Ninja (character)

Ninja is one of the five  characters who first appears in the game Mario Hoops 3-on-3, which was developed by Square Enix, who also produced the entire Final Fantasy series of games. His traits and appearance are based on the Ninja job class from the Final Fantasy games. He is the leader of the Final Fantasy team in both games. He is dressed in a red Ninja uniform, and his special abilities deal with Ninjutsu. Ninja returns as a playable character in Mario Sports Mix (which was also developed by Square Enix). Although he is a heroic character in his original game, in both Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and Mario Sports Mix, he is depicted in a semi-antagonist role where he disguises himself and steals the trophy in the final cup of the game.

Mario Hoops 3-on-3
Ninja makes his debut appearance for the Super Mario franchise in Mario Hoops 3-on-3. Ninja is one of five Final Fantasy characters in the game, alongside White Mage, Black Mage, Moogle, and Cactuar. He is unlocked by winning the Rainbow Tourney on the Normal difficulty. As his skill-set is based on his speed, grace, and power, he has an All-Around playing style. Ninja's Special Shot is the Leaf Veil, which lets him use his Ninjutsu skills to shoot the ball towards the net, and he dashes through a veil of leaves to dunk the ball with precision. The Leaf Veil is activated by tapping a capital N, for Ninja. By completing the Rainbow Tourney on the Hard difficulty setting and achieving a gold trophy, an alternate version of Ninja's attire is unlocked.

Mario Sports Mix
Ninja makes his second appearance in the Super Mario franchise in Mario Sports Mix. Ninja appears with the original Final Fantasy characters from Mario Hoops 3-on-3. He maintains his playing style as an All-Around character. He is unlocked by beating one of the two Star Roads, located on the Star Cup Map. He also has an alternate outfit, called Shadow White, which is unlocked by playing as Ninja 20 times, by completing Star Road 4 times, or by finding him on the Flower Cup route. Even if the player is playing as Ninja during the Star Cup, a CPU Shadow White Ninja will still steal the trophy before the finals, and the player will challenge him alongside White Mage and Black Mage.

Ninja features average power and technique, while having above average speed. He also has the highest stat total, along with White Mage; 10/15.

Ninja's special shot involves him making two copies of himself to throw off opponents. In dodgeball, the shots that the copies make do count. For all the other sports, only the real Ninja's shot will count.

Physical description
Ninja has the appearance of a human with black eyes and a traditional Ninja outerwear attire. He is portrayed as a balanced, all-around character in his appearances, focusing on speed, grace and power.

Ninja has an average frame for a male character, with similar bodily proportions to that of Mario and Luigi. Ninja's skin is an olive, tan complexion. He has a small, button nose which, along with his mouth, is mostly concealed by his mask. His eyebrows are dark and give his eyes a focused appearance. His eyes are round, and peer out of his helmet. Ninja's face is describable as round, with soft shape.

Clothing
Ninja is portrayed as wearing a red shinobi shōzoku, with various pieces of light armor and a flowing, white ninja scarf. His top is a red keikogi with a v-neck, and short sleeves with a white rib at each opening. His bottoms are baggy, red, and include a white slit on each hip. Dark red details include fingerless gloves, a ninja mask, tabi socks, a keikogi belt, and a modern hood. Light armor pieces include red and white accented arm-guards, shoulder armor, a helmet, and metallic chainmail under the keikogi top. The arm-guards are depicted with a three end split, metallic rings wrapped in half-circle studs, as well as an orange rupee on each forearm.

Alternative Outfits
In Mario Hoops 3-on-3, an alternate form of Ninja's regular outfit can be unlocked by completing the Rainbow Tourney on Hard difficulty with a gold trophy. It replaces the red colors of his garb with indigo, as well as the dark red with a deeper indigo. The white accents are replaced with gold, and the orange rupees in his arm-guards are made pink. The chainmail underneath his top is much darker, and his helmet has a metallic ninja band on the front as opposed to the curved accent shape on his original costume.

In Mario Sports Mix, there is another alternate costume, called "Shadow White". It can be unlocked by playing as Ninja for twenty matches, by completing the "Shadow White" mission at Star Cup, or by clearing Star Road four times. His mouth piece also turns a lighter red.

Powers and abilities
Ninja's abilities deal with various Ninja skills and Ninjutsu specials. Ninja is said to possess grace, speed and power, making him well-off as an All-Around character in his appearances.

Special abilities
Ninja's special abilities are centered around his use of Ninjutsu. In Mario Hoops 3-on-3, Ninja even replaces a few standard abilities with Ninjutsu skills. Rather than side-step, Ninja teleports from side to side, and instead of ground-pounding, Ninja will jump in the air and summon down a spiral of flames. He also makes use of doppelgangers when doing various swift motions while playing, such as dunking. His special move in this game is the Leaf Veil, and he uses a summoning circle to alter the effects of his ball, quickly sending it towards the hoop. This leaves him an opening to vanish through a gust of leaves directly to his ball, guaranteeing him a swift dunk.

Portrayals
Ninja is voiced/portrayed by:
 * Hironori Miyata in Mario Hoops 3-on-3.
 * Scott Burns in Mario Sports Mix.

Mario Hoops 3-on-3

 * Baller Name: Mr. Invincible
 * Type: All-Around
 * Special Shot: Leaf Veil
 * Letter to Tap: N
 * Site profile: "Speed, grace and power sum up Ninja's game. To stop him, you have to catch him, but when you think you have him where you want him, he really has you set up to be the fool. His Leaf Veil is a thing of beauty."

Trivia

 * Ninja's appearance is based on the appearance of the class in NES-era Final Fantasy games, being an almost exact match for the class as it appears in the original game.
 * His alternate costume from Mario Hoops 3-on-3 has a strong resemblance to the Ninja class in Final Fantasy V.
 * The band around his mouth is a slightly lighter shade of red when choosing his Shadow White costume.