Memories of broken controllers and having your NES taken by your parents due your constant swearing and yelling!!!!!!!!!
As Gamespot stated, this game opens with "the greatest cut scene ever" between two ninjas in a field under the moonlight. The game sucked you in right there back in 1989, and does so just as effectively in 2008.
The levels are fun, fast paced, and can be insanely difficult at times. The music is some of the best of the era, and to this day gets your heart pumping as you dash, slash, and jump through 6 acts. The cut scenes that follow each act are still cool, and were mind blowing at the time.
You'll find yourself questioning why you plug on as you die time after time, often in what seems to be very cheap fashion. You then come to realize that in 1989 this is what was necessary to make games difficult enough to hold gamers for hour upon hour of gaming. This is proof that games don't have to require a college course to be both fun and difficult.
If you remember Gaiden from your early days of gaming, or are someone who missed the NES era and grew up in the 3D Playstation - present era, you owe it to yourself to experience this great game again or for the first time!