Ninja Gladiator

"Finish him! ...Friendship?!"

Ninja Gladiator is Flippy-Floppy Industries' popular fighting game series that has been around since 1987. Bumblebee enjoys it a little bit too much. The game includes a four-armed insectoid and a ninja clad all in black. In the background of at least one stage is the face of the TORQ III computer.

Fiction

Animated cartoon

The plot was that, in the year 2021, Brandon "Big Boss" Babel freed five of the monstrous Inhumanoids from below the surface of the Earth.... and only the Ninja Gladiators were able to face these monsters! The AllSpark Almanac II

Bumblebee neglected monitor duty to play Ninja Gladiator, despite being admonished by Optimus Prime. This may have been a mistake, since his negligence allowed Wasp to get the drop on him. The rogue Autobot proceeded to switch places with Bumblebee in an attempt to exact vengeance. Bulkhead later proposed using the game to prove Bumblebee's identity, since his mega-cycles of practice made him virtually unbeatable. Wasp thought so too, and bolted rather than face the challenge. Where Is Thy Sting?

Wings Universe

Wheeljack traded what he claimed were future Autobot plans for a canister of Forestonite. In reality the disk contained a copy of Ninja Gladiator for the Magnographix 16. Generation 2: Redux

Characters

Some of the known characters of Ninja Gladiator, minus Robik (who is pictured below in the Notes section):

• 
  Big Boss
• 
  Brett
• 
  Felina
• 
  HGBG
• 
  Miles Mayhem
• 
  The Old Soldier
• 
  Slaughter Steelgrave
• 
  Robik

Notes

• The game's box art is inspired by the "black box" design used for Nintendo's first-party NES releases between 1985–1987, right down to the "series" branding in the bottom left corner, with the shuriken emblem placed where the Nintendo Seal of Quality would be.
• The four-armed insect is modeled after Antron from the Micronauts, whereas the ninja is Snake-Eyes.
• Playable characters in the 1987 version of the game include:
  • The Old Soldier, patterned after Hudson from Gargoyles.
  • Big Boss from C.O.P.S., the Hasbro cartoon.
  • Felina, a nod to Felina Feral from SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron.
  • Slaughter Steelgrave from Tomy's Starriors.
  • Robik, based on Gizmo from Superbook, and using his Ukrainian name.
  • Miles Mayhem, the leader of V.E.N.O.M. in M.A.S.K..
  • Brett, the protagonist of Turbo Teen.
  • HGBG, based on the Hideous giant brain guy from the UK Transformers comic.

"When I opened the book, you know, I didn't know what I was going to find..."

• The Inhumanoid on the game's box cover is the monster that was summoned from a pit beneath Destro's ancestral castle in the G.I. Joe episode "Sins of our Fathers."
• In addition to the three "core" Inhumanoids from the franchise of the same name (Metlar, D'Compose, and Tendril), the game also features Ssslither, an extra Inhumanoid featured in later episodes of the series, and Hojoni, a movie monster from the Generation 1 cartoon episode "Kremzeek!".
• The back of the box mentions Inhumanoids franchise protagonists the Earth Corps are busy battling the Lunartix Empire alongside Dr. Emmett Benton, the late father of Jerrica Benton from Jem and the Holograms. (Though for a man with that name to be around in 2021 suggests that that's either his grandson, or that he never actually died—which is truly outrageous.)
• The "Secret Code" printed in the game's instruction manual is the Konami Code.
• When creating the sprite art for the 1987 game's cast, artist David Willis offered two color palettes for each of the characters not owned by Takara or Hasbro (e.g. Old Soldier, Felina, Robik, Brett): one in the character's original colors, and one in radically different colors to make sure they were distinct enough to not step on any legal toes. Felina and Brett made it through unchanged, while Old Soldier and Robik were recolored, albeit in entirely different schemes than the alternates Willis submitted. (That said, if you look closely, Robik can be seen in his original red color scheme in a screenshot on the back of the box.)