Ninja Commando (1992, Arcade)

Ninja Commando is a shoot'em up developed by Alpha Denshi Corporation (a.k.a. ADK) and published by SNK. It was also released for Neo Geo AES and Neo Geo CD.

An evil man called Spider, leader of the Mars Corporation, has built a time machine and altered the cause of history. A group of three ninjas sets out to save history and defeat Spider.

You select one character out of the group (in 2-player mode, players can pick the same character). The characters differ in the damage of their main weapon and the spread of the projectiles, and the special attack which is activated when you shoot fast enough. The game uses a top-down perspective and has no auto-scrolling. Apart from shooting, you can somersault to avoid hits. During somersaulting, you can shoot a shuriken in the opposite direction of the direction you are moving. Since your main weapon is directed strictly ahead, using the shuriken is essential to hit many enemies. Also, the shuriken attack does more damage. Finally, there is a fire attack hurting all enemies on screen, but this one takes away a part of your health and cannot be used when health is too low.