things wandering about the place fairly predictably, and you’ll kill them with a single throwing star, but as you progress you’re going to have to start upping your combat. There’ll be skeletons, what might be a penguin in a suit that I mistook for something more racist until I connected the Switch to the TV, there’s umbrella things, cyclopses and various boss-type characters, which then become regular characters on subsequent levels. They’re all colourful and distinguishable enough without being anything more than more standard NES fare, and the same goes for your little ninja kid too.

There’s not a that much that’s going to set your ears on fire, but there’s plenty of sound going on all the same. There’s a very pleasant, albeit primitive theme tune going on in the background that doesn’t last long before it starts looping, but it’s very evocative of the setting and the main melody is actually quite catchy! I expect its simplicity is in part to make some space for all the sound effects going on though; there’s a sound for everything, and when things are getting frantic as you’re chasing the level’s last monster around the platforms and Dayuu is hurling loads of bombs at you because the timer’s getting low, there’s quite the cacophony going on! At the start of each level, there’s also what I think is supposed to be Dayuu laughing at you as the enemies are positioned on the level, but it’s a bit unidentifiable!

You start out at the bottom of platforms, with eight enemies positioned around the four floors, and they’ll stay on those floors until you start breaking bricks and making holes. Kill them all and it’s next level, but from level three onwards, there’s going to be one boss enemy that takes a bit more beating. You can jump on them to stun them, but get hit by one of their weapons and you lose a life. Same if you touch any of the bombs, or take too long and the flame that appears when the timer runs out catches up with you. The first couple of levels ease you in, but then it’s going to get rough, and I’m nowhere near getting to level 21, where the game loops back to the start again.

Ninja JaJaMaru-kun is a real joy to play. The controls are responsive and put you exactly where you want to be without demanding too much precision, which is great for some of the smaller brick sections and a boss on your tail! The bosses are a great move too, being close enough to the other enemy designs in shape and size that in the height of battle, they deliver a real sense of panic when you come face-to-face with one, much like Shao-Lin’s Road (more here).

Actually, the gameplay isn’t a million miles away from that either, which might also explain why I like it so much! It quickly becomes hugely challenging and hugely addictive, and you can see exactly why it made the leap from console to arcade in 1986! It got a really cool WonderSwan remake in 1999 too, Ganso JaJaMaru-kun, which added new levels and new bosses, and I desperately need to play it! In the meantime, I’m good with the NES version on Switch because there’s no way I’m getting bored of this any time soon. And when I do, there’s still a ton of other games I’ve only scratched the surface of on the Switch Online service, so watch this space for more of them!

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