whole idea – the whole concept – was mine. The vision of The Last Ninja as an isometric adventure was something I was very passionate about. Obviously, the machines back then weren't powerful enough to create fully 3D games, so an isometric viewpoint seemed to be the right solution to move away from the standard side-scrolling platform games. We wanted to do something a bit different, something that would really capture the imagination. And there really is no better subject matter than the idea of controlling a ninja, a spiritual warrior. We wanted to combine an arcade experience with adventure elements. So it wasn't like Double Dragon, where you just go punch, kick, move, punch, kick, move… The whole idea was to solve a series of simple but realistic adventure puzzles. What we were essentially trying to do was take the square cursor blob from Adventure on the Atari 2600 and turn it into a fully interactive 3D adventure". Ports Versions subsequent to the Commodore 64 original were published by Activision in 1987 for Apple IIGS and in 1988 for the Atari ST and MS-DOS. Superior Software published conversions for the BBC Micro, Acorn Electron in 1988, and Acorn Archimedes in 1992. The Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum versions were in production but were never released. It was re-released on Wii Virtual Console in Europe in April 2008 as the fifth Virtual Console Commodore 64 game, and in North America in February 2009 as one of the first three Virtual Console Commodore 64 games. Reception Computer Gaming World stated that "there is no exaggerating the graphic excellence of" The Last Ninja". It was very successful as an original Commodore 64 game. In Europe, its sales alone were in excess of 750,000 units and international multi-format sales exceeded 2,000,000 units. According to System 3's Mark Cale, about 4 million copies of the game were sold in all. It was the best-selling C64 game at the time. The game won many awards and was universally critically acclaimed as original and ground-breaking. It was a runner up for Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards '88. According to UGO: "For a 20+ year old game, The Last Ninja is surprisingly advanced, sporting a combat system which allows specific body parts to be targeted, environmental obstacles, multiple weapons and hidden items galore". References External links Last Ninja Archives ''The Last Ninja' at