noted the great and diverse gameplay and high level of challenge. Nintendo initially introduced Ninja Gaiden II as an arcade video game for their PlayChoice-10 system at Chicago's American Coin Machine Exposition (ACME) in March 1990, marketed as a sequel to Tecmo's hit Ninja Gaiden arcade game (1988). The NES version was then released in Japan on , in North America in May 1990, and in Europe on . Ports were published for the Amiga and MS-DOS by GameTek in 1991. It was then released for the Virtual Console North America service on for the Wii, on for the Nintendo 3DS and on for the Wii U. Reception After the game's release, it debuted at #4 on Nintendo Power magazine's "Top 30" list for September–October 1990. In March 1991, the game was nominated for the "Nintendo Power Awards '90" in the following categories: "Best Theme & Fun"; "Best Play Control"; "Best Hero" (Ryu Hayabusa); "Best Bad Guy" (Ashtar); and "Best Overall". It did not win any of those categories. In a 1991 issue of Game Players in its list of Annual Awards, the game received the "Game Player's NES Excellence Award" as one of the best NES games of 1990. Electronic Gaming Monthly founder Steve Harris said that the game improved on its predecessor's gameplay, graphics, and cinematic cutscenes; he praised the diverse level environments and the new abilities that Ryu has received, but he noted that some power-ups from the first Ninja Gaiden game were missing in this one. A reviewer under the pseudonym "Sushi-X" echoed Harris's praise but pointed out that some of the bosses in the first game were reused; he added afterwards that "it's still worth the price of admission". Ed Semrad called Ninja Gaiden II one of the best video game sequels to ever be released; he referred to the graphics, difficulty, gameplay, and storyline as "near-perfect", though he pointed out that the game does get very difficult in the latter levels. Martin Alessi called it one of the best NES games ever and one of the best video games of 1990. In the same issue, Ninja Gaiden II was featured on the front cover and was denoted as the "Game-of-the-Month". In 1997 Nintendo Power listed Ninja Gaiden as the 49th on its "100 Best Games of All Time" list. It was also listed as having one of the best 100 cheat codes of all