Ninja Gaiden "1" Black/Sigma Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma for XBOX/PS3 is one of my favorite "modern" games primarily because of the amazing and challenging gameplay, especially with regards to the combat system. The combat system in the game has a tremendous amount of depth that allows you to continually improve yourself within the game. It isn't so much that there are thousands of moves and combos to use, but rather you learn what moves and combos are best in given situations. As you get better at the game your approach to nearly every type of enemy and boss will differ. See the following video for a good example of some of the variety of enemies you'll face as well as the general combat system:
Playing Ninja Gaiden at a high level requires precise timing, a lot of patience, and quick reaction time. You rarely will be staying in place for longer than a second or two during fights. If you're blocking when some enemies are in close range they will throw you, slice your neck, or eat you (and deal a lot of damage in the process). Regarding the challenges in fighting even your regular enemies, an IGN article on the history of Ninja Gaiden ( IGN Presents The History of Ninja Gaiden) summarized
When testers complained the rough builds were too tough, Itagaki [Game Designer] went back and made them tougher. In other action games, Itagaki liked to say, the enemies existed for you to kill. In Ninja Gaiden, the enemies existed to kill you. He insisted on holding his game and his gamers to a higher standard. There were plenty of easier games to play, if that's what made people happy. Anyone planning to conquer Gaiden would have to man the hell up.
Another outstanding part of the game is the challenging bosses you face. Even from the first boss you face, you are going to get stomped a few times until you figure it out. You absolutely cannot just run up there and spam attacks - he will counter attack you over 90% of the time then. In fact some reviewers have specifically mentioned the first boss seems designed to punish button mashers. It's all about taking your time to find your openings for attack. Usually it involves blocking a couple hits, dodging, and then counter attacking. However, he will throw you if you're blocking too much near him and that friggin hurts! Here's a video showing someone struggling during the fight:
My personal favorite boss fight in the game, and to me one of the best showcases of your Ninja Gaiden skill, is the first fight against Alma about half-way through the game. Some people say she's the hardest boss in the game, but I never felt that way. Either way, this is a perfect example of a movement heavy fight. She very rarely is open to be attacked, it takes practice to get the rhythm down for dodging her attacks, and she also takes off close to 70% of your life if you don't dodge quick enough during her grapple move (not shown in video since he dodged it numerous times)
Overall I totally love the game, but it has some pitfalls:
The camera could be greatly improved. Sometimes it will lock in on some scenery and obstruct your view while you're attacking enemies. It's not fun to be having the fight of you the player versus the camera you have little control over.
The learning curve for the game's combat engine is very steep and you aren't given hints or tips through the game on how to defeat certain enemies or bosses. You have to figure them all out on your own. I think the game would have done better with a little more gradual learning curve and making the first stage a little simpler as well.
And personally, I cannot stand precision aiming with analog controls. This is only needed for areas requiring the bow and arrows, such as the 2nd stage, and a helicopter boss. Give me a mouse and keyboard and I'd be fine. I just for the life of me cannot get used to aiming well with the analog sticks.
Too many people gave up after the first stage because they felt it was too hard. The fact of the matter is anyone can beat this game through perseverance. Don't give up! If a fight seems impossible, try something different - you likely are missing out on some key mechanics to winning the fight. Or if completely stumped, look up a guide for some pointers. This is one of those games where even when you know what to do, you still need to execute it precisely and consistently.
Ninja Gaiden 2 What about Ninja Gaiden 2? I don't feel as passionately about that game frankly. It was fun, but IMO, nowhere near the level of rewarding fun I had while playing the original. It's still worth playing - it's gorier, has better graphics and sounds, cooler weapons, and of course new enemies and bosses. The bosses just weren't as memorable.
“It’s not about the game being too easy or too hard, it just seems like [new players] have a different skillset. So we want to offer a game to both kinds of players. We’re not trying to nerf the game.”
That was one of the designer's defenses of the games. Another has put it that "some gamers have different timings with action games and we want them to enjoy the game as well". They know their previous fanbase was mostly from dedicated fans who loved the challenge, so they are being careful with their wording. However, from people who have played the demo, they all agree the game just doesn't feel right. The game no longer is as challenging, or has as much a focus on dodging, defending, and countering. It also introduces "quicktime" elements where the game slows down as you do finishing moves by tapping the button on screen. Most reviewers have agreed this slowing down takes away from the quick-paced combat most Ninja Gaiden fans had come to love. See a video of the demo here:
I really hope the game doesn't try to become God of War with ninjas
Devil May Cry I've heard a little about this game. Mostly from people telling me if I liked Ninja Gaiden, I would love this. Agree? Disagree?
