Ninja Gaiden 2 Review
The path of the ninja is secret, mysterious and deadly -and, if Ninja Gaiden 2 is anything to judge by, a blazing crimson walkway littered with the limbs, heads and body parts of your foes, coated in enough blood to make it a slippery health and safety nightmare. The Team Ninja swansong of infamous fighting game creator Tomonobu Itagaki (who also developed the DOA series)is at it’s best, an action packed, frantically paced 3D fighting adventure with an emphasis on some seriously hard hitting combo based combat. But does the return of legendary ninja Ryu Hayabusa match up to his adventures in Ninja Gaiden, one of the most acclaimed hardcore games of the last generation?
The original Ninja Gaiden on Xbox, (Which was itself a reimaging of the beloved classic NES platforming series- Ed), was renowned for its fast pace combat action, beautiful graphics and at times insanely high difficultly level. It was so good it featured as one of our UKMusic .com must have Xbox games of all time. Ninja Gaiden 2 certainly has many of the fantastic combat qualities of the original, it’s exciting, frantic and one of the most gorgeous looking games on 360 - as well as being, for want of a better word, a glorious blood fest that makes you feel like one hell of a badass ninja.
But while still a great game, Ninja Gaiden 2 is plagued by a couple of problems that stop it from reaching the heights of its predecessor and one in particular that will have some gamers tearing their hair out and going to play something just a little friendlier.
As a pure combat game, Ninja Gaiden 2 is hard to match. You’ll travel the world as Ryu, totting various deadly weapons from swords and iron staves to more exotic fare like Wolverine like ninja claws or -one of our favourites -a scythe. (A scythe! I mean good grief, who the heck uses a scythe in combat?!-Ed)
With just about every attack lopping off enemies’ limbs, you’ll slash, bash and dismember your way round the world to defeat the evil Spider Clan Ninja’s and their demon allies. Its fairly easy control system and two button combo system means you’ll be stringing together some basic combos, using various magic attacks, wall running and kicking ass in no time at all, but there’s an awful lot of scope for mastery. You’ll need to get good fast too, as while the battles are easier than those in Ninja Gaiden, you’re constantly under attack from the various enemies like ninja, demons and ninja dogs, (Damn dogs!-Ed) that are out to put you into the grave. The boss fights, with some pretty amazing looking foes, including some outrageously huge demons, are equally challenging- odds are that until you get to grips with the pace of the game, if you’re new to the series you’ll be seeing the ‘Game Over’ screen more than a few times.
Even bleeding and limbless on the ground, the enemies in this game will drag themselves after you, until you deliver a gruesome coup de grace or finisher. We’ve never seen anything quite like the stylish blood-letting in NG2, but it doesn’t feel gratuitous, combined with the constant battling game play it’s just mesmerizingly cool. You’ll explore various locations around the globe, spanning from Tokyo to New York and South America, but they really just serve as beautiful backdrops to the hyper violence that fills the screen. (As bloody as the game is, it’s no match for the real life ‘blood-letting’ between Tomonobu Itagaki and Tecmo following the series creator’s departure from the company. He’s summoned his legal ninja’s to sue them for millions in unpaid bonuses and things look set to get messy! Who says only the music team here gets to report industry drama?! - Ed).
The story of NG2 is presented in some very good looking cut scenes but Ryu’s mission to prevent the Spider Clan from unleashing ‘the Archfiend’ upon the world is just the usual convoluted and throwaway affair you get in these kinds of games. Battles to the death, CIA chicks in tight leather and men and demons with sharp weapons and angry dialogue abound, but they’re all just motivation for you to go slice up some dudes. The meat of this game ( Often quite literally!-Ed) is in the combat, and the intense battles you have to survive as you run, jump and endlessly fight. Hardcore game lovers that we are, before playing all the way through it, we were expecting to crown Ninja Gaiden 2 the new king of the fighting adventure games. Alas, it’s sadly not quite the heir to the bloody throne we’d hoped for. It's good but could have been much better.
For a modern game, the first Ninja Gaiden was uncommonly hard and a great challenge, but had a sheer playability that made it a classic. You’d sweat and curse at first but eventually develop enough combat mastery and knowledge of your enemies to beat the game. That difficultly would draw you in and you’d want to beat the damn thing, to an immense feeling of pride. Ninja Gaiden 2 brings some of that feeling of achievement and level of difficultly to the table, but it’s tarnished by a number of issues that take some of the fun out of the challenge.
NG 2 suffers from an awful camera problem, one of the worst we’ve had to struggle with in a 3D environment for a sometime .While in theory NG 2’s combat is easier than that in the first game, the camera will often leave you unable to see enemies attacking you from behind, complicating fights and making surviving less about skill and more about luck. Which we’d argue is totally counter intuitive to the hardcore spirit of the series. The game will often choose the worst angle imaginable for you to pull off a platform jump or escape from getting your butt handed to you. When you finish a combo, you’ll often have no clue were the viewpoint will be at the end of it- ensuring that you get smacked in the mouth when most vulnerable. You can control the camera, but few things can match the frustration and annoyance you feel having to constantly battle with it just to see what you’re doing.
The problem is compounded by the fact that in many ways NG 2 values quantity over quality in terms of bad guys. Unlike the first game, in which the enemies were arguably fairly intelligent and the difficulty came from that, NG2 throws a ton of simpler enemies at you, and looks to overwhelm you. You still get something of the feeling that each fight is a duel, but it’s much diminished from the first game. Just as irritatingly are some of the cheap tactics the game employs on occasion, like the unblockable projectiles, fired from great heights so you can’t retaliate or the flying enemies that Ryu isn’t really best equipped to fight and often can’t see attacking, again thanks to the camera.
It might have been better to just take the whole thing out of the hands of the player, employing the kind of camera placement used in games like God of War. That may have meant redesigning some elements of the game, and it many of the beautiful death animations wouldn’t have been quite so close to the screen, but it would have been worth while trade off, given how much better the platforming and combat would have been.
All that said, while Ninja Gaiden 2 is isn’t quite the sequel we were hoping for as fans of the first game, it’s still, frustrations and all, a fun game to play. You’ll have to struggle with the camera, but if you persevere through the pain, the game is enjoyable. The problem is that you just shouldn’t have to, and many newcomers will be put off by it. . Loyal fans of the original should definitely check it out, and no doubt already have, but the average action adventure gamer should be aware that unless looking for a challenge, even on the easier settings Ninja Gaiden 2 is no walk in the park. The combat system of NG 2 in itself is still a solid, exciting affair and the bloody ways you can kill your enemies is a real visual treat. Anyone that enjoyed Ninja Gaiden will get a kick out of playing it to master the combo system and recording posting videos of their prowess on Xbox Live. For the rest of us, the various weapon upgrades you can purchase, skills you can master and the length and challenge of the game will make it worthwhile purchase. It’s just a shame it’s not as good as it could have been.
UKMusic.com Rating: 3.5 out of 5
A hard hitting, stylish action game that while flawed is still worth checking out
Written by Sam Bandah
