Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom[a] is a 1991 action-platform game developed and published by Tecmo.

It was released in Japan on June 21, 1991 for the Famicom and in North America on August of the same year for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

The player controls Ryu Hayabusa as he is framed for the murder of Irene Lew and investigates the circumstances behind her death.

He eventually discovers a plan by CIA agent Foster and another person named Clancy to utilize an interdimensional rift to create and control a race of energy-infused superhuman mutants.

Early reviews praised the game for its plot, gameplay, and difficulty; later reviews criticized the plot, level designs, and the game's difficulty level, in which the North American version was intentionally made harder than the Japanese version through limited continues, stronger enemies, and omission of a password system.

Clancy appears, telling Ryu, Irene, and Foster that they were all used as pawns in his plan to take over the ruins and claim the life energy as his.

Clancy explains the truth behind Castle Rock: the ruins are a dimensional warship called the "Ancient Ship of Doom".

[19] The ship reappears in the real world, and Clancy fires a test shot to demonstrate its power while Irene watches in horror.

[25][26] Ryu can defeat enemies by attacking with his Dragon Sword or by using secondary weapons which consume Ryu's "ninja power"; such weapons include the following: "Windmill Throwing Stars" which move back and forth like boomerangs, "Fire Dragon Balls" which launch fireballs downward at an angle, the "Fire Wheel Art" which launches fireballs upward at an angle, the "Invincible Fire Wheel" that forms a series of rotating of fireballs around Ryu and destroys any enemy who comes into contact, and a new weapon in this series called the "Vacuum Wave Art" which hurls vacuum blades above and below Ryu simultaneously.

[23] Ninja Gaiden III's first four bosses consist of the "bio-noids" – super-human creatures created and controlled by Foster to take over the world; they each represent the four elementals: earth, wind, fire, and water.

[29][30] Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom was ported by Tiger Electronics as an LCD handheld game.

[31] Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom was designed by Masato Kato, who took over Hideo Yoshizawa's main role in the game's development from the previous two titles.

They noted the difficulty level as being dictated by the enemies' strategic placements in the various environments; they added that while Act 1 is easy, the remainder of the game is very difficult.

The review praised the usage and usefulness of the secondary weapons, Ryu's new ability to hang overhead, and the new addition of the sword power-up, which it said bore resemblance to the game Strider.

They slightly criticized the game for leaving out the "cloning" power-up from Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos as well as the limited continues and lack of passwords.

[37] In March 1992, Ninja Gaiden III received three nominations in the "Nintendo Power Awards '91" in the following NES-related categories: "Best Graphics and Sound", "Best Challenge", and "Best Overall".

In GamePro magazine, they criticized the fact that the Lynx's small screen makes it difficult for players to see the various power-ups and enemies and to use secondary weapons.

[34] Retrospectively, Allgame gave a mostly negative review, saying that the background makes it difficult to see foreground elements, that players cannot see their character or what power-ups they are collecting, and that sound is very poor, saying "thirteen banshees all wailing different, off-key songs would only begin to approach just how bad the music is".

Nintendo Life's Damien McFerran gave lackluster ratings, saying that the game "passed under the radar of many a videogame enthusiast".

He added that while the presentation was great, he pointed out flaws in the "silly" plot, the inconsistently laid-out level designs, and frustrating difficulty in addition to the five-continue limit.

As with the Nintendo Life review, Thomas similarly criticized the inconsistent level design as well as a storyline which "begins [...] compellingly" but progressively becomes more bizarre, including "weird science-fiction themes about bionics and clones".

They said the story was too outlandish, calling the plot, of which a short-lived anime Ninja Gaiden series would loosely be based, "a glorious load of old bollocks".

While the version from Ninja Gaiden Trilogy for the Super NES remedied most of their criticisms, they said that the game added new frustrations which included slower framerates, lower-quality controls, and the omission and shuffling around of several tracks, which they said "is precisely the sort of thing that makes die-hard videogame fans apoplectic with rage".