 The Super Nintendo collecting scene is full of oddities, like 3 Ninjas Kick Back for example, the cartridge alone has actually gone down in price the last four years according to game value now. It was sold at an average eBay price of about $90 back in early 2017, and it's made its way back down to around $50 or $60 today. Meanwhile, the instruction book for 3 Ninjas Kick Back goes for an average of about $150 while the box goes for three times that. If you want this game complete in the box for Super Nintendo, be prepared to spend like $600. It's completely insane. But hey, if you just want to play the game, it's actually not that bad considering it's a licensed game based on a kid's movie made by Malibu Interactive, who had a hand in crap like Cliffhanger. So yeah, this game is kind of a surprise. I mean, it's an action platformer that's two player co-op. That's pretty cool. You get three lives and three continues to get through five levels divided up into two or three stages each, held together with a password system, and it's B to jump, Y or A to attack, and X to toss a bomb when you pick them up. You can add a projectile to your attack, which is handy. You can crawl, grab onto stuff. Really the controls and functionality here is pretty solid. You have three characters to choose from, Rocky, Colt, and Tum Tum. And according to the aforementioned manual, which I obtained after selling one and a half of my kidneys, nah, just kidding, the manual is provided by RVG Fanatic. It says that Rocky is the strongest, Colt is the fastest, and Tum Tum is the stealthiest, which I guess is just another way of saying he's a smaller target. Let's murder Liza. Look, I get it if you're not into Liza Minnelli, but she was pretty good on arrested development at least. Each of the three characters also have their own weapons and special moves. One has a staff, one has a sword, and the other has a pair of size. Wow, subtle much. Did they think adding Michelangelo's nunchucks would be too on the nose? Hold up and press Y, and they do a handy move that deflects enemy projectiles, and you're going to be doing that a lot because this game is brutal. This is one of those games where every freaking thing is out to kill you, and there's stuff coming at you from all corners of the screen. You do have a health meter, so you can take a few hits before you die, but this is one of those games where you will die a lot, and you'll keep dying until you learn certain patterns and enemy placements. In other words, it's a pick up and die game. Right away in the first level you climb this rope, and immediately you have to be cognizant of this statue thing, intermittently spitting spikes at you while this old dude in a tree materializes from nothing, and throws a spread of ninja stars at you. As you can see, you have a freaking split second to react to all this. What you're supposed to do in this example is spin your weapon above you so you don't get hit by the stars, but you can't do that and jump at the same time, and you can't do it in midair either. So when you first play through this game, you're going to get hit and you're going to get mad. The next time you come through here, you'll know to wait on the rope for the statue to spit, then go up, then the enemy shows up, then you do the weapon spin thing, then you jump over the next statue spit, and so on. Do you like stuff like that? Because that's all this game is. That doesn't make this game a stay away though, not by a long shot. There's plenty to like. The graphics and settings are pretty nice, even though the characters all kind of look like muppets with their enlarged eyes. There's neat little tricks you can take advantage of, like ducking into certain spots of the background to avoid enemies. You can mess with the appliances in this kitchen here, or knock enemies out with taco trucks. There's ropes, vines, and branches you can latch on to. The sound design is crisp and the music is okay, although the enemy design leaves a bit to be desired, like these guys here just bludgeon them over and over until what is this guy doing crunches? Or this guy here you just gotta whack in the balls like 12 times. This game isn't just run to the right until the end of the level. You also have to find stuff within a time limit, whether it's training dummies you have to destroy, or people you have to rescue. There's also levels where you're out running a bolder Indiana Jones style. Wait, is that Buff Bagwell back there? I admit I haven't seen this movie, so I have no idea how closely this game follows things, but I'm just gonna go ahead and think that Buff Bagwell of all people played one of the villains and that Scotty Riggs is hidden somewhere in this game. Three Ninjas Kickback did get ported to the Sega Genesis and Sega CD with the latter including another game from publisher Sony Interactive. Hook, so that's pretty cool. As far as I can tell the Genesis Edition is pretty much the same game except with this giant blue bar at the top. So hey, do you like what you see, but you just wish there was a blue bar hanging over everything? Then try the Genesis version. So yeah, Three Ninjas Kickback isn't terrible. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it's halfway decent. It's a step above stuff like Zool or Rocky Rodent. And you gotta love that it's two player co-op. But yeah, it's a long ways away from stuff like Joe and Mac or even cool spot. It's a bit like prehistoric man, I suppose. Only this game is multiplayer, which people are gonna like. I just wish this game didn't get off to such a bad start. I mean, immediately you have a boulder rolling after you with spikes coming from the ceiling and there's absolutely no way you're avoiding damage here. Once you get past that slog, though, there's enough here to keep you entertained, especially with a second player. Alright, I wanna thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.