snickothemule
September 17th, 2008, 02:05
Ninja Gaiden 2
A ninjas work is never done
Ninja Gaiden was a success on the Xbox console, the game sported a nicely played out revenge story, fine, fast and aggressive combat, and a difficulty that turned a lot of gamers away. The game was such a success that Team Ninja made the same game two more times adding online for the Xbox and a remake with shiny new graphics for the PS3. Itagaki was unhappy with the release of the PS3 version and felt he had to make a true high def ninja game, npw Tomonobu Itagaki and his Team of Ninja Coders are back with a vengeance, determined to bring Ryu Hyabusa to the Xbox 360 with style.
Path of the Ninja
In this new exciting chapter players return as the ninja prodigy Ryu Hyabusa of the Dragon Lineage, tasked with keeping the secrets of the fiends at bay is (for some reason) in Tokyo where a very buxom woman names Sonia, who is a CIA agent and looking for him. The arch nemesis of the Dragon clan, the Black Spider clan is up to their regular shenanigans and kidnaps the agent while taunting the young Ninja into following them. Now Ryu must follow these nefarious adversaries in order to stop them from releasing the evil Archfiend which in turn will save the planet from evil. Can Ryu save the day? And who is the mysterious Elizabet and why is she in cahoots with the Black Spider ninja clan?
Ninja stab!
Upon controlling Ryu for the first time it immediately clear that Team Ninja have taken the best elements from their previous game(s) and turned the speed of combat right up to the max. If you thought the previous game was hard you are in for a shock mister. Timing is much more prevalent in this game as countering attacks from the blocking position requires precise button presses in order to execute the attack. Failing this will end you up in a royal ass kicking. To make matters worse there are now dozens of enemies on screen at once, forcing you to always be on the move, as standing still will get you killed quick smart in this game. This in turn makes fights very frantic and in order to succeed you need to use weapons to their greatest affect for each enemy.
http://forums.ngemu.com/attachments/game-reviews/200787d1233291079-ninja-gaiden-2-360-943273_20071205_screen003.jpg
Saturday Night Fever strikes ninja town
Ryu gets a big arsenal of weapons this time around with the old favourites (barring the nun chuck, wooden sword, Dabilahro and War Hammer) returning with renewed vigour. Attack combos have been increased and in cases of the Vigoorian Flail, combos reaching in their hundreds will only take a few seconds. Adding to the new list is the massive Scythe, a new god of war-esque weapon with increased range and the blunt and bashy Tonfa. My personal favourite however are the claws which for all the wolverine wannabe’s out there will have their dreams come true of being able to truly tear apart the enemy. All weapons can be upgraded at Murisama’s shop with the yellow essence dropped from enemies used as cash, thus adding fresh combos and more damage. The biggest upgrade however has to go to the bow, which is now an actually useful weapon with better aiming and speed, making it truly a devastating force.
You’ve got red on you
All these weapons would mean nothing unless there were chumps to test them out on. The enemies in NG2 are truly fun and sometimes annoying to kill/massacre. This time around Ryu can remove legs, arms and heads with naught but a few will placed slashes covering the landscape with body parts and enough blood to make even Quinten Tarentino feel a bit queasy. This however will only annoy the enemy and they now become much more dangerous and suicidal as they will grab hold of you and will self detonate. There is a great new way to dispose of their battered forces – the obliteration technique. By holding Y Ryu will then execute the enemy in the goriest fashion, be it decapitation, sliced in half or simply beaten to smithereens. Each weapon has their own individual obliteration animation with different affect.
http://forums.ngemu.com/attachments/game-reviews/200788d1233291079-ninja-gaiden-2-360-943273_20080220_screen001.jpg
Ninja Squats: better than regular squats
Should battling the enemy become too difficult a new health system has been added, where damage will be recharged after each battle with the more damaging attacks delivered to Ryu will add permanent damage which will not heal. Save points will fully replenish health to its maximum and the new auto saving feature is welcome. A quick tap of RB will save the game, saving the hassle of going through menus to save the game, thus stopping the gaming experience. Team Ninja really wanted this game to remain at a fast pace.
