 Ninja Gaiden III : The Ancient Ship of Doom , known in Japan as Ninja Ryūkenden III : Yomi no <unk> ( <unk> <unk> , lit . " Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword III : The Ark from Hades " ) is a side @-@ scrolling platforming video game developed and published by Tecmo . It was released in Japan on June 26 , 1991 ( 1991 @-@ 06 @-@ 26 ) for the Famicom and in North America in August 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System ( NES ) . The NES version was not released in Europe . It was later ported to the Atari Lynx by Atari and released in 1993 in North America and Europe , the European version retaining the North American Ninja Gaiden III title . It was also re @-@ released as part of its Ninja Gaiden Trilogy Super NES compilation in 1995 in Japan and North America . Long after , it was released for the Virtual Console service in North America on February 18 , 2008 ( 2008 @-@ 02 @-@ 18 ) for the Wii and in North America and Europe on November 28 , 2013 ( 2013 @-@ 11 @-@ 28 ) and January 23 , 2014 ( 2014 @-@ 01 @-@ 23 ) respectively for the Nintendo 3DS . It was designed by Masato Kato , who took over for Hideo Yoshizawa — designer of the first two games in the NES series . 
