Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (1991) closed out the NES trilogy with the most elaborate cutscenes yet and a new wall-clinging move for Ryu Hayabusa.

It's also infamous: the US version cranked the difficulty far past the Japanese release, slashing your continues so that one bad stretch could end your whole run with no recovery. Veterans of the first two games met their match.

For those who pushed through, it's a stylish, intense send-off — the cinematic ambition the series pioneered, taken as far as the hardware could go. Just keep a fresh controller handy.