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Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom

TitleNinja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
First release1991
DeveloperTecmo
PublisherTecmo
PlatformNES / Famicom
Genreplatformer
Also known asNinja Ryukenden III: Yomi no Hakobune · Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword III: The Ark from Hades
Players1 player
Co-opNo
ESRB ratingE Everyone
Releases
NES / Famicom: 1991-06-21 (NTSC-J), 1991-08-01 (NTSC-U)
Wikidata IDQ674227

Ninja Ryukenden III: Yomi no Hakobune (also known as Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom) is a 1991 Famicom side-scrolling hack and slash platformer video game developed and released by Tecmo in Japan on June 21, 1991. This is the third entry in the series of fast-paced ninja action games, and is the last game in the series to be released on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Some time has passed since the defeat of Ashtar and the resurrected Jaquio, and Irene Lew has received a new mission to complete. She is to observe a strange factory that has been constructed recently for an unknown purpose, and investigate it. She proceeds to reconnoiter it, but is intercepted and apparently assassinated by her friend Ryu Hayabusa...except it isn't Ryu. It is an imposter. The real Ryu, angered over her death, and the subsequent false accusation that he murdered her, continues her mission and proceeds to investigate the factory. As stated, this was the last game in the regular series produced for the NES. It had many features the previous games in the series did not, such as a power up to extend the length of your sword, a new vertical "wave" attack and vertically-scrolling levels. The US version of the game is reputed to be the hardest in the series, due to the extra damage incurred when hit, slightly shorter regular sword length, limited continues and more enemies. The Lynx port is the second Ninja Gaiden game on the platform, the first being a port from the Arcade Version. This port is identical to the NES game, but the in-game picture is compressed for the smaller screen of the Lynx.

Description: TheGamesDB (community-contributed, no licence stated; internal use only) Facts from Wikidata (CC0), gaps filled from TheGamesDB. Only retro platforms tracked by this site are listed; the year is the earliest release date recorded on Wikidata.
Sources
Wikidata (Q674227) · last updated 2026-09-27 · CC0
TheGamesDB (1813,80202) · last updated 2026-07-18 · no licence stated · internal use only
Image credits
Box art (1): Source: TheGamesDB (user-uploaded, NTSC-U release) · © Tecmo · internal use only. TheGamesDB page
Box art, Screenshots, Logos, Artwork (6): Source: TheGamesDB (user-uploaded) · © Tecmo · internal use only. TheGamesDB page
Sprites
No sprite sheets yet. Find sprites on The Spriters Resource ↗ /
Videos
NES Longplay [061] Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (US)
World-of-Longplays · NES / Famicom version · longplay · 44:32auto-matched
Watch on YouTube ↗ · auto:channel-harvest, checked 2026-10-25 18:41 UTC
Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (NES) Playthrough
NintendoComplete · NES / Famicom version · longplay · 46:33auto-matched
Watch on YouTube ↗ · auto:channel-harvest, checked 2026-10-25 18:41 UTC
"Auto-matched" videos were found automatically (title + platform match via the YouTube Data API) and may occasionally be wrong. Videos are hosted by YouTube (embedded via youtube-nocookie.com; nothing loads from YouTube until you press play) and belong to their channels.
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