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Audio:		9.5
Visual:		8.5
Gameplay:		8.9
Story:		0.0
Replay:		9.0
Score:		8.9

Platform:	X360
Genre:	Action
Players:	1
Website:	http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/splash/n/ninjagaiden2/
Release Date:	June 03, 2008
Rating:

After three iterations of the same game for the last several years there is finally a new Ninja Gaiden game.  Just like the last one it doesn’t open itself up to new comers, but it’s an enjoyable, but highly aggravating game for its hardcore following.

Story:

Believe it or not but the story being told in Ninja Gaiden 2 makes even less sense than it did in the first one.  It loses all sort of credibility when you hear the words “CIA” and “Archfiend” used in the same sentence, which is pretty early on.  The breakdown of it is that a CIA agent name Sonia (looks like a short haired Rachel) is looking for Ryu Hayabusa so she can tell him about the resurgence of the Archfiend.  Your old buddies from the previous game the Black Spider Clan is back in full force and once again Hayabusa Village gets burned down.  There’s not really much to it.  There are Greater Fiends, you kill them and fight some kind of towering monstrosity in the end.

Gameplay:

One of the first things that I actually noticed was the alteration they made to the dodging.  Instead of actually rolling out of the way Ryu just does some slide.  I don’t think it’s as useful as the rolling from the last one, but I managed to get used to it.  The biggest change comes in the form of the regenerating health bar.  You won’t be potion hording like the last game because after every battle you regain your health, but it has its limits.  If you take too much damage a certain portion of the bar will turn red, which is the portion that won’t be regained when the battle is over.  You won’t regain the lost portions of health until you get to a save point.

I really like the new health bar, but it seems to have come at a high price.  Team Ninja decided to use this as a license to make certain enemies and areas as cheap as possible making some of these portions verging on entirely unplayable.  Now a lot of the enemies I actually like and view them as typical cannon fodder, but some are plain ridiculous.  One of the one enemies that I at first hated in Ninja Gaiden were the rocket troops, but now I just love tearing through them, but in this iteration I can’t say the same thing.  Not only do the rocket troops fire about a dozen rockets at you at one go, but you always fight a pair of them.  They only seem to be in what I think was chapter eight, but the amount of times you run into them is aggravating.  You can dodge all of their salvoes and get up to them only to be met with a face full of rockets.  When this happens you can’t block, dodge or even move.  It’s the cheapest thing that I have ever had to deal with.  Not to mention that there is another segment where you have to water run to take out about 12 of them and they seem to respawn while you are killing them.  Granted I got through this, but I didn’t have any fun whatsoever dealing with it.

That’s the thing with this game; it doesn’t realize that there is a fine line between the fun kind of challenge and the “you’ve got to be f**kin’ sh*ttin’ me” challenging.  There were so many instances where I almost threw my controller right in to the TV, but it’s not fully because of the difficulty, which is actually manageable; it’s the camera.  I have already read numerous posts on a couple of forums stating that the camera isn’t that bad, but I ask you the question; what difficulty are you playing on and what level are you on?  I ask this because there are times where the camera will truly screw you over.  For starters once during the chapter where you first fight the werewolves the camera decided to focus on the death animation of one of the werewolves.  When this happened I was nowhere on screen.  Next thing I know my controller vibrates and the camera finally orients itself back to me.  And the next thing I see is a werewolf pounding its fist into my face.  If I had either seen this thing charging towards me I could’ve killed it; or if I saw this thing grabbing me faster I could’ve shook it off.

And on top of this the frame rate is atrocious.  I have not had one session with this game where it didn’t slow down.  Granted it is a manageable slowdown and by that it doesn’t get you killed, but there was one time when it did because Ryu just couldn’t seem to react to my inputs fast enough and I got killed by a swarm of bugs.  But judging from this it seems like the developers sacrificed game stability for stuff onscreen.  And those are actually the only problems that I had with the game and now it’s time for what I liked.

The overall changes made to the combat engine were definitely made for the better.  For starters the combat is even more visceral and blood soaked than ever.  It’s impossible not to walk into a room and not leave the room soaked in blood with dismembered corpses strewn all over the place.  You leave a battle satisfied.  Because they are all pretty intense and they are for the most part a blast.  Which leaves boss battles open for discussion.  I personally think that there is less strategy to some of them, but there are some that are really easy and at the same time some are really cheesy and cheap.  The only one that actually that left me screaming and cursing profusely is the one at the end of Chapter 9. 

