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This is the game that got me into mapping in the first place. I've had a physical copy of it since the 90's, and when this site was created I thought I might finally see some maps. I watched the front page for a few years, then came to realize that if I ever wanted maps of this game I would have to make them myself. I sat down with ZSNES, didn't know what I was doing, but after about an hour I produced a very crude Password Dungeon map. I moved on to other games when this was done, but the old maps weren't quite up to the quality standards of vgmaps so this update was on my agenda for years.

I had to hack my way into Omi Castle using codes. It doesn't have an icon on the world map because you're supposed to go to Azuchi Castle instead. It looks like the programmer must have put that blank map there as a placeholder, so that Omi gets counted during the war planning screen at the end of the month. Whatever the reason, it was something i've never seen before in this game, so that was pretty cool.

Inindo: Way Of The Ninja

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to zagato blackfist's Inindo: Way Of The Ninja (Super NES) maps.

The year is 1582, and the demonic warlord Oda Nobunaga has destroyed your village. As an Iga ninja seeking to avenge your clan, you must travel across feudal Japan. But the path to killing Nobunaga is not an easy one. It could take years, yet you only have until the year 1601 to complete your quest. And being a ninja is not a lonely existence - here, you will need to earn the trust of a number of different allies, to have them aid you in battle and survive maze-like dungeons.

Inindo: Way Of The Ninja is different from many other Super NES RPGs. It's a bit less fantastical, taking place in feudal Japan, though a fictionalized version of it. It's less linear than more story-heavy RPGs, and has a very large number of recruitable characters, but you have to earn their trust first, usually by talking to them at inns and tea houses. Turn-based battles take place, as you would expect, but in this game your position on the battlefield is important, so you will be moving around a lot. Fighting for or against certain daimyo can affect these feudal lords' possession of provinces, which affect your progress. And there are two different storyline paths, and the one you are on is determined upon exiting the first cave, the Password Dungeon. So there are a few things that make this game unique.

The various floors of any dungeon, however, are not so unique from each other in design, and there tends to be a sameness across the levels of any particular cave or mountain. Without help, you will most definitely get lost in these mazes - good thing zagato blackfist has taken on this game. In fact, he has mapped this once before in 2010, but redid these maps in 2019, consolidating the floors per dungeon and providing lots of information. Sure, there's the usual treasure contents in dungeons and the price lists of town shops, but also, the times there are differences based on which storyline you are on are indicated. Here at VGMaps.com we value improvement, and so it's good to see when someone takes the time to perfect their work. Thanks twice over, zagato!

So to recognize the effort put into mapping out the way of the ninja, zagato blackfist's Inindo: Way Of The Ninja (Super NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for March 2019.

One thing I've thought about doing (and now I wonder if I will regret doing so if I don't get around to it) is going through the Atlases with a fine-toothed comb.

When I was going through the NES atlas, I noticed a few Japanese games that weren't indicated as such with the (J) after the title. So I suppose I could go through those two atlases when I check the Japanese and European completion rates and e-mail you a report of the inconsistencies and which games are unlicensed, homebrew, etc.

Thanks again for your email about the NES/Famicom page.  If you refresh that page now you should see that all the filenames have been corrected to say "(Unlicensed)" if so, plus the "(E)" and "(J)" fixes (and one "(T)" fix).  So that's one major page vastly improved!

EDIT: Drat, looks like I have to fix all the past yearly news pages to say "(Unlicensed)" or correct the region...  It's late so I'll do that tomorrow...

EDIT: Okay, I fixed them.  Apparently 2012 is the only year where we didn't get stuff that I had to fix just now.

Ok, I reviewed the game list.
Almost all game, which I played and which I knew, was ripped and posted in the atlas. I will think of what I can ripped. May be there any assumptions, what is needed primary, or which maps will be informative and helpful for you?
The NES games is easy to rip, it has a simply 8-bit images and well processed in Screenshot Autosticker

A mistake on my part. Now I've amended it.

You can view it at

Big Nose Freaks Out - incomplecte

Why incomplete? I know this game very well and I ripped the missing level maps (last year) from this game, include the main level + hidden levels. Or are there an other hidden areas that i don't know about?

