Howdy howdy! Are you ready? Today, we're gonna talk about the world's greatest Ninja, as Ryu Hayabusa goes on his world tour! Do we love it? Do we hate it? FIND OUT!
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Ninja Gaiden 2 is the sequel to Ninja Gaiden 1 and let me establish right here and now that, much like an abused spouse, I loved Ninja Gaiden 1, no matter how many times it beat me, brutalized me, raped me and made me feel insignificant and small. Tears were shed. Blood was drained. My life was made insignificant by the brutal harshness that was the original Ninja Gaiden, so, naturally, I was pretty keen to get into the sequel. And, so, let me sum it up right here: It is fucking SICK.
First off, fuck the story. Ryu Hayabusa has to go save the world from evil demons. That's all you need to know, all that is important, and all that is really neccessary. There's tons of backstory, lore, legends and other such pointless bullshit to add details to that in the game, but none of it matters. This is an action game, dammit, and the whole point is to make with the action.
And that action is amazing. Every weapon you get in the game has the capability to be brutal, magnificently violent and just plain MEAN. You get about 8 or 9 main melee weapons to choose from over the course of the game, and all of them play differently, requiring different styles to be effective with, and allow availability for any type of player to get behind. Personally, I just used the big ole fucking claws, which are so effective they almost break the game. You have two types of attacks--quick attacks and strong attacks, and combining these two leads to just plain BRUTAL combos, with enemy body parts spewing through the air, drenched in blood as you carve a path of carnage through just about every major city on earth. The fighting is fun, intuitive, and once you get a feel for it, you'll be amazed at how many interesting and effective attacks you can string together, giving you complete control over just how badly you want to fuck up your enemies.
In fact, the game's combat has been refined so much that the legendary difficulty of the series is taken down a few notches. The hp-regeneration system (where your health is regained after winning a battle) allows you to go on the offensive more often, gives you freedom to make mistakes and experiment, and makes the game incredibly, incredibly fun. So, not as hard, but more fun and enjoyable? Its a handy tradeoff, and trust me--the game can and will still kick your ass. I have yet to play on Hard mode, mind, so maybe they just save the worst for then.
However, in an attempt to keep the difficulty high, the game relies on a LOT of cheap kills--there is, in fact, a boss that instantly kills you AFTER you beat it, and it takes a lot of deaths to figure out that you are supposed to BLOCK after you kill the boss to keep yourself alive. There's no hints towards this, no warning--its extremely cheap, and the two levels right after that sport long segments relying on your ranged weapons, where you have to snipe rocket-launcher ninjas with a bow and arrow. These ninjas are just an example of how cheap the game can be--they spam missiles at you that can't be blocked and are really hard to avoid and then you have areas where there are land mines and other enemies to make every second a moment of blistering agony.
The boss battles are fun, frantic, but ere on the easy side so long as you just abuse a few select moves, like teh Flying Swallow attack, where you dash through the air and cut an enemy. You can't abuse this as much as you could in the first Ninja Gaiden though, but doing combos is so much more fluid here that it doesn't matter.
The two major complaints critics lobbed at this game were the camera and the graphics. The camera can be an issue, yes--but, honestly, after playing the first Ninja Gaiden, this game's camera is ten times improved. Very rarely do you have to turn a corner and immediately block, in case an enemy is hiding in an awkward blind spot, and while you do get sucker punched and ambushed by the camera a lot, its really just a part of the experience, easily adapted to if you really try. As for the graphics--the game looks brilliant and beautiful, so much so that, in fact, my 360 would freeze up. There are dozens of enemies on screen, and the game just FLOWS in a beautiful fashion. Yeah, it isn't the most graphically impressive 360 game, but its functional and pretty enough to meet my ends.
Honestly, you can't go wrong with it. Rent it if you aren't sure you're good enough to handle the difficulty (I beat the SHIT out of the first Ninja Gaiden, so maybe I'm more biased about the difficulty) but if you want the best stress-reliever on teh 360 right now, sign up--this game has great gameplay, cool stage variety, tons of content and is, above all, just plain fun.
