Ninja Gaiden

Sega even had a third project running, this time for the Mega Drive. Once again, the development was done by a third party. This time it seems to have been the mostly unknown developer called Opus, as in-game art and the sound engine used indicate. This game was never released, probably due to quality issues, but a beta copy was leaked and can be played on emulators nowadays. The game would have tried to build on the concept of the original arcade game, but feels to some degree more like a very bad approach to the Streets of Rage school of beat-em-ups. It is obvious that it either was in a rather early development stage, or Sega did right to pull the plug on this botched mess.

The game features a lot of cut scenes, all of them in the finest Engrish. The chapter titles are in Japanese, though. The story doesn't make any sense, at least not in its presented state. Later in the game, you meet people you should know but don't, and about halfway through the game you get to know that your goal from the beginning was to rescue Ryu's kidnapped lady friend.