Sure thing. Here's the games that are complete:

NES / FC:
Final Fantasy III (FC)
Legend of the Ghost Lion

SNES / SFC:
Final Fantasy VI (SFC)
GD Leen (SFC)
Silva Saga II (SFC)
Ultima VI: The False Prophet

And the one that's incomplete is the one I mentioned above: Shinseiki Odysselya (SFC). Thanks!

Let me know which games of yours are actually COMPLETE or INCOMPLETE so I can make the emendations.

I did a similar compilation for NES and SNES games, which sorts out the NES, Famicom, Family Computer Disk System, SNES and Super Famicom systems.

That's cool that you have done much the same thing, Will. However, I did notice a number of my own map sets say they're incomplete when they're actually complete, and I saw that the Super Famicom list says Shinseiki Odysselya is complete when it's still in progress. But I did learn about COUNTIF() which you used to count up the various categories of completion. All I did before was use separate columns for each category and place in 1s wherever appropriate. Thanks for that! It sure helped make things much more streamlined and concise.

One thing I've thought about doing (and now I wonder if I will regret doing so if I don't get around to it) is going through the Atlases with a fine-toothed comb.

When I was going through the NES atlas, I noticed a few Japanese games that weren't indicated as such with the (J) after the title. So I suppose I could go through those two atlases when I check the Japanese and European completion rates and e-mail you a report of the inconsistencies and which games are unlicensed, homebrew, etc.

Hard to say if multiple request lists work.  But at the very least, they might remind people of games that are likely to be mapped anyway.  Recreating the NES Game Atlas and the library of the NES Classic Edition were easy, but the Super NES versions of both of those took longer, the Super NES Classic isn't even done.  Same with my Nintendo Power magazine cover games topic.  The Game Boy "Game Atlas" recreation topic is stagnant despite having only Super Mario Bros. Deluxe remaining...

I didn't really imagine it as a request list, but rather simply as a reference. But that'd be interesting to at least get an inkling of what people would like to see via some sort of polling, that's for sure. After compiling my lists, it gave me a few ideas of new games to try mapping out, at least ones that are much simpler to do than fully-fledged RPGs, haha.

Also, going through this ordeal made me think of posting these completion lists up here on the forums (akin to the various Atlas posts), so mappers can see the vast array of games that haven't been touched yet. I have to wonder if the forum software can handle posts being 1000+ lines long?

One thing I've thought about doing (and now I wonder if I will regret doing so if I don't get around to it) is going through the Atlases with a fine-toothed comb.  The NES and Super NES could use a check-over to see if the games are properly indicated as unlicensed, and (E) for European ones, and for the Japanese ones, to come up with a consistent way of presenting the title (there are often two ways to spell anything in Japanese, and do I prioritize the English translated title, and what if it doesn't officially have an English title but you know what it obviously would have to be (like Kyatto Ninden Teyandee (J) on the Famicom, which should obviously be Samurai Pizza Cats (J))?  Do I just put up title images for every region for every game?  There's stuff like Blaster Master which has the exact same gameplay as Meta Fight (J) despite having different stories.  (Maybe that doesn't have anything to do with anything here though.)  Lots to consider.

Hard to say if multiple request lists work.  But at the very least, they might remind people of games that are likely to be mapped anyway.  Recreating the NES Game Atlas and the library of the NES Classic Edition were easy, but the Super NES versions of both of those took longer, the Super NES Classic isn't even done.  Same with my Nintendo Power magazine cover games topic.  The Game Boy "Game Atlas" recreation topic is stagnant despite having only Super Mario Bros. Deluxe remaining...

What if there is a way to put up the lists of official games, and have them somehow votable?  Like people could click checkboxes or somehow indicate ones they'd like to see.  Logistically this could be tricky - can there be multiple votes per person, can the same person put multiple votes on the same game, how often can people change their votes, etc.  It would be interesting to see what people want to see most.

Ultimately, you'd have to have mappers interested in the games.  Might have to have a disclaimer that the votes are for informational purposes only and that there's no guarantee of those maps being made, especially if the top games are technically unfeasible.  But if a mapper is looking for something to do, such a poll could be very helpful.