And the next stage is...
Huh?! It's OVER?!
I told you it was short and sweet. After you apprehend Dr. Mac, the game's over and you're treated to this rather amusing little 'ending' where the two different Charlies show off and pose for a while, in front of a truly amazing signpost. C'mon, say it with me, We Love Charlie!
As ever, the credits roll, and the obligatory 'Thank you for playing' screen shows up, but a shock twist is still waiting for you! What could it be?!
... His name isn't even Charlie!
OK, I was kidding about the shock twist, but this is still a little odd. I've been calling the little guy Charlie throughout the entire article. How could you betray me like this, Roy? How could you?! At least Lon made no pretences to his name. It is he I shall use for the High Score table!
And so it was that Roy and Lon defended the city (which is also a wild-west town in parts) and brought peace to the world of this extremely obscure arcade game. They were forgotten, ooh, about 3 weeks later. THE END!
Abrupt ending and short length aside, Charlie Ninja is an excellent game in my book, like a lighter version of Contra. The action can get a little bit too intense at times, so you're going to die quite a lot, but it rarely feels like it's kicking you while you're down just for laughs, and even when you're dying, it's a great experience from start to finish. Some of the ideas, like the trap boxes and the various special moves, never quite reach their full potential because of the criminally small amount of stages, but they do have their uses here and there, and add a little variety to the proceedings. To be honest, though, these criticisms are pretty minor, as the basic core of the gameplay- fill the enemy with shurikens without prejudice- stays in-tact and, because each stage is so radically different, it rarely gets stale.
Above all, continuing the Hard Head 2 comparison from the first page, it's the complete antithesis of that piece of shit because it's fun to play. Sure, you'll probably end up credit-feeding like a scrub, but I've always been of the belief that platformers/run-and-gun shooters are rarely played for skill, more just to kick back and relax a little. This is something that Charlie Ninja does really well, because no matter how good or bad you are at it, it's difficult not to have fun with the game. Even better, if you do want a challenge, then trying to beat it in one credit is no mean feat, which means you'll want to play it over and over again. I reckon the game deserves at least one play-through, just for its light-hearted sense of humour and the honest-to-goodness fun you can have with it...
... Admittedly, that might be a little tricky, given that Charlie Ninja isn't exactly the most common arcade game in the world. The lack of a home version doesn't really help either, although I guess a conversion to the SNES would've been perfectly possible... Then again, not many of Mitchell's other non-puzzle games came home either, so although a bit of a shame, it's not entirely unexpected. Unless you're lucky enough to find an original PCB of the game, I implore you to get your MAME on, and emulate it. It'll be worth your time, what little of it the game will take up.
And now, it's that time, folks!
EXTENDED PLAY!
Charlie Ninja - Unofficial Soundtrack
And now, one of our lovely 'exclusive' things, here's the entire soundtrack to Charlie Ninja. The way sound is done in the game is a bit strange, though- it seems to rely on song samples rather than generating the music on the fly like most games, and if you've got a well-trained ear, you'll be able to hear when the sample stops and loops on itself- it's a split-second stop, but this isn't because of my lousy editing, this is honestly how it plays in-game. The only exception seems to be the boss battle music, which is actually generated by the sound effects chip for some reason, which made it an absolute pain to rip.
Because of its reliance on samples, though, the music quality isn't great. The tunes themselves are nice, it's just that the sound quality is pretty rotten, so it's a bit like the arcade Final Fight in that regard. Remix, anyone?
Oh yeah... There was one last bit I thought I'd save for the end. The issue of the blue bird that keeps showing up in the game. This rather odd little bird thing appears on both the title screen and the flyer of Double Wings, which came a year before Charlie Ninja. Sporting aviator goggles and a downright scary grin, this little avian wotsit seems to be some kind of mascot for Mitchell, but as far as I'm aware, these two games are the only ones he's actually in. I equate him with that rather scary looking rabbit that used to appear on some of Tecmo's late-80's arcade games like Silkworm, Tecmo Bowl and Shadow Warriors, as both these mascots didn't last long at all. Then again, I haven't played all of Mitchell's games in such exhaustive depth, maybe he shows up in other stuff?
Playing through Charlie Ninja, though, gives you the impression that this teeny-tiny bird was supposed to be the Next Big Thing, as he appears so often it verges on the absurd. It's akin to playing a game of Streets of Rage where, every 5 minutes, Sonic the Hedgehog shows up from nowhere and hogs (arf! arf!) the screen. Not only does he appear rather abundantly on the football field stage (both on the walls as graffiti and on the score-board, proclaiming "TOUCHDOWN!"), but he's also on the High Score table, in the ending and he's even used as a collectable item! It's fair to say that there aren't many moments when this crazy thing isn't on screen*, which is odd to say the least.
*May be an exaggeration.
He's not just used as a worthless macguffin to pick up, either. As you've probably spotted in some of the other screenshots, the game keeps a tally on how many of these little guys you've picked up. A lot of them are well hidden, requiring you to hit various hot spots scattered around each level to uncover them. If you manage to collect 10 of them, after you beat the current stage you'll get a Bonus Stage, as pictured below! Oh, wow!
Actually, it's really hard to win anything from this. The midget ninjas from Stages 3 and 5 bounce around with letters on their heads- if you take them out with your shurikens, you'll grab their letter. Spell out EXTEND and the extra life is yours, except that the blue midget ninjas will stun you if you hit them by mistake. You've only just got enough time to grab the letters in the first place, so hitting one too many of the blue ninjas is enough to scupper your chances.
The Bonus Stage struck me as a bit out-of-place really... The game's so short, this extra life is hardly going to change anything. Although if you look in the background, the bird makes yet another appearance, this time 'CHARLIE' written above him. Hey, maybe he's the Charlie of the title! It all makes sense now! So, whatever his name is, I just thought it was really weird how often he showed up, and figured it was worth mentioning. Besides, I took those Bonus Stage screenshots, I wasn't just going to let them go unused.
So now we say goodbye to Charlie Ninja... Keep going on, Roy and Lon! For another combat!
OK, that's it! We love Charlie, we get it. Back to the main page.