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Little Ninja Brothers

OdradekOdradek
edited 2012-06-23 11:58:16 in General


Little Ninja Brothers was one of my favorite child hood games back in `95. My brother and I would spend entire nights trying to make our way through the game via running away from every battle. A lot of my memories from my childhood involve this game, and sadly when we moved in 2001 we lost our NES and all our games.
You can imagine my surprise when I passed a yard sale just last week and saw not only a working NES, but also this game for 5 dollars. I approached the stand and asked the old man behind the table if the sign was right. Confirming that it was, he sold the products to me. As I walked away I heard him say to me "Enjoy the game "Little Ninja Brothers"".. or at least that's what I convinced myself he said at the time.

The NES was a tad yellow, though it worked fine. The Little Ninja Brothers cart was in much worse shape. The plastic was yellowed and the sticker was peeling. For $5 though, I couldn't care less as long as it worked.
Being an attention whore, I hooked the NES into my capture card so that I could later share my childhood with the internet.. and thank god I did or else this story may seem SILLY.

The first time I put the game in, it loaded for a second before freezing. Not a big deal, some pins didn't connect. I blow on the game and reset, and the second try the game works fine. Well, that's putting it a bit loose.. it runs fine, but for whatever reason on the title screen neither of the brothers has pupils. I didn't think much of it at the time, it's probably some dust on one of the 72 pins that just so happens to render the pupils.. as long as the game is playable I'm fine with it.
However, it didn't take long for me to begin questioning this. Not only are all the NPCs missing their pupils, but the text is spazzing out too. I'm no nerd, but I figure this may be one of those poor bootlegs I hear so much about in the news. Somebody must have messed up the hex value that controls eyes in this game! However. the first time in the over-world I notice that pupils aren't the only hex value these Koreans tampered with.
Damn near everything is a bit.. off. Random buildings look like garbage data, text isn't wrapping right, and the music seems.. distorted. That is while it lasts. It seems every time I change screens the music loses a channel or so, eventually becoming nothing more than a couple beeps. I'm starting to lose commitment to the idea of "as long as the game works.."

When I finally get to the Mayor of Deli-chous things start to go down hill. The scene of Jack getting drugged is unnerving at best. Jack lets out cries of "no" before the text turns into a mess of garbage across the screen. At this point I am terrified, however something is compelling me to keep playing. At this point it is my duty to beat this glitched game.
Pushing myself to move on, I go to get the amulet from Mouchee Mouse.. which looking back was a huge mistake. Her silly face was now what I can only describe as hyper realistic gore (my capture card seems to have not picked up the hyper realism). Peeling back the skin on her face, she asks me if I laughed.. of course not. I was disgusted and terrified. Not even blast processing could produce what I saw.. something change in me at this moment.

The Korean bastard who hacked this game was sick. I wanted to stop right here, but couldn't... I had to move on.. and god I wish I hadn't.
Moving on to fight Tub-a-Tummy, by this point the music was completely gone. Unnerved I fought my was past the eyeless enemies and glitched scenery to make it to the boss.
Rewarded only with my game crashing, I had to pull out my camera to record the final moments. The game flashed photo-realistic images of my dead family as I fumbled my camera around in my hands. As I finally got the camera up, I heard a crash in my hallway.

Thinking back, the old man didn't tell me "Enjoy the game "Little Ninja Brothers"", what he had said was "Enjoy the game, Little Ninja Brothers"... My name is Little Ninja Brothers. I was a spooky ghost the entire time.
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