Ninja Gaiden Shadow began as a GB conversion for Shadow of the Ninja on NES. This is a hack that aims to make the experience closer to NES Shadow of the Ninja, the NES Ninja Gaiden trilogy, and the Japanese version of Ninja Gaiden Shadow with some bonus SGB enhancements. Changes are chronicled below.
Graphics:
- A custom border was added
- A custom colour set was added
Cutscenes:
- The translation was redone to be more faithful to the Japanese original and fixes continuity errors from the official English script including the contradictory timeframe
- Stages were renamed to acts to keep in line with the NES Ninja Gaiden trilogy
Gameplay:
- By pressing A+B+START on the title screen, the player can access the lost debug menu and use features such as the level select
- The i-frames were made slightly more generous to line up with NES Shadow of the Ninja, now lasting closer to 1.5 seconds rather than just over 1 second
- The player begins with 6 lives like in NES Shadow of the Ninja instead of 3
- The player now begins with 3 flame ninpo uses instead of 1. This makes checkpoints less painful. It also arguably balances the last-minute mechanic better overall, with it now being more feasible to max out ninpo
Recommended hardware/emulators:
- An actual Super GB
- mGBA
- BGB
Database: No-Intro: Game Boy/Color (v. 20210227-015730)
File/ROM SHA-1: 8AADD7DFB4ADD75D5AC5351658762E5F56E78C66
File/ROM CRC32: D3741A3A
Maël Hörz for HxD.
marc_max for the SGB injector tool.
Most of the files you're about to download need to be applied to your game. Here is a list of utilities that allow you to do this:
- Online Patcher: Marc Roblero's online patcher. Works with many different file types.
- Floating IPS: NWell-known patcher for applying IPS and BPS files.
- Delta Patcher: Used to apply xDelta files.
- More Patchers
On most files, you can also press “Patch It”, to apply the patch without downloading the file.