If you love Ninja Gaiden, you should at least play Devil May Cry 1 or 3. Those are the two worth checking out. DMC 2 was lacking, as is DMC 4.
I also suggest you try Bayonetta too. It's about as far from Ninja Gaiden as you can get while staying in the same genre but it's still amazing.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. The sheer amount of options with weapons and alternate strategies you could use is unmatched by games outside of the series. My main issue is that the bossfights on harder difficulties comes down to slow and chip strategies rather than reactive/punish gameplay. Looking forward to Ninja Gaiden 3 though. I just hope this one doesn't need a remake to be as good as it can be. I might get a chance to play it at a convention soon.
Ah yeah I love Ninja Gaiden 2 (the ps3 version) This game drove me crazy but I love it. And I'm also a fan of Dead or Alive.
DMC games are legendary; they feature great stories and great gameplay. However they are definitely more noob-friendly than Ninja Gaiden from my personal experience.
Anyway if you like this type of games you should definitely try Bayonetta. This is my favorite ps3 game (I think it's been release for 360 too).
wow... doesnt even look like Ninja Gaiden, by watching the videos I didnt like it at all. They shouldve keep the feeling of the NES versions, which where fucking amazing.
On August 14 2011 12:09 Trozz wrote: This game is SO good. Ive beaten master ninja. Quite speedrunable.
I have the sequel. The boss fights in it suck though. I hope 3 is great.
Nice haiku man! Were you mocking my writing style for this post? lol
I agree, NG2 bosses were pretty lame for the most part. I liked the 2nd phase of the final boss the most. That fight felt pretty damn epic.
I've only beaten NG1 up to Hard difficulty so far. I was playing on the original XBOX version too, I just recently got the remake NG Black. I know there's a few cool changes such as graphic overall, new enemies, and additional difficulty levels. I'm looking forward to that.
On August 14 2011 12:27 fabiano wrote: wow... doesnt even look like Ninja Gaiden, by watching the videos I didnt like it at all. They shouldve keep the feeling of the NES versions, which where fucking amazing.
I loved the NES versions myself. They couldn't really get away with making NG sidescrolling action game like the NES versions for the newer systems though. I say you gotta give the game a try. The gameplay and challenge is what I loved about the NES version (and it has NINJAS!), and the "new" versions certainly deliver there as well. Dare I say NG has the best gameplay out of any action game out there?
ninja gaiden is still pretty much the gold standard for action game combat systems. everything just feels so good. I just wish the rest of the game was up to par though. the camera is really shitty a lot of the time, the non-combat aspects of gameplay (all the platforming and puzzle-solving elements) are pretty sub-par, and the narrative is laughably bad.
I just wish I could play a game like god of war (which is really strong in every place that NG is weak) that had a combat system as deep as ninja gaiden lol.
bayonetta is probably the best game in the genre of this generation. NG2 wasnt as good as the 1st, and god of war 3 also failed to be as good as its' predecessors.
On August 14 2011 12:37 Ideas wrote: ninja gaiden is still pretty much the gold standard for action game combat systems. everything just feels so good. I just wish the rest of the game was up to par though. the camera is really shitty a lot of the time, the non-combat aspects of gameplay (all the platforming and puzzle-solving elements) are pretty sub-par, and the narrative is laughably bad.
I just wish I could play a game like god of war (which is really strong in every place that NG is weak) that had a combat system as deep as ninja gaiden lol.
bayonetta is probably the best game in the genre of this generation. NG2 wasnt as good as the 1st, and god of war 3 also failed to be as good as its' predecessors.
Completely agreed regarding your God of War comparisons. The story, cinematics, graphics, and camera were all significantly better. Just the combat system was lacking in GoW... well... and the overall challenges in the game. I remember so many times in GoW easily dismantling the enemies just spamming the square button and spinning around lol
If you enjoy games of this genre I would strongly suggest Devil May Cry 3 on the hardest difficulty and probably DMC 4 as well. It seems to have the deepest fighting system of any game in this genre that I am aware of due to things like jump cancelling, managing invincibility frames, juggle resets, animation cancelling, buffering as many as 3-4 keys at once, etc that allow for a lot of crazy things to be done that borderline the complexity of fighting game combo systems.
As far as I know DMC is the only one in the genre (God of War, Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta, DMC) that has an annual combo tournament as well for a variety of the DMC games. The 4th tournament had competition for all 4 DMC games.
Here are a few vids from that tournament: DMC3 Dante Winner:
DMC4 Dante Winner:
DMC4 Nero Winner:
While I haven't played much of DMC4 it seems pretty clear that the fighting system is as deep as ever if not deeper. Dante can switch between 4 styles and a huge variety of weapons on the fly in 