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Ninja Gaiden 2 is the sequel to Ninja Gaiden 1 and let me establish right here and now that, much like an abused spouse, I loved Ninja Gaiden 1, no matter how many times it beat me, brutalized me, raped me and made me feel insignificant and small. Tears were shed. Blood was drained. My life was made insignificant by the brutal harshness that was the original Ninja Gaiden, so, naturally, I was pretty keen to get into the sequel. And, so, let me sum it up right here: It is fucking SICK.
First off, fuck the story. Ryu Hayabusa has to go save the world from evil demons. That's all you need to know, all that is important, and all that is really neccessary. There's tons of backstory, lore, legends and other such pointless bullshit to add details to that in the game, but none of it matters. This is an action game, dammit, and the whole point is to make with the action.
And that action is amazing. Every weapon you get in the game has the capability to be brutal, magnificently violent and just plain MEAN. You get about 8 or 9 main melee weapons to choose from over the course of the game, and all of them play differently, requiring different styles to be effective with, and allow availability for any type of player to get behind. Personally, I just used the big ole fucking claws, which are so effective they almost break the game. You have two types of attacks--quick attacks and strong attacks, and combining these two leads to just plain BRUTAL combos, with enemy body parts spewing through the air, drenched in blood as you carve a path of carnage through just about every major city on earth. The fighting is fun, intuitive, and once you get a feel for it, you'll be amazed at how many interesting and effective attacks you can string together, giving you complete control over just how badly you want to fuck up your enemies.
In fact, the game's combat has been refined so much that the legendary difficulty of the series is taken down a few notches. The hp-regeneration system (where your health is regained after winning a battle) allows you to go on the offensive more often, gives you freedom to make mistakes and experiment, and makes the game incredibly, incredibly fun. So, not as hard, but more fun and enjoyable? Its a handy tradeoff, and trust me--the game can and will still kick your ass. I have yet to play on Hard mode, mind, so maybe they just save the worst for then.
However, in an attempt to keep the difficulty high, the game relies on a LOT of cheap kills--there is, in fact, a boss that instantly kills you AFTER you beat it, and it takes a lot of deaths to figure out that you are supposed to BLOCK after you kill the boss to keep yourself alive. There's no hints towards this, no warning--its extremely cheap, and the two levels right after that sport long segments relying on your ranged weapons, where you have to snipe rocket-launcher ninjas with a bow and arrow. These ninjas are just an example of how cheap the game can be--they spam missiles at you that can't be blocked and are really hard to avoid and then you have areas where there are land mines and other enemies to make every second a moment of blistering agony.
The boss battles are fun, frantic, but ere on the easy side so long as you just abuse a few select moves, like teh Flying Swallow attack, where you dash through the air and cut an enemy. You can't abuse this as much as you could in the first Ninja Gaiden though, but doing combos is so much more fluid here that it doesn't matter.
The two major complaints critics lobbed at this game were the camera and the graphics. The camera can be an issue, yes--but, honestly, after playing the first Ninja Gaiden, this game's camera is ten times improved. Very rarely do you have to turn a corner and immediately block, in case an enemy is hiding in an awkward blind spot, and while you do get sucker punched and ambushed by the camera a lot, its really just a part of the experience, easily adapted to if you really try. As for the graphics--the game looks brilliant and beautiful, so much so that, in fact, my 360 would freeze up. There are dozens of enemies on screen, and the game just FLOWS in a beautiful fashion. Yeah, it isn't the most graphically impressive 360 game, but its functional and pretty enough to meet my ends.
Honestly, you can't go wrong with it. Rent it if you aren't sure you're good enough to handle the difficulty (I beat the SHIT out of the first Ninja Gaiden, so maybe I'm more biased about the difficulty) but if you want the best stress-reliever on teh 360 right now, sign up--this game has great gameplay, cool stage variety, tons of content and is, above all, just plain fun.