Be wary young grasshopper
As hard as Ninja Gaiden was, NG2 is twice no three times as difficult, purely from some of the added game design elements. The sheer vast number of enemies will often attack you in a way where blocking will not suffice and they will knock you to the ground. As soon as you stand up down you go again without a chance to do anything about it. This can get frustrating, but not as much as the enemies who explode after killing them, and in the case of some bosses, which manage to kill you instantly thanks to an area clearing explosion and unless you cast ninpo or run like mad you will have fight them again and if you somehow manage to lose any of your health items, you will become quite familiar with the game over screen. Needless to say this gets bloody frustrating and leaves the game feeling rather cheap.
Slowdown is another issue where the game will come to a crawl with the 2 dozen enemies on screen at once, which may not be so bad, but it does break from the regular solid frame rate.
http://forums.ngemu.com/attachments/game-reviews/200789d1233291079-ninja-gaiden-2-360-943273_20080407_screen014.jpg
*Invisible DJ set
A ninja has gotta look good
Ninja Gaiden 2 is pretty, really pretty with lovely jungle scenery, harsh lava, calming water, cold machinery all giving the game a feel of the elements to their great effect. Everything is nice and smooth with screen tear only occurring a few times. Massively detailed characters and environments really make this game stand out giving it a real life anime feel to it. It looks really great on a 1080p screen.
Audio is typically sharp with a sharp high energy soundtrack backing the frantic action, rich juicy noises from the blood squirting everywhere and crisp slashes from the weapons all harmonize to give an aural treat. With the added bonus of Japanese and American dialogue it grants those who can’t bear dubbing the choice of original voice acting.
Ninja vanish!
Omitted from the retail copy of the game are mission modes and bonus costumes, these can be purchased via Live, however it would have been nice to have it on the retail disk.
http://forums.ngemu.com/attachments/game-reviews/200790d1233291079-ninja-gaiden-2-360-943273_20080508_screen021.jpg
On closer inspection, these are loafers
Overall Ninja Gaiden 2 is a challenging, frantic piece of action game play which will keep those who can overcome the difficulty entertained for 12 hours or so, on the easiest difficulty; however repeated attempts are necessary for those who crave achievement points. A great game with a final few chapters giving fans of the first game a return to the Hyabusa village, giving the feeling of coming full circle.
Visuals – 90
Audio – 94
Game play – 87
Overall – 90
Great game should you overcome the difficulty
Played on Sony Bravia over component cables at 1080i (TV upscale to 1080p), completed game on easiest setting.
A ninjas work is never done
Ninja Gaiden was a success on the Xbox console, the game sported a nicely played out revenge story, fine, fast and aggressive combat, and a difficulty that turned a lot of gamers away. The game was such a success that Team Ninja made the same game two more times adding online for the Xbox and a remake with shiny new graphics for the PS3. Itagaki was unhappy with the release of the PS3 version and felt he had to make a true high def ninja game, npw Tomonobu Itagaki and his Team of Ninja Coders are back with a vengeance, determined to bring Ryu Hyabusa to the Xbox 360 with style.
Path of the Ninja
In this new exciting chapter players return as the ninja prodigy Ryu Hyabusa of the Dragon Lineage, tasked with keeping the secrets of the fiends at bay is (for some reason) in Tokyo where a very buxom woman names Sonia, who is a CIA agent and looking for him. The arch nemesis of the Dragon clan, the Black Spider clan is up to their regular shenanigans and kidnaps the agent while taunting the young Ninja into following them. Now Ryu must follow these nefarious adversaries in order to stop them from releasing the evil Archfiend which in turn will save the planet from evil. Can Ryu save the day? And who is the mysterious Elizabet and why is she in cahoots with the Black Spider ninja clan?
Ninja stab!
Upon controlling Ryu for the first time it immediately clear that Team Ninja have taken the best elements from their previous game(s) and turned the speed of combat right up to the max. If you thought the previous game was hard you are in for a shock mister. Timing is much more prevalent in this game as countering attacks from the blocking position requires precise button presses in order to execute the attack. Failing this will end you up in a royal ass kicking. To make matters worse there are now dozens of enemies on screen at once, forcing you to always be on the move, as standing still will get you killed quick smart in this game. This in turn makes fights very frantic and in order to succeed you need to use weapons to their greatest affect for each enemy.
http://forums.ngemu.com/attachments/game-reviews/200787d1233291079-ninja-gaiden-2-360-943273_20071205_screen003.jpg
Saturday Night Fever strikes ninja town
Ryu gets a big arsenal of weapons this time around with the old favourites (barring the nun chuck, wooden sword, Dabilahro and War Hammer) returning with renewed vigour. Attack combos have been increased and in cases of the Vigoorian Flail, combos reaching in their hundreds will only take a few seconds. Adding to the new list is the massive Scythe, a new god of war-esque weapon with increased range and the blunt and bashy Tonfa. My personal favourite however are the claws which for all the wolverine wannabe’s out there will have their dreams come true of being able to truly tear apart the enemy. All weapons can be upgraded at Murisama’s shop with the yellow essence dropped from enemies used as cash, thus adding fresh combos and more damage. The biggest upgrade however has to go to the bow, which is now an actually useful weapon with better aiming and speed, making it truly a devastating force.
