GeGeGe no Kitaro: Yokai Daimakyou

Overview

GeGeGe no Kitaro: Yokai Daimakyou, known as Ninja Kid in the West, is an NES game developed by TOSE and published by Bandai. It was based on the manga series GeGeGe no Kitaro. This game was followed by a sequel titled Gegege no Kitarou 2: Youkai Gundan no Chousen, which was released the following year only in Japan also by Bandai. It was the eighth best selling Famicom game of 1986, selling 1,250,000 copies. The original Japanese version is notably different from the American version (Ninja Kid). The main character is Kitarō, and his main weapon is his hair rather than darts. His sub-weapons are a flying finger instead of shuriken, his vest instead of the feather, and a geta instead of a boomerang. All of these weapons function the same as the ones of the protagonist of the American version, Kyo; they just use different sprites. The fireball sub-weapon remains the same. Certain levels are inhabited by "western" film monsters like Frankenstein's Monster and Count Dracula; the boss of these levels is the character Buckbaird, the leader of the "western youkai". The scroll which unlocks the fortress is a crystal ball in the original version. The familiars are also different, being characters from the manga: the Pegasus was originally Nurikabe, the Eagle was Konaki Jiji, and the Mirror was Sunakake Babaa. Finally, a few of the minor enemies are different; most notably the "Pirate Ninja" found in some of the Guerilla Warfare levels was originally Nezumi Otoko, and Kitaro rides on Ittan Momen during the Dog Fight levels.