Ninja Spirit

Ninja Spirit, known in Japan as Saigo no Nindou (最後の忍道), is a 1988 platform arcade game developed and published by Irem.

Story

The game's hero, Gekkou (月光), is a young ninja who lost his father to a mysterious half-man half-beast creature. The plot of Ninja Spirit is based on the quest of his revenge in an alternative feudal Japan.

Gameplay

There are a total of seven stages varying from woodlands, wastelands, swamps, temples and cliffs. Each stage begins with the player slashing his way to the end, until he confronts a level boss.

The ninja is always armed with the sword Righteous Cloud which can be fluidly used to attack in all directions. Extra weapons include the Swirling Leaf (shurikens), the Bamboo Thunder (bombs), and the Rising Dragon (kusarigama). There are also several powerup items, such as one unleashing multiple ninja ghosts to assist the player.

Ports and related releases

The game was successfully ported onto multiple platforms. The most popular port is the TurboGrafx-16 format which includes two styles of mode: the PC engine mode which provides a lengthy healthbar, and the Arcade mode, which is a more challenging mode where the ninja dies with the slightest contact. That version was ported to the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console on May 14, 2007, was delisted on March 30, 2012 and was available again on September 17, 2013 in Japan and on September 19, 2013 in North America and Europe.

Spirit

The English word spirit, from Latin spiritus "breath", has many different meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body. It can also refer to a "subtle" as opposed to "gross" material substance, as in the famous last paragraph of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica.

The word spirit is often used metaphysically to refer to the consciousness or personality. The notions of a person's spirit and soul often also overlap, as both contrast with body and both are believed to survive bodily death in some religions, and "spirit" can also have the sense of "ghost", i.e. a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person.

The term may also refer to any incorporeal or immaterial being, such as demons or deities. In the Bible, "the Spirit" (with a capital "S"), specifically denotes the Holy Spirit.

Etymology

The English word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning "breath", but also "spirit, soul, courage, vigor", ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European *(s)peis. It is distinguished from Latin anima, "soul" (which nonetheless also derives from an Indo-European root meaning "to breathe", earliest form *h₂enh₁- ). In Greek, this distinction exists between pneuma (πνεῦμα), "breath, motile air, spirit," and psykhē (ψυχή), "soul" (even though the latter term, ψῡχή = psykhē/psūkhē, is also from an Indo-European root meaning "to breathe": *bhes-, zero grade *bhs- devoicing in proto-Greek to *phs-, resulting in historical-period Greek ps- in psūkhein, "to breathe", whence psūkhē, "spirit", "soul").

Ninja

A ninja (忍者) or shinobi (忍び) was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of the ninja included: espionage, sabotage, infiltration, assassination and guerrilla warfare. Their covert methods of waging irregular warfare were deemed "dishonorable" and "beneath" the samurai-caste, who observed strict rules about honor and combat. The shinobi proper, a specially trained group of spies and mercenaries, appeared in the Sengoku or "warring states" period, in the 15th century, but antecedents may have existed in the 14th century, and possibly in the 12th century (Heian or early Kamakura era).

In the unrest of the Sengoku period (15th–17th centuries), mercenaries and spies for hire became active in the Iga Province and the adjacent area around the village of Kōga, and it is from the area's clans that much of our knowledge of the ninja is drawn. Following the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate (17th century), the ninja faded into obscurity. A number of shinobi manuals, often based on Chinese military philosophy, were written in the 17th and 18th centuries, most notably the Bansenshukai (1676).