When I first saw screens of Sasuke vs. Commander, one of the first batch of old SNK arcade classics converted to Minis by G1M2, I had absolutely no idea what it was. It was obviously set in feudal Japan, with a redheaded woman in a light blue kimono at the bottom of the screen. But what was going on? I had no idea, nor did the name of the game provide any clues.

It turns out to be a non-scrolling vertical shooter. You, the kimono-clad pixelated Lucile Ball lookalike named “Sasuke,” are tasked with saving the life of a Shogun (presumably played by Gale Gordon) from a horde of ninjas. A horde of flying ninjas. It’s more than a little surreal, but fun enough, if simple. It reminds me a lot of Satan’s Hollow, though this game came first by a few years, in 1980.

You can only move your redhead to the left or to the right. At first, you only shoot one bullet, but later on, you sometimes start shooting pairs. I’m not sure why this happens, nor do I have any idea what you are supposed to be shooting at the ninjas. I would say the difficulty is somewhat high. There aren’t a lot of bullets shot at you, but they seem to be very well aimed. Especially when the game first starts (or resumes after a life is lost), you need to move immediately to dodge a bullet.

You also have to watch out for the falling bodies of the ninjas. That seems a bit overkill; I’m sure a dead ninja falling on you wouldn’t be pleasant, but I can’t believe it would kill you. Samurai, probably, with those pointy helmets. But c’mon, these ninjas are light enough to fly, so they can’t hurt that much.

After a couple of waves of ninjas, you get to fight a boss, for a “magic bonus.” This is actually the interesting part of the game, as there seems to be a variety of different bosses. One moves around the screen and breathes fire at you, including some splatter (very reminiscent of Satan’s Hollow), another one sort of teleports, one acts like the last invader from Space Invaders. The fourth boss seems to repeat what the first did but is quicker, and that is as far as I went.

As with all of the G1M2-developed arcade classic Minis, there are a number of options. You can change the controls, change the game settings (just how many lives and when you get a bonus), stretch the game screen to fit the physical screen vertically (which you should, because otherwise it displays some hideous pixel art on the sides of the screen), and save/load the game state. The last one is a biggie in this game, letting you progress further in the game, as it otherwise has no continues.

Granted, as it doesn’t offer that much variety except in the bosses, there isn’t much point to going further, but at least you have the option to. Still, it seems like the point in playing this game isn’t so much to see what changes (since not much does) as simply to see how far you can get without the game being over.

Graphically, it’s something of an ugly game. Blocky graphics with garish colors. It doesn’t sound much better. Your shots sound like missiles from Galaxian (or some other shooter from that era), and the music is mostly annoying bleeps. There’s a very brief cutscene of the Shogun telling you to protect him and then another when the game is over, but neither one is remarkable.

G1M2 did a solid, if unspectacular, job with the conversion. The options are nice, but having background info on the game itself and more game state saves would vastly improve things, as well as if it featured the original cabinet art as the background when it’s not stretched, as opposed to the horrible pixel art they chose (which are the sprites from the game blown up, but inexplicably color-shifted).

Sasuke vs. Commander isn’t a bad game, but it’s very simple. In a lot of ways, simpler than even Ozma Wars, though I would rate this as being more fun. It seems like they missed an opportunity to work the guy you are protecting into the gameplay, as in the similar game King & Balloon from Namco.

Still, despite the simplicity, it’s a fun, if very simple, old school shooter. Once I got beyond the strangeness of the premise, I found myself enjoying it more than I expected. It’s still quite low on the list of my favorite arcade shooters, but I would have put a quarter into it once in a while, had I ever seen a Sasuke vs. Commander machine back in the day.

6.5/10