NINJA BURAI DENSETSU - GENERAL GUIDE by FIKO ANTUNES Welcome to my guide for the Genesis game NINJA BURAI DENSETSU. It was made by someone who can't read in Japanese to help other players in the same condition. It helps you finishing the game as well giving you several useful tips and information. My e-mail: fikoantunes@gmail.com VERSION: This is the first version of the guide (1.00). At current version, you will find all the tips needed to end the game (even if you don't understand a word of Japanese). I intend to add more detailed info about each stage of the game in the future - when I will probably need to play it all over again a couple of times :P Have fun! -------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Short Review 2. Units 2.1. The Ninja 2.2. The Samurai 2.3. The Spearman 2.4. The Archer 2.5. The Rifleman 2.6. The Healer 2.7. The Mounted Samurai 3. Strategy 3.1. The Stages 3.2. General Tips 3.3. Ending the Game 3.3.1. General Guidelines 3.3.2. Beating the Last Stage 4. Credits --------------------------------------------------------------- 1. SHORT REVIEW NINJA BURAI DENSETSU (aka "LAST NINJA" - 1991) is a strategy game from Sega for Genesis that has never been released on the Western. Even so, some of those Japanese cartridges arrived at ours friends houses (or, luckily, at ours) at that time. And, even playing a strategy game with japs texts, many loved it and spent many hours trying to finishing it (and most stop at the annoying last stage). The game resembles Sega's Shining Force series as you control an army of units that moves in a range of squares and must destroy the enemy army. It is turned- based, however, as you play all your units and make all your attacks, than the enemy plays its turn and so on, until you beat him or you get and "game over" screen. Besides having great graphics and soundtrack for that time, it is very difficult and challenging to end it. Like the first 4-Mega Genesis games of its time, there is no cheat codes available, so you must success by your own. The time factor is probably the main cause of the game's high difficult: you must end each battle in a short number of turns or you lose the game! Also you can't resurrect any units between the battles. Nowadays, the genesis cartridges are very rare (check out on eBay and confirm: the price for this game is high). Most people play this game on emulators. However, there is no guide for this game, at least in an Western language. Well, now we have it! 2. UNITS Your army is composed with an array of different units. The seven kinds of units available you can have are: the ninja, the samurai, the spearman, the archer, the rifleman, the healer and the mounted samurai. I don't know if these are the correct translations for their names, I did it based on what they look like ;) Starting by finishing the second stage, at the end of each stage you receive one more extra unit. And, like the old-school strategy games, they are NOT balanced. That's it: some are clearly better than others - and some are awfully worse than others. Also, if any unit of your army dies, it's gone FOREVER. You can't bring back the death! The units are individually described below. There are fixed topics at each description: - "Mobility" refers to the average numbers of squares that units can walk on its turn. - "Lower levels" and "Higher levels" shows the changes of behavior and weaknesses/good points of the units along the game as theirs levels increase. - "Specialty": almost every unit is good for killing some others type of units. It means that deals more damage to that unit while usually taking less. This work both for your army and the enemy: while you find that your ninja can rip off that spearman's hit points, you may be cautious if next to him is a samurai that can kill your ninja with a single blow on the computer's turn. And beware: "mirror matches" (a ninja attacking a ninja, for example) is not a good thing for you as the units nullifies each one (both take very few damage), making it a waste of your time. 2.1. THE NINJA He is like the main character of the Shining Force series: if he dies, then you lose the entire battle. And at this game, it means GAME OVER. Beware that it applies only to YOUR ninja: the enemy ones are just regular units. The ninja can walk a lot, making it very versatile and easy to level up. He usually causes good damage but loses HP easily too. He is also the only class that has OFFENSIVE spells. These spells a) always cause a fix, non-variable amount of damage b) are cast from a certain distance, allowing the ninja to attack without being harmed (enemies never counterattack a spell). So they are very good to finish out enemy units that are low in health or to attack when he is the one with few hit points left. - Mobility: the ninja can walk about 7 squares each turn. - Lower levels: keep him away from the samurais, who are natural ninja-killers at this moment of the game. Focus on killing spearmen and the "deflecting arrows" technique to level up quickly (read about this on the "general tips" section) - Higher levels: his weaknesses begin to diminish. By the time he reaches level 9, he is a TOUGHT guy and damage-dealer, with lots of magic points for more than one cast of his best spells. This is probably because his is the main char of the game. The enemy's ninjas remains easy kills, though. - Specialty: the ninja is good at taking out the spearman. 