X3F Impressions - Ninja Gaiden 2

At an event in which the majority of the games were continuing franchises, Ninja Gaiden 2 didn't appear at first glance to be the game which had changed the most from its predecessors. From afar and to an untrained eye, the game appears to be exactly the same as the first, but the closer you get (right up to and including sitting down and playing the game) the more you notice, and the more you see how crazy over the top that Tomonobu Itagaki and Team Ninja have gone with their latest game.

Upon picking up the controller the first thing we noticed was just how much faster the entire experience was. The increased responsiveness, the increased enemy speed, the replacement of the roll with the dash and many other little things all work together to make NG2 a much more fast paced, relentless game than the original.

Much, much, more after the break, and be sure to read the rest of our impressions from Microsoft's Spring Showcase as they go live over the course of the day.

Now for those thinking that this means that the game is more punishing than ever before, you're right, it is. However, Ryu Hayabusa, the crazy over the top super ninja, can now take far more punishment than ever before. Those new to the series can have plenty of fun with the Path of the Acolyte mode, get beaten down by the AI, do some beating down, and generally play the game akin to God of War. And love it. We know. We saw it happen.

The returning players will treasure their new-found speed though. In this battle, on Path of the Warrior, the jump-dash combo combined with the number of enemies on screen created one of the fastest, yet most methodical battles we've ever played in a Ninja Gaiden game. And that was just the second level.

We ended up getting to finish the game's first three chapters, as well as snippets of several others, and as the tale unfolded, we continued to get the feeling that there is no way that the story is being created in an absolutely serious manner. Some of the characters are so obviously parody (Joe "Steven Segal+Chuck Norris" Hayabusa), and the game seems to break the fourth wall in so many ways that we began to enjoy the game's story in an analytical way, rather than an immersive way. Like the gameplay, it seems to want to be picked apart (or maybe we just need sleep).

Whether you like the story for its allusions and parodies or its actual story (assuming you like it at all), the plot is, in the end, incidental. The gameplay is what really matters, and it offers so many little refinements and changes to the old formula that playing is immediately familiar, but still feels a bit unknown. The addition of "Quick Kills" called Obliteration Techniques allow you to immediately kill wounded foes, which is integral to master when the blade to bastard ratio is not at all in your favor. The first game would throw 3 to 5 "standard" enemies at you in a normal fight. This game's average encounter is nearer to 6 to 9.

Another addition, the dismemberment, seems at first purely cosmetic. That is, until you find yourself getting blown to smithereens by a legless ninja who managed to do the worm over to you and implant an explosive shuriken in your chest. After that, it becomes something to consciously watch out for (and a good place to use those previously mentioned OT's). Not only are there these many little gameplay tweaks, but the character himself is simply more powerful right from the beginning this time.

The relative power difference of Ryu at the beginnings of the two games is stark. Ryu begins this game with just the Dragon Blade, and it can still slice through ninjas like butter. Then came the upgrades, the new combos, and the rivers of blood. They drop you in the thick of it right from the beginning of this game, and from what we played and saw, it never lets up at all. Other than the initial power difference, another major tweak that offers significant change is the weapon set.

In the first Ninja Gaiden, the player could get by rather well using mostly the Dragon Sword. In Ninja Gaiden 2, he can too. But if he chooses to explore the weapons in use against a variety of foes, he will encounter a much more (to our eyes) obvious set of uses for weapons than the first game. Hardcore Ninja Gaiden players will notice specific enemy speeds and patterns that are suitable for specific weapons, and the balance of enemy weaknesses to amount of weapons was enough to keep us swapping weapons often. By the way, don't give dogs armor and swords. Unless you know what to do, bad things happen.

We had to watch as players got torn to shreds by the dogs (they didn't try the claws). And we got to witness it as it happened over and over with the game's Ninja Cinema mode. Unfortunately, the mode is nothing like Halo 3's Forge, and is in fact identical to the Halo 3 Beta's movie mode. Meaning of course that players watch the game exactly as it's been played, in real time, as the player saw it, with no camera control or editing options. Oh well. Still, Itagaki-san graciously answered a few of our questions and told us that the inclusion of the cinema mode was a technical evolution of Team Ninja's "Replay" features in their fighting games, and was inspired by Bungie's Saved Films.

Really, there are so many small things that we could go on and on about. However, if you're the kind of gamer who didn't care for the original because of things other than the difficulty (camera management, platforming, etc) then this won't likely sway you. Ninja Gaiden 2, like the original, is difficult in ways beyond the enemies. The level design is deliberately obtuse and is purposefully used to confuse. The platforming is still hard, and you will fall down and have to run all the way back up. But with gaming going more mainstream all the time, it's good to see such a hardcore title be unapologetically so, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

P.S. We saw the first round of DLC, you know, the costumes. Now, unless you happen to have 200pts you need to get rid of, keep 'em. We love Ninja Gaiden as much as the next guy, but these outfits look like someone threw seaweed on Ryu and waited for it to dry before letting him out to fight. Though sometimes the seaweed is quite shiny and colorful, and is rather impressive in close ups, it usually looks like a lumpy mess and we found the standard uniform much more appealing.

Also, we got the reason that there is no Collectors Edition. Apparently, Microsoft gave Itagaki carte blanche on release date in order to polish the game, and the date shifted so much that by the time a final date was chosen there wasn't enough time to secure anything that good for a Collectors Edition (though a Ryu statue was considered).