Welcome to the first episode of 23 Endings: The Early Years, the show where we put old school video game endings in proper context. Today we're looking at Ninja Gaiden, one of the most epic 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System games of all time. Can Ryu Hayabusa defeat the evil Jaquio and save the world? Find out in this debut episode of 23 Endings: The Early Years!


For a guy who went on to star in two 8-bit sequels, a reboot series and a bunch of Dead or Alive games, you might think that Ryu Hayabusa was a great ninja right from the start. He was not. Mere moments after landing in the United States, the poor guy was literally shot by a young woman and then imprisoned in an underground cell. I'm not even kidding. But don't worry, she's not working with the evil forces that supposedly killed the elder Hayabusa and brought the kid to the U.S., she just has a special mission for Ryu -- take this rare statue and escape.

He does just that, fighting his way out of the isolated prison and making it to the mountain pass in order to find an old archeologist named Walter Smith. This turns out to be a buddy of Ryu's father, and would you look at that, he knows all about that mysterious stolen statue. But this artifact comes with a dark story about an expedition to some old Amazon ruins. Walter is just about to reveal the secrets behind the statue when, all of a sudden and completely out of nowhere, a masked ninja runs in and steals the statue. The chase is on.

This leads to an exciting fight through the snow-covered mountains that ends with Ryu retrieving the statue, only to get back and discover that (oh no!) Walter Smith has been shot. He tells our hero that there are two different statues, and once they come together, it will summon an evil demon that has been hibernating for 700 years. These are Walter's dying words. And just when it looked like things couldn't possibly get any worse for our hero, Ryu is captured at gunpoint by the CIA. For a ninja, this guy is surprisingly easy to abduct.

Okay, so here's where things start to get convoluted. Ryu is hauled in front of a spook named Foster, who explains everything we need to know about those statues and the ruins in the Amazon. As it turns out, there's this guy named Guardia de Miuex who has turned the ruins into a temple and plans on summoning a demon with the statues. If that wasn't bad enough, he has given himself the name of Jaquio. Or is that "Yaquio"? You know, I never knew how to pronounce this name as a kid. Maybe Google can sort this out. Huh. That sounded more like Zappio. I think I'm just going to stick with Jaquio for now.

Long story short, Ryu is sent to South America to stop this crazy guy from ending the world with a couple of statues. We end up fighting through an underground railroad, which leads to this sparsely decorated warehouse. After all that, we finally come face-to-face with the Jaquio, who has somehow managed to capture Irene and is holding her at knifepoint. And if that wasn't bad enough, Ryu falls through a trap door and has to fight his way out of yet another underground prison filled with enemy guards.

But wait, there's more. Ryu eventually works his way up the mountainside to meet up with Malth, a masked barbarian that seems to have information on Ken Hayabusa. The two fight, and Malth reveals that Ryu's father may still be alive. That's right, Ken Hayabusa didn't die!

So here's what happened: Instead of dying after his fight with Malth back in the day, Ken was turned into a brainwashed henchman known as The Masked Devil. Now he's the only thing standing in the way of Ryu defeating the Jaquio and saving the world. It's the father/son title match we've been waiting for, and Ninja Gaiden doesn't disappoint.

The good news is that Ryu quickly notices that there's a big clown nose on the wall and targets it, realizing that it's probably the thing brainwashing dear old dad. He was right, and Ryu swiftly defeats The Masked Devil without harming his pops. They embrace and things are finally starting to look up for the Hayabusa clan, but watch out, because the Jaquio has a trick up his cape. He fires an energy ball at Ryu, but Ken jumps in front to take the blast. Is he dead? We don't know. There's no time to worry about that right now, because the lunar eclipse is upon us and the statues have summoned an ancient demon. It's time to fight.

I think we can safely say that this was the best case scenario. We save the girl, discover our dead father is actually still alive, slay the evil Jaquio and save the world from some demon monster. There's no cynicism here, it's just an ending where everything you want to happen actually happens.

What I like is that there's an added twist at the end when Irene's boss tells her to kill Ryu Hayabusa. This is clumsily written, like most things in the 8-bit era, but it turns what could have been a straight happy ending into something more. But then things get sappy again when Ryu calls her "payment" for saving the world and they kiss. Yeeaaack.

Okay, maybe Ryu isn't the smoothest ninja, but at least the game ends on a hopeful note. That will be slashed all to bits with the two sequels, but for a brief moment, Irene and Ryu were happy as they watched the sun rise over Jaquio's destroyed palace. This is a great ending.