Ninpen Manmaru originated as a manga series that spawned an anime and, eventually, a Saturn-exclusive 3D platformer developed by Tam Tam and published by Enix in 1997.
In the game, Master Nenga, leader of Ninpen’s clan, Sends Ninpen off on a solo quest to reach the Ninja Mansion for some hardcore training. Ninpen must cross six worlds consisting of four levels each of platforming action and challenge each area’s boss. The game is a colorful, fully 3D platforming romp with nice, catchy music accompanying it, but that’s as nice as we’re going to be.
Unsuspecting players take “control” of Ninpen and guide him to a “goal” platform at the end of each stage using timed jumps, avoiding enemies and obstacles, and picking up Happy Coins along the way. Though Ninpen wears a sword, he cannot fight — which is OK, since the game’s true enemy is the poorly implemented tank controls. Coupled with a wildly varying difficulty curve and pretty insane level design, players must resist the urge to punch Ninpen in the face as they inevitably die over and over.
Luckily, thanks to two separate translation efforts decades apart, players will now better understand Ninpen’s sad tale — the game’s cutscene subtitles were translated back in 2002 by Alex Kidd and Simon Fang, with Darkfalzx and others updating any Japanese graphics to English in 2022. Happy coins for all!
I didn’t care for the kiddie tone but I didn’t think it controlled all that much worse than the Saturn’s Croc. Croc had a bit more depth due to item collection and the secret levels. This game is kind of neat in that it’s PURELY an obstacle course in the vein of Alpha Waves. It gets pretty tough near the end. For as early of a 3d platformer as it is the pure obstacle course idea makes it a bit interesting, and a counterpoint to the “collectathons” on the N64, the puzzle solving and cinematic platformer style of Tomb Raider and the on-rails style of Crash. Ninpen can fight enemies by throwing a block at them!
If you squint really hard, it looks vaguely like a homebrew attempt at a Pandemonium game.