Ninja Gaiden/Trivia

• Banned in China: The second Xbox game was not released in Germany and Australia because of… well, you know. That's one the reasons the gore was slightly toned down in the Play Station 3 port.
  • Curiously enough, the game had German subtitles anyway (although they were for other German speaking countries like Austria). That was pretty convenient for German fans of the game, that could import it relatively easily.
• Cut Song: "Inevitable" in the second NES game, which can only be heard with an NSF player.
• Franchise Zombie: Tomonobu Itagaki wanted Ninja Gaiden II (Xbox 360) to be the last Ninja Gaiden game, at least for the Xbox continuity, it only took his leave from Tecmo Koei to Yosuke Hayashi, his replacedment as Team Ninja's Executive Producer/Director, to keep going with Ninja Gaiden 3. Still, it's unclear if Itagaki really meant that, he made this statement when he was already at odds with Tecmo Koei, very close to his eventual departure from the company.
• Hey, It's That Voice!:
  • Hayabusa (Xbox) = Arthas.
  • Hayabusa (360) = Young Ocelot and Spider-Man.
  • Hayabusa (NG3) = Kanji Tatsumi.
    • Hayabusa (Japanese) = Schwarz Bruder.
  • Rachel = Tara Strong. Bubbles, Raven, Omi, Ben Tennyson and Sari and... just see the frakking IMDB page.
    • She's even crazier in Japanese. Sailor Mars, Sumire Kanzaki, Emi Ogasawara, Unipuma, the list goes on and on...
  • Sonia = Saya.
  • Alexei = Travis Touchdown.
  • Volf = Jorgen von Strangle.
  • Zedonius = Orochimaru.
    • And ironically, he is the Third Hokage in the Japanese version.
• I Knew It!: Due to the breadth of shared traits between Irene Lew from the NES trilogy and Sonia of Ninja Gaiden II, more than a few fans theorized that Sonia was a modern re-imagining of Irene and that they were the same person (Sonia's bio even hints that her name is an alias). Come Dead or Alive: Dimensions, it turns out that they were right.
• No Export for You: The Original Video Animation was never licensed to outside Japan. The only way to watch it is through fansubbing.
• The Other Darrin: English localization just can't get a hold of a voice actor for too long. As of Ninja Gaiden 3, there are three different actors for each main release. Troy Baker reprises his role, having provided his voice in Dead of Alive Dimensions. Compare and contrast to Hideyuki Hori, who has been voicing Ryu for 16 years, the first of which was the original Dead or Alive back in 1996.
• Word of God: According to this interview, the folks at Tecmo were quite unsure on how to translate the video game's title ("Ninja Ryūkenden", which means "Ninja Dragon Sword Legend") for the foreign players, so they opted for Rule of Cool even if it didn't make much sense.