For starters if you’re playing this game on Path of the Acolyte I have two things to say.  For shame and we are playing two different games.  This becomes blatantly apparent on the Chapter 9 boss.  If you’ve played the previous game you realize that it’s pretty much three old bosses rolled into one.  It’s the helicopter, the dragon at the end of the labyrinth and the double worms.  The difference between the Acolyte setting and the Path of the Warrior setting is that these guys have black dragon allies that also shoot fire at you and ram you; and it’s even worse since you can never see them charging at you.  So far these were the hardest bosses in the game.  They beat out the greater fiends (friggin pushovers) and the mini bosses in difficulty.  Another thing that is really irritating that might even severely make the game unbearable comes towards the end where you have to fight several of the bosses.  Some were bearable like fighting the two armadillos at once, but fighting one of the greater fiends with little maneuvering room surrounded by magma and the cheapness of the boss is insanely aggravating.  It’s one of those instances where you just have to turn the game off and come back to it a day later.

Other than this it’s actually pretty interesting to watch the other bosses and notice that they do have patterns and openings.  Some you have to be more defensive on and others it pays to be offensive.  You also realize that some weapons are better for some bosses.  Depending on your play style you might stick with the Dragon Sword or if you’re proficient with say the Eclipse Scythe you might use that on bosses.  And while on the topic of weapons these things are great.  I must admit that weapon preference will differ based on personal opinion, but I love the Scythe a lot.  It’s a great room-clearing weapon.  It may be a little slow when you start an attack, but once it lets loose prepare to cringe and marvel at the legs and arms that will fly through the air.  Another weapon that I like, but didn’t use too often are the Talon’s Claws, which are a set of Wolverine like claws and bladed boots used for dismembering everything and anything in your path. 

There are other weapons that are really good, but I am not too proficient with them yet so I’ll probably use them more in another play through.  Out of the new ones I’m looking forward to getting better with the Kusari-Gama, which is a blade with a weighted ball at the end of it and the Tonfas.  With the addition of slicing people into bite size chunks they have also implemented these finishers called Obliteration Techniques.  When you slice off an arm or a leg and depending on the foe a head you open them up to these techniques.  These are good because once a ninja notices that they are missing an arm they start to become desperate and go ninja jihad on you.  They’ll hobble, crawl or limp their way towards you in an attempt to kill themselves and take you with them.  On top of these the Ultimate Techniques are just plain brutal with my favorite one being the one for the maxed out Tonfas.  All you see are twirls of the Tonfas and all you hear are smashing skulls it’s just sickening and highly entertaining. 

The combat is brutal and almost has no equal, but some of the cheap enemies just leave you gobsmacked and you walk away feeling like you were just cockslapped by the developers.  Outside of those moments I had a lot of fun with the game.  I really wish the camera was better and that the game engine was optimized better.

Graphics:

Graphically it’s a little better looking than Sigma, but the game does not run as smoothly.  I’m not even trying to start a console war discussion, but Sigma’s frame rate wasn’t this terrible, but outside of that the visual appeal is great.  Granted I had to get over the depiction of Tokyo in the introduction because it’s far too reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.  The enemy design is pretty cool.  You slice open ninjas, beasts, demons, robots and zombies with chainsaws and rocket launchers for arms.  It really gets insane when you see dogs come at you with knives in their mouths.  The weapons are nice and everything looks like they could remove limbs and even more.  Sometimes when I use the Eclipse Scythe I like to think that I’m destroying their souls as well.

Sound:

The music is every bit as epic as it’s predecessor and there is a tremendous sense of sadistic mirth when you slice off an arm and hear the guy scream.  It’s even greater when you use a blunt weapon and hear the guys skull implode.  One of my favorite sounds comes from the ninpo technique Art of the Wind Blades.  I just love hearing the blades pierce through the air and ripping your foes in half.  The voice-overs are done better than the previous game and you also have the option to listen to the Japanese voice track.

Replay:

As much as I screamed “I’m never playing this again” I’m pretty sure that I will and since I actually missed the item that gives you the Tests of Valor I’m going to have to play through it again any how.  Ninja Gaiden was one of those games that makes more sense the more times you play through it and I’m pretty sure the same can be said for this one.  Eventually after I master the Path of the Warrior, I will play on Path of the Mentor and get my butt kicked.  But there is a strange satisfaction to beating the bosses especially when you know you can win, but some cheap grab move that takes half of your energy catches you twice (sometimes three times) in a row.  And I must admit when I beat a boss I have a tendency of giving them the finger.  One time upon the complete annihilation of a boss I thrusted my middle finger at the screen with the intensity of a Phoenix Wright objection.  This is a game for the hardcore sadists and I guess I’m one of them because I just keep on coming for more punishment.

Overall:

Aside from the occasional cheap enemy, shoddy frame rate and a camera that actually became worse; the game is great.  If you don’t mind firing off curses in rapid succession and find enjoyment in being humiliated by a game then this is a definite purchase.