Last Ninja 3

''Last Ninja 3'' is an action-adventure video game that was developed and published by System 3 for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST in 1991. It is a sequel to the 1988 game ''Last Ninja 2''.

Development and release

The Amiga and Atari ST versions of ''Last Ninja 3'', as developed by System 3, began development in September 1990, and were released in the March 1991 for the Amiga and Atari ST; a DOS version was in development and announced for the same month, but was never released. Adrian Cale, the co-director of ''Last Ninja 3'', stated that the game was conceived because "the ''Ninja'' games have almost become a genre in their own right. People buy them because they specifically want that type of game. ... years ago ''Last Ninja'' was state of the art on 8-bit machines, we're now trying to make it state of the art on 16-bit". Unlike its predecessors, ''Last Ninja 3'' may have more than one enemy on-screen at once. Alongside this, the enemy AI was improved: Stan Schembri, a designer for ''Last Ninja 3'', said that they are "a lot more intelligent", further stating that "they attempt to react to the way you move. In ''Ninja 2'' if you were fighting that was it. In this one if you make a slight move, an enemy will try to come round to fight you from the back". ''Last Ninja 3'' was designed with arcade-style gameplay in mind: this manifests in the form of changes to ''Ninja 3's'' combat, and the addition of bosses. Due to these gameplay changes, the game's joystick controls are also altered: while previous ''Last Ninja'' games have controls for turning and moving separately, the protagonist now faces and moves in the same direction the stick is pushed.

''Last Ninja 3's'' graphics were intentionally made aesthetically different from previous games in the series. Cale said that some of the game's enemies are "more fantasy oriented", as opposed to "a load of guys in karate gear". Cale further expressed that the ''Last Ninja 3'' team "tried to create character animation that hasn't been seen in other games", with making the animations 'realistic' being a priority. ''The One'' expressed that the development team also prioritized walkcycle animations, with the graphic artists seeking to avoid characters 'looking like they're skating'. ''Last Ninja 3'' has larger sprites than its predecessors: the protagonist's sprite is double the size of that of previous games. The 16-bit versions of ''Last Ninja 3'' were programmed by Mark Dawson and Dave Collins from the game studio Eldritch the Cat. Despite the size of ''Last Ninja 3's'' sprites, they don't use much processor time: the game's 3D masking uses more processing power, with about 200 layers of masking per screen. According to Collins & Dawson, the game's 3D masking was one of the hardest aspects to code. The Amiga version was the first version of the game made, and was used as the basis for the Atari ST and cancelled DOS conversions. Dawson primarily programmed the Atari ST version, which he expressed is easier than the DOS version due to the ST 'essentially using the same code', while Collins worked on the DOS version. Rather than using a PC running PDS for development like previous System 3 games, ''Last Ninja 3'' was programmed on Intel 80386

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