You’ve got red on you
All these weapons would mean nothing unless there were chumps to test them out on. The enemies in NG2 are truly fun and sometimes annoying to kill/massacre. This time around Ryu can remove legs, arms and heads with naught but a few will placed slashes covering the landscape with body parts and enough blood to make even Quinten Tarentino feel a bit queasy. This however will only annoy the enemy and they now become much more dangerous and suicidal as they will grab hold of you and will self detonate. There is a great new way to dispose of their battered forces – the obliteration technique. By holding Y Ryu will then execute the enemy in the goriest fashion, be it decapitation, sliced in half or simply beaten to smithereens. Each weapon has their own individual obliteration animation with different affect.
http://forums.ngemu.com/attachments/game-reviews/200788d1233291079-ninja-gaiden-2-360-943273_20080220_screen001.jpg
Ninja Squats: better than regular squats
Should battling the enemy become too difficult a new health system has been added, where damage will be recharged after each battle with the more damaging attacks delivered to Ryu will add permanent damage which will not heal. Save points will fully replenish health to its maximum and the new auto saving feature is welcome. A quick tap of RB will save the game, saving the hassle of going through menus to save the game, thus stopping the gaming experience. Team Ninja really wanted this game to remain at a fast pace.
Be wary young grasshopper
As hard as Ninja Gaiden was, NG2 is twice no three times as difficult, purely from some of the added game design elements. The sheer vast number of enemies will often attack you in a way where blocking will not suffice and they will knock you to the ground. As soon as you stand up down you go again without a chance to do anything about it. This can get frustrating, but not as much as the enemies who explode after killing them, and in the case of some bosses, which manage to kill you instantly thanks to an area clearing explosion and unless you cast ninpo or run like mad you will have fight them again and if you somehow manage to lose any of your health items, you will become quite familiar with the game over screen. Needless to say this gets bloody frustrating and leaves the game feeling rather cheap.
Slowdown is another issue where the game will come to a crawl with the 2 dozen enemies on screen at once, which may not be so bad, but it does break from the regular solid frame rate.
http://forums.ngemu.com/attachments/game-reviews/200789d1233291079-ninja-gaiden-2-360-943273_20080407_screen014.jpg
*Invisible DJ set
A ninja has gotta look good
Ninja Gaiden 2 is pretty, really pretty with lovely jungle scenery, harsh lava, calming water, cold machinery all giving the game a feel of the elements to their great effect. Everything is nice and smooth with screen tear only occurring a few times. Massively detailed characters and environments really make this game stand out giving it a real life anime feel to it. It looks really great on a 1080p screen.
Audio is typically sharp with a sharp high energy soundtrack backing the frantic action, rich juicy noises from the blood squirting everywhere and crisp slashes from the weapons all harmonize to give an aural treat. With the added bonus of Japanese and American dialogue it grants those who can’t bear dubbing the choice of original voice acting.
Ninja vanish!
Omitted from the retail copy of the game are mission modes and bonus costumes, these can be purchased via Live, however it would have been nice to have it on the retail disk.
http://forums.ngemu.com/attachments/game-reviews/200790d1233291079-ninja-gaiden-2-360-943273_20080508_screen021.jpg
On closer inspection, these are loafers
Overall Ninja Gaiden 2 is a challenging, frantic piece of action game play which will keep those who can overcome the difficulty entertained for 12 hours or so, on the easiest difficulty; however repeated attempts are necessary for those who crave achievement points. A great game with a final few chapters giving fans of the first game a return to the Hyabusa village, giving the feeling of coming full circle.
Visuals – 90
Audio – 94
Game play – 87
Overall – 90
Great game should you overcome the difficulty
Played on Sony Bravia over component cables at 1080i (TV upscale to 1080p), completed game on easiest setting.