Nobody can understand the weirdness of The Ninja Kids unless they've actually played it. It never made it to wide release in American arcades very probably because it's one of those few games that is certain to leave you speechless for all the wrong reasons. And if Sega hadn't dug the game out for its 2005 Taito Legends collection, we would have probably lost it forever.

The Ninja Kids is an early beat-em-up set that is set in August of 1999. In it, a gang of Satanists has taken over a town run by ninjas, and it's up to you to control four kids as they slice and dice sinners with their weapons. It features all sorts of goofy enemies: gang members with big red lips; fat, cartwheeling mafiosos; hunchbacked zombies; and a macho man with a mohawk who looks an awful lot like Bebop from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Although the story doesn't really make much sense, the game includes a lot of the classic stages seen in many brawlers of the time. In the second stage, the ninjas barge into a flaming hallway that looks almost exactly like the burning building in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game -- aside from the floating KKK members that shoot lightning from their hands.

One of the best reasons to play the game is that it features some of the most inconceivable beat-em-up bosses ever. In stage two, the kids fight a giant fireball with a smiley face, summoned from a pentagram on the floor. In stage four, they match swords atop a zeppelin with an evil ninja who has an Egyptian-style haircut.

My favorite boss fight, however, is the final battle with The Satan. He appears as some sort of gigantic, green stone-gargoyle thing. I have no idea why the game designers chose that color, but every part of the final battle is spectacular. A high-pitched xylophone bleeps, raising the suspense and urgency as the ninjas cut the incredible, groaning monster overlord down to size. Once you finally defeat him, he explodes in to an pulsing, gaseous cloud. Even the boss fights in Metal Gear Solid 3 can't rival the scary extravaganza that is The Ninja Kids.

Although most people will probably never want to play this horrorfest of a game, it will always hold a special place in my heart thanks to its strange Satanist imagery and its odd (Christian?) message. Even if the Satanists manage to revive The Satan from the dead, we will always have the Ninja Kids to kick his ass. Hell yeah!