Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos is a side-scrolling action platformer developed and published by Tecmo for the NES in 1990. Playing as Ryu Hayabusa, you pursue the villain Ashtar through six acts of platform combat, armed with the Dragon Sword and a small arsenal of ninja sub-weapons. The game is best remembered for two things: its wall-climbing mechanic, which opened up vertical level design, and its anime-style story cutscenes, which gave the sequel a narrative momentum unusual in cartridge games of the era.
How to play
Move with the arrow keys. Z swings the Dragon Sword, X jumps, Shift cycles sub-weapons (fire wheels, windmill shuriken, and others), and Enter pauses or starts. Hold toward a wall while airborne to grab it; press jump again to spring to another surface. Sub-weapons draw from the Ninja Power gauge; the Ninpo icon unleashes a screen-filling magic attack that drains the gauge completely.
Shadow clones appear as mid-stage power-ups. Collect them — you can carry up to two — and they mirror your movement and attacks, effectively multiplying your damage output.
Tips
- Never skip a shadow clone. Two clones make every boss fight dramatically faster, and bosses in the later acts have no grace period between phases.
- Wall-cling carefully. Enemies that hit Ryu while he is gripping a wall knock him straight into any pit below — it counts as a death regardless of remaining health.
- Continuing restarts the current act from stage one, not the stage you died on. In acts five and six, where you face boss rushes, entering with full Ninpo and at least some health is worth replaying an earlier stage to achieve.
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