Ninja Gaiden

Let's face it, ninjas are just cool. They get those awesome face masks that show nothing but their eyes (which always have a constant "I'm really pissed off" expression on them), they get katana blades, they jump around at lightning speed- and I haven't even mentioned those badass throwing stars yet. Ninja's just rule- you would have to be brain dead to not realize how they can very easily make for some great entertainment, both in video games and movies. Take the short movie "Ninja Gaiden" by the popular Gorosaurus for example. There's something inexplicabley cool about this movie that keeps you glued to the screen from the moment you press play. Everything about this movie has an unbelievable cool factor- from the way the dragon sword does that whoosh thing when it's used, to the 2d-ish scenes of Ryu scanning the city, to the mind blowing explosive final scene. There is nothing about this movie that doesn't kick ass, that said, I could really just stop the review here and tell you to go download it, but then you would feel cheated wouldn't you (just humour me and say "yes", I'd like to think I didn't write these last four paragraphs for nothing...)? Truthfully, this movie deserves a multi-paragraph rant about its greatness- so let's start the with the raining down of praises.

The storyline, despite being pretty basic, works for this type of action/revenge movie. A ninja named Ryu learns that his father is killed, and an old man in the city supposedly knows who killed him, so, obviously, Ryu takes his dragon sword (which is kind of like the love child of a katana blade and a lightsaber, being as you have to press a button on it's side to make it "appear", making for an effect I NEVER get sick of) and heads off to find this old man and avenge his father's death. It's not exactly an epic tale full of twists and turns but it's enough to give all of the neat looking ninja action a sense of purpose. I'll be honest, the only real problem with this movie is the fact that it ends so quickly. I wish that there was more to the story, but I guess I'll just have to wait for the sequal (please tell me the release date is "soon" and not "when it's done").

Animation is barely even worth writing about- not because it sucks, but because everyone KNOWS this is a Gorosaurus movie, so therefore the animation is freaking godly by default. Everything looks incredible, but in the same way that makes a paint can realistically knocking over and bouncing around on the ground more impressive than a 200 foot tall alien in the Half-Life 2 videos, it's the little things that really make it great (for me at least). The impression that Ryu leaves in the wall when an enemy throws him across the room, the bits of hair that float down the screen when Ryu slices through the old man's beard with his sword- it's all great stuff. Goro is a master of animating with this program, and he proves it once again here. This is the kind of movie where if you blink while watching it, you rewind to see what you missed. Every frame is interesting.

As far as sound goes, it's all good once again. The sound effects are chosen well, and the combination of more traditional movie music with classic NES diddies is perfect. The movie starts with a flawless recreation of the NES' Ninja Gaiden game, down to the catchy theme music in the background, and will have old school gamers smiling just for the pure nastalgic value. Goro's voice acting is over-the-top, as it is in pretty much all of his movies, but it works in almost making it feel like a dubbed over american version of a japanese action film.

All-in-all there's really not that much to complain about here. Ninja Gaiden is one of the most well crafted shorts you can download. Bored and want a few minutes of entertainment complete with ninjas, cool swords, shape shifting monsters, and big explosions? Well then, "Ninja Gaiden" may just be the best 10, 305 kilobytes you've ever downloaded. For how good it is, it's too short- so I'll reserve the 100% for "Ninja Gaiden 2", until then, this is a very well deserved 95% out of 100%. I've run out of good adjectives (in fact, I've already gone through the review and reworded every instance where I used the same adjective more than twice in one sentence, which is more than I'd like to admit), so it's probably best I end the review here. Great work Goro, now release a bad movie, I've been giving out too many good reviews lately.