2.2. THE SAMURAI The samurai is probably the unit with the best defenses of the game. Also he can do good damage to all units, specially at the first stages. He has a poor reach at his turn of walking, though, working best at smaller or crowded scenarios, when he can come closer to the enemies more often. He can be also used as the "meat shield" of your army: you throw him in the middle of the enemy troops and they waste their turn trying unsuccessfully killing the samurai. Then you bring everybody and start preying! - Mobility: the samurai can move 4 squares each turn. - Lower levels: he is "the" unit: hard to kill and does great damage to almost any unit. Sometimes you must even stop using him to let the other units gain some experience point too. - Higher levels: his defense keeps very high, but he stop doing large amounts of damage. He would be perfect if the battles had 40 turns or more. Unfortunally you need to always be on a rush, so he can't be much of a help besides playing that "meat shield" role. - Specialty: the samurai is good at taking out the ninja. He's kinda good against the archer and the rifleman too. 2.3. THE SPEARMAN This units has a medium mobility on the battleground, combining both good defenses and a high-damaging longspear. - Mobility: the spearman can move about 5 squares each turn. - Lower levels: he is not one of the best units. He can get easily killed by the ninja and doesn't hurt the enemies as we would like. However, it is essential to level him up for the last stages of the game - even if this means paying for training. When buying new armor and weapons, he soon starts to become a decent offensive unit. - Higher levels: when properly equipped he deals GREATS amounts of damage, specially against heavy-armored units. His defense is quite well too. - Specialty: the spearman is good at taking out the samurai. If heavily armored, he loses almost NO HP when attacking the samurais of the same level! This ability works even best at higher levels, making him a good unit to clear out a samurai-crowded area. 2.4. THE ARCHER The archer has a serious problem. Whenever it attacks, he does it safely from the enemy's attack range. However, the enemy always has a chance to entirely avoid the damage by deflecting the arrow! And it is not a small chance. This makes very difficult to level up this kind of unit (the other one is the rifleman). Unless you work him hard - which is difficult due to his poor mobility - it can be said that the archer is the most useless unit of the game. - Mobility: the archer can move about 4 squares each turn - Lower levels: the archer does little damage, even when at the same level of its opponents (which is rare). You have to buy new weapons for him all the time so he can do some real difference on the battlefield. - Higher levels: his defense seems to improve a bit, making him not easy to kill with 2-3 blows. If you have leveled him up properly, he can do some damage to all units despite of its type. But his lack of mobility remains a problem (as the risk of getting his attacks deflected). - Specialty: the archer seems to do a little more damage to heavily armored opponents like the samurai and the mounted samurai. 2.5. THE RIFLEMAN The rifleman is basically a better version of the archer. He has the same good defenses, but he does MORE damage and - the best - his shots have a deflection rate much lower than the archer's arrows (when it happens, some kind of bird seems to receive the shot, not the enemy...). He has a major flaw, though: the WORST mobility of the game - you may find yourself asking HOW HEAVY must be that damn rifle he's carrying ;) - Mobility: the rifleman can barely move 3 squares each turn - Lower levels: you may notice he has potential to be a good unit, as he does consistent damage to almost everyone. But as the levels goes by, it gets hard to level him up, specially if you like to rush to the battle and then he always stays behind. - At higher levels, IF you managed to bring him to a high level and buy the top weapons (which are the most expansive ones by the way), he can turn into a truly highly damaging unit - as far as I tested he is the only unit you can boost the attack value beyond 90! His poor walking capacity will keep him from doing a lot of shooting though. - Specialty: the rifleman seems to do more damage to heavily armored opponents, like the samurai and the mounted samurai. 