Few things can go wrong with ninjas, they can make almost anything better. And in video games, the black (or purple) clad assassins that were ubiquitous. Ninja Gaiden is always a classic, and blasting away demons as Joe Musashi in Sega's Shinobi seldom gets old. The Legend of Kage was...mixed for me. Then there's the Taito published Wrath of the Black Manta, which had a hearty advertising campaign back in the day. it was solid, and fairly different from the others in some regards.

Wrath of the Black Manta was developed by studio AI, whose works include Power Instinct, Bomberman Jetters, and the Super Robot Taisen series. To my knowledge, Black Manta was the team's first game, and it was released on the NES in 1989. Titled Ninja Cop Saizo in Japan, the localization saw some of the cut scene sprites changed radically. The gameplay retains most of the same elements, though Wrath has one less stage than the Japanese version.

Like the aforementioned ninja-games, Wrath of the Black Manta is a side-scroller, but not as linear. You play as the eponymous ninja, traversing the stages and finding clues for your objectives. Making this a quasi-open world environment, something seldom seen on consoles at the time beyond games like Metroid, Rygar, and Faxanadu, the exploration is fairly streamlined, so while it's unfortunate there's no map, I seldom found myself getting too lost navigating the play field.

The gameplay is pretty deep for what the game is. Along with standard throwing stars, Manta has various Ninjutsu abilities, and can gain others after completing a stage. Thank the stars your power meter is charge-based and isn't reliant on item drops. Manta is a slow paced game, and the controls are a little on the chunky side, mostly with the jumping. Instead of holding down the button to get bigger air, you have to press up on the D-pad at a certain time. This makes sticking some jumps iffy as hell. He's probably the least athletic ninja I've controlled, at least until CORE's Ninja: Shadow of Darkness. It takes some getting used to when I'm getting over the rockiness. There is some variety, at least, like some gliding SHMUP portions, and some first person segments towards the end of the game. Pretty ambitious for the NES.

As far as graphics are concerned, it's alright, just not a great deal to talk about. Artistically simplistic, the backgrounds use a lot of flat colors with little in the way of depth, while the enemy and Manta sprites have some gradients applied to them. It's stylish, and comes off looking like panels in a manga. The localization removes a lot of the more elaborate cut scenes and instead opts for a more gritty, realistic style to better suit the tastes of western marketing. Well, it's the late 80's and the anime art was significantly more taboo. That much I can understand, but it ends up looking more ridiculous than the silly moonspeak art.

Wrath of the Black Manta is an adequate game with a little bit of nuance going for it. As an action platformer, its short length can make it a nice, fleeting play. The controls might not be as polished as most games, and at times can feel fairly unresponsive. Visually, the changes bug me, ends up looking really stupid in hindsight. perhaps that's the weeb in me talking, but the edited sprites make me think of a fever dream.

Still, I like playing this game more than The Legend of Kage, but falls short of some of the other Ninja-based games I've played around the time. The difficulty isn't too steep, mostly a lot of trial and error, it can be beaten in one sitting. You only have a handful of lives before it's Game Over, and some deaths can be a little cheap. 

It doesn't get squeezed into my retro gaming rotation as much some other games, Wrath of the Black Manta just happens to not be as dynamic. As mentioned above, it was strategically marketed around the height of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with several commercials, so drive that gravy train while it's hot. It's also not a hard game to find, copies float around most reseller stores.