Game Review: Wrath of the Black Manta (NES)

Made by Taito, I have to say this game is terrible.

First of all, when I look at this game I see a Ninja that is apparently this Black Manta, you can even see this for yourself



Now when I start the game I get some cool music and a Taito title screen, alright let's skip that, I want to play the game. Well guess what you can't, for 15 seconds of your life you have to wait for the Taito title screen to finish sitting there with trademark and credit info. Then after that you get a dialogue scene, no not the cool cut scenes of today, just pixel based pictures and slow scrolling dialogue. That's not a problem, but it was so long I skipped it even though it must have been important. It actually happens in the game a bit too, I skip those as well.

Now as for starting the game, you can see from the box art that is apparently the Black Manta, actually no it isn't. Funny as it is, you are a PURPLE CLAD NINJA. How can you be taken seriously as a ninja if you wear purple, if he was my assassin i'd have my last laugh right there and then.

Okay, gameplay wise the game gets worse. Enemies go down with one hit but because there are two areas on screen you can stand, the enemies can jump up to. The problem is they can jump up into you, making you take damage. They also follow you through doors and wait at the door to shoot you to, it's that annoying. And as for some of the special moves you have, it's near impossible to make them work right. What you do is that you hold down the B button, the only weapon or attack button at all, and you use the D pad to specifically pick out a power. Half the time I ended up cloning myself and having my purple clad ninja clone standing on top of my head, and he does nothing. And you can't just shoot, it has to build up in strength which doesn't work for this game unless you want to risk showing off and dying. The enemies attack fast enough to make each attempt at using a special power pointless, and sometimes the attacks don't work the first time.

Whats even worse about this game is that your so slow when walking, it seems so delayed. I died way too fast in this game, ferocity won't help you in this game, you have to patiently and carefully lure the enemies toward you while dodging their attacks and killing them with two tries at the minimum. They respawn if you stand there too.

Geez, this game sucks. I'm giving it a 1 out of 5 for being poorly executed in every way. This is the company that made space invaders and jungle hunt for god's sake, some may feel differently than me about this game, but it just sucked for me. If you want to trade something for it, i'll take anything over it.