2.6. THE HEALER The bold guy cannot attack at all. He has a medium defense, which means he can hold some blows - but don't push him too hard! His only ability is to heal the other units - he is the only char with defense spells (a single one, actually). The good thing is that a single cast heals up to full health! So it is always a good idea to wait to use the spell until a unit is badly hurt. - Mobility: the healer walks about 4.5 squares - similar to the samurai, just a little bit more. - Lower levels: he's quite handy as he can prevent you from losing your few and fragile units. The problem is that he can cast his spell just a couple of times. It is often a good thing paying for resting him so he can be always healing everybody. - Higher levels: With lots of hit point, your units take more time to reach low health, so you don't use the healer every turn. With a large army, he is not a common target for the enemies. So I can say he is the only char of the game you don't need to worry on maxing the stats: if your units are around level 8 on the last stage, it is ok if you have two healers at level 6-7, which should be enough to cast the healing spell six or seven times. - Specialty: healing only! 2.7. THE MOUNTED SAMURAI This guy is GOOD! He is like the samurai with the best mobility of the game. He gets more damage, but also DOES more damage then his horseless cousin. When he is fully equipped and leveled up, he is a walking stronghold and damage-dealer! - Lower levels: he seems just "good", as he can cross the entire battlefield to kill the right targets and help surrounding the though ones. Good defense and damage. As he walks and a lot, he is always engaged in battle, so from time to time it is important to retreat for healing. - Higher levelsS: Be sure to always have the latest weapons and armor for this guy. With a lot of hit point and his amazing mobility, he can make worthy those turns where most of your army can reach the enemy, as he goes ahead to start lowering their hit points. - Specialty: he is like the samurai, only better: the ninja is his favorite prey, and he can't run away as you move faster! At the last stage you can sometimes reduce to near-death a ninja on the first attack! 3. STRATEGY 3.1. STAGES The game has 10 stages. At stages 4 and 10 there is none of those little houses where you can enter to rest and buy items. Most stages all you need to do is wipe out all the enemies units in order to proceed do next level. Some other stages you have to talk to the people inside the little houses too. As the game is all in Japanese, this some times can be annoying as you have to almost guess what to do. 3.2. GENERAL TIPS Here are some general tips that you can apply all over the game. - Always enter the little houses when they are available. Speak to everyone on every room you find as this sometimes is a requirement to finish some stages. - Also in the houses you can buy new armor and weapons, buy some items that can heal you a bit in the battlefield when used, pay for resting (full HP and MP recover) and pay for training (you gain some XP that may get you to the next level) - At later stages of the game, don't waste money buying crap for weak units. Instead buy for your good ones to boost them even more. - And don't pay for training for the bad units like the archer to get a balanced army. It's better to get to the last stage with the good units maxed out then an entire "balanced" army. - The samurai is the best unit at early stages. But once you get your first mounted samurai, forget the samurai and start leveling up the mounted one - he will be your best choice for the last stage of the game. - The spearman may suck at the beginning. But always buy the best weaponry for him and have him attacking the samurais: you will see how good he can get (and also helps leveling him up for the final stage too). - The healers of the game are very important. But it is hard to level them just by using all his spells. Don't be afraid of paying for training. And sometimes it is a good idea to rest him (so he's full of magic again) and have him cast his spell more times. - With the archer try avoid attacking the ninja - he has the ANNOYING ability the almost always successfully deflecting your arrows. - Using the tip above, here's a way to level up your ninja real quickly: put him next to an archer, without attacking. Next turn the archer will fire, but you eventually will deflect his arrow. And this gives a LOT of experience points. Repeat this as many as you can, even sparing the archer for the last kill. Sometimes you will get damaged, but the archer sucks anyways so it won't be a lot of damage! And the chance of deflection rises you if are at a higher level than the enemy archer. - As long your ninja is at level 9, don't matter buying him new offensive items at later stages. When he starts the last stage, it will be available at his inventory the most powerful sword, used to kill the final boss (don't forget to equip it). - Pay attention when fighting an enemy that's near a little house. When dropped to near-death condition, if he has a turn available he will enter