The third in the Last Ninja series sees you as Armakuni, the Last Ninja. He is drawn again into a battle with evil Shogun Kunitoki.

Last Ninja 2 is one of the best games ever released on the Commodore 64, taking the absurdly successful formula of the original and applying a number of improvements across the board. It was inevitable that there would be another entry in the series, but the pressure to impress was even greater the third time around. And yet the talented bods at System 3 managed it.

The most immediate improvement is in the visuals. Last Ninja 3 opens with an impressive and moody animated introductory sequence, the kind of thing we take for granted nowadays, but quite uncommon on the tape-loading C64. The game itself more than lives up to this opening, with detailed sprites, intricate environments and sumptuous colours throughout, the result of a new graphics engine built from the ground up for this instalment. Instead of the singular environments of previous games, this entry has an elemental theme which allows for distinct and effective level designs; you can almost feel the heat of the furnaces and magma of the fire level, and the final stage, set in a strange otherworldly void, is particularly evocative in its cosmic weirdness.

The sound also impresses, with a number of good tunes and strong use of the C64's famous SID chip. The compositions are perhaps not quite as strong as in previous games in the series, but nonetheless, there is plenty of good music in the game, and the C64's sound technology remains ahead of its time. We reviewers can sometimes come across as a broken record when talking about the Commodore's superior sound capabilities, but it really is that good.

The gameplay also receives some minor but significant tweaks. The complexity of the puzzles is boosted a little, with some items needing to be combined in order to be useful, and others not revealing their utility until a later level. These are not exactly brain-numbing in difficulty, but they do lift the game above the level of a simple button-masher. Similarly, the Bushido system introduced with this instalment adds some depth and variety to the frequent combat; while it is still possible to flee from or overpower your enemies, you miss out on certain benefits if you do, and furthermore, the boss fights become considerably more difficult when Bushido runs low. There even seems to have been a slight fixing of the occasionally fiddly Last Ninja control scheme, and Armakuni is a touch more responsive this time around, although parts of the game (most notable changing direction) are still not best suited to a control pad; as with the earlier games, it may be wise to invest in a Gamecube controller to play this one.

This is essentially the same classic game, with a number of tweaks and a bit of polish, but those tweaks are significant and are enough to make this title the best in the series by a mile, and easily one of the best games available for the C64. If you missed Last Ninja 3 the first time around, make it an immediate Virtual Console download while you have the chance.