Segaiden #037: The Ninja & Pro Wrestling

Video Works by Jeremy Parish

When did the lie that girls don't play video games gain credence in America? I remember seeing little nerds of all genders in arcades in the early 1980s, so that fallacy must have taken hold around the time that the Master System arrived. Certainly that would explain why these two games, both of which featured playable female casts in their original incarnations as Sega Ninja/Ninja Princess and Gokuaku Doumei Dump Matsumoto, saw their sprites replaced by men here on Master System. A weird coincidence!

However, it doesn't affect how either game plays, which is to say "pretty damn good." The Ninja delivers on the potential of Ninja Princess, presenting the same fundamental experience but with vastly smoother gameplay and all the arcade version's bonus stages restored. And Pro Wrestling may not be as good as the NES game by the same title that would ship a few months later, but it absolutely puts every other wrestling game on U.S. the console market in 1986 into a sleeper hold before pinning it for the count.

Aw, look, I've finally picked up some wrestling lingo. I knew I could do it.