the house for resting! Always try to focus damage to kill him before his turn. - Beware the ninja! Don't leave low hit points units wandering near an enemy ninja. He can change his current target to your near-death units, and it will use offensive spell to assure their death! As a general rule, always start the stages by hunting the ninjas - they moves towards you fast and are fragile against samurais and mounted samurais. - Use your ninja spells for finishing of enemy units. The spells cause a fix damage, so it is important for you to know how much damage each level of the spell causes: Level 1: 4-5 hp (about 1 candle) Level 2: 7-8 hp (about 1and 3/4 candles) Level 3: 12-14 hp (about 2 and 1/2-3/4 candles) Level 4: 16-18 hp (about 3 and a half candles) 3.3. ENDING THE GAME 3.3.1. General guidelines The last stage is the most difficult you will ever face. In fact, all the strategy described here is to achieve the best army to beat the last stage. And it is all about maxing up the RIGHT units. You may even get to the last stage with a different array of maxed out units. But I assure you will probably get stuck killing that bunch of enemies troops and lose the game when the time finishes. Time is CRUCIAL at the last stage: the 22 turns you have will NOT be enough if you don't have the right army to do all this stage requests. So, here it is: in order to beat the last stage, you will have to max the stats of the ninja, the two mounted samurais, at least one spearman (both if possible) and at least have the two healers above level 6. Why is that? Well, like I said, time is short at this point of the game. To reach the boss at the top of the screen AND do all the requirements to beat this level, you will need units that can cause a lot of damage in a short period of time. For example, the first time I got to the last stage I had my samurais as the most powerful units of my army. Their defenses were great, losing very few HP each turn. But they also were not very effective on hurting the enemy. I had to sit down and watch that eternal fight where nobody died and lost the game due to time. So, beware: since the units I stated need to get to the last stage as powerful as you can get, you will have to take care of them since the very first time you get them. While you advance through the game, don't be afraid to invest you money on new items and giving experience for those who are at low level yet by paying for training at the little houses. Remember: at stage 10, no little houses! 3.3.2. Beating the last stage So, here's what you do to beat the last stage. Remember, this guide was made to help those who can't read in Japanese. So don't bother the detailed way I give the information below ;) The best way to proceed is: divide your army in two groups. The ninja, one spearman and one mounted samurai go to the left. This group must open its way through the left bridge, trying to reach the house on the top left of the screen. The others start wiping out the majority of the enemy on the middle bridge. After rescuing the woman on the top left house with the first group and cleared out the way to the castle with the second group, go for the final boss that waits at the entrance of the fortress. And all this you do using the right units: your mounted samurais kill the ninjas and the samurais while the spearmen kill (even more effectively) the samurais. It is important kill and to move FAST - specially the ninja who has a lot of work to do. Here are the exact ways to end this stage: - You have to reach the top left house and free the woman inside. (NOT CONFIRMED: it must be the ninja; if another char, you receive different piece of information from her) - Just after that you attack the boss at the top right of the screen. (but you can clear out the enemies around this are with your other units). - Only the ninja can hurt the final boss. (have a healer behind him: at least one healing you will have to cast) - Next turn after you killed the final boss, position the ninja in front of the gate. - (VERY IMPORTANTE NOW: if you this step wrong, it will ruin your chance to win) Next turn: using the ninja, select the option where you store your items (the second one from top when the ninja stands still). Use the SECOND item (the shorter in name, composed only of two kanjis). You will hear a different sound. - Next turn: the option to enter the fortress will be available. Enter the building. The end! Notice the number of turns you will have to have AFTER killing the final boss... And only the ninja can do it! Now you know why you need the right units for this part of the game. 4. CREDITS I can imagine that there must be guides older than mine for this game in Japanese. As I don't understand Japanese, I made this guide for the westerns like me. As far as I researched the web this is the first guide for NINJA BURAI DENSETSU. And it was all written and created by me. Hope it helped you! Francisco Antunes - fikoantunes@gmail.com - July 20, 2009 (v.1.0)