Ninja Spirit and an obscure shmup heading to the Virtual Console

Game|Life brings us word of four TurboGrafx-16 virtual console games coming to North America this May.

Ordyne (Namco Bandai)
Ninja Spirit (Irem)
Blazing Lasers (Hudson)
World Sports Competition (Hudson)

Ninja Spirit is a 2D platformer where you play as Moonlight on a quest for revenge. It’s similar to Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi, but the series was put to rest after the first game. Then there are two shmups on the list Blazing Lasers and Ordyne. While Blazing Lasers is pretty awesome, Ordyne is going to get some extra attention because it’s probably not as well known. Ordyne has a different feel to it than other shmups out there where you’re knee deep in some post apocalyptic future where metallic fish fly in the skies. Instead Ordyne has a “cute” look to it, like Twinbee, but it’s much more challenging where you have to swerve between obstacles like floating walls. Also instead of collecting weapons you pick up crystals to purchase weapons, but the standard blue blast of energy works for most of the game.