Description of Mystic Warriors ROM - MAME

It’s near future. An evil organization known as the ‘Skull Corporation’ wants to seize the world with hordes of evil ninjas. You, the player, are one of the five remaining ‘good’ ninjas, who can stop it. And as one of your friends gets kidnapped by the Corporation, you set off on a journey to save your kidnapped fellow and to put an end to it all.

Feels like LSD yet? Well, then buckle up, guys, ‘cause this is going to be a hell of a ride all the way through!

Released in 1993, the Mystic Warriors are like the ultimate definition of the 1980’s action movie stylistics, music and atmosphere. A half-naked ninja chick, shurikens blazing through the air, evil corporations, crazy flamboyant clothes—Mystic Warriors got it all. And it’s a great deal of fun too; with a bit of Power Ranger-ish/James Bond-ish feel as the proverbial icing on the cake on top of it (and speaking of James Bond, especially the part where you are swooshing down a snowy mountainside on a pair of skis, with a bunch of Skull Corp. mercenaries chasing you on their snowmobiles, shooting at you, feels like a sweet ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ kind deja vú).

Now, as to what should you expect from the game (well, except from a crapload of fun); well, Mystic Warriors are a classic side scrolling shoot-em-up/brawler game (leaning more towards the shooter side of the things). At the beginning you get to choose from four available characters (one of which is the aforementioned half-naked ninja chick), and your job is to basically scroll through each level while blasting down everything that moves (and sooner or later tries to kill you). And like in any other shoot-em-up side-scroller, you collect weapon upgrades as you play (bigger and faster shurikens), and every now and then you have to confront one of the bosses the developers have prepared for you.

But what makes it so special—at least for me—is the fact that the game isn’t automatically assuming the role of a money-sucking black hole that’s trying to eat you alive, but gives you a solid chance to actually win it instead. That’s like, bravo Konami, video-game business done well. Instead of making the game ridiculously hard and forcing you to buy more and more lives, Konami took rather different approach, and concentrated on producing such a good and reasonably difficult product, that even though the players can beat it under thirty minutes or so, with only like two or three coins, they’ll soon be back to play it once again.

The sounds and the visuals are quite good as well. The colors are ‘early-90’s-style overly-vibrant’, but here—unlike in Sunset Riders, for example—I feel like it actually suits the cheesy near-future ninja theme rather well, and therefore I’m not criticizing it.

All and all,guys. whatever you’re just doing, stop and hit that download button bellow, for this is something you simply have to check out!

[veo]