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Ninja Kid was the result of stripping the license to Gegege no Kitarou and turning it into something more original.
CHR + PRG Test#
Holding any button on Controller 2 and pressing Reset will launch a simple test on the game's CHR and PRG banks. If the tests succeed, the game will continue as normal. However, the screen will turn red if the PRG test fails or blue if the CHR test fails.
(Source: CaH4e3)
Regional Differences#
The game was altered from its anime license, Gegege no Kitarō, when it was brought to the US. Certain graphics have been changed, mostly pertaining to the player and his allies, but not the enemies.
Title Screen#
The title screen's logo was altered slightly to look more generic for Ninja Kid.
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The original title screen music is based on the Gegege no Kitarō (1985) opening, which was changed for the US version. The map and death themes were also changed due to having parts of the anime opening in them.
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Player#
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Kitarō was replaced with the more generic character known only as Ninja Kid. "Junior Defender of human rights."
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Kitarō flies by riding Ittan-Momen, a yōkai ally of his that resembles a long strip of white cloth. Ninja Kid rides a Kite, but the manual still clearly shows Kitarō and Ittan-Momen, labeled "NINJA KID ON KITE".
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Kitarō's main method of attack is firing his hairs out like needles. Ninja Kid uses daggers, but they still come from the top of his head, so it looks a little odd.
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The hair icon at the top of the screen was changed to a dagger as well. The dagger icon has a few pixels that use the background color (green here), which changes often.
Items#
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Kitarō uses his Chanchanko Vest, while Ninja Kid uses a Feather. However, the programmers forgot to replace the Chanchanko Vest sprites loaded during the boss fights, which means Ninja Kid will use the vest with his own color palette, although the Feather icon is still on the HUD.
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Kitarō can launch detached copies of his hand. The second, larger sprite shown here is used for the HUD, and it is the only weapon to have a unique HUD icon.
Ninja Kid throws shuriken known as Iron Stars. The second sprite here is the HUD icon, which looks very similar but is still made up of 2 tiles.
Also, during the Guerilla Warfare and Blazing Inferno stages, the Iron Star is missing a single orange pixel. Oops.
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Kitarō uses remote controlled Geta sandals, while Ninja Kid uses a boomerang. A remote controlled one.
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Kitarō and Ninja Kid both use fireballs as their 4th weapon (Ninja Kid's is known as the Fireflame), although the sprite is different. For some reason the Fireflame's colors are swapped during boss fights, but not on the HUD.
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The crystal ball that Kitarō collects to enter the boss of each map was changed to the "Special Scroll."
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These five items changed color palettes as a side effect of sharing the same palette as the player character.
Boss Battle Allies#
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Kitarō's first ally is Nurikabe, a large wall-like yōkai that acts as a shield. Ninja Kid has a Pegasus, which somehow protects Ninja Kid just as efficiently as... a literal giant wall.
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Kitarō's second ally is Konaki-Jijii, an old man yōkai that clings onto his opponents and turns himself into stone to weigh them down. Ninja Kid has a bird named Big Eagle, who simply "stops the movements" of the boss.
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Kitarō's third ally is Sunakake-Babaa, an old woman yōkai that throws sand. Ninja Kid summons the Old Witch, who also throws sand.
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This is Sunakake-Babaa/Old Witch's sprite on the map screen.
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The final boss, Hōkō, has a projectile that mistakenly uses the lower tile of Sunakake-Babaa's map sprite, miscolored. So that inadvertently got changed too.
Other Characters#
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The only enemy that had its sprite changed. Nezumi-Otoko was changed to a ninja pirate, and the projectile was changed to a throwing star.
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Yumeko Tendō and Neko-Musume had their graphics changed into two new unnamed characters.
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The Gegege no Kitarou series | |
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NES |
Gegege no Kitarou: Youkai Daimakyou (Ninja Kid) • Gegege no Kitarou 2: Youkai Gundan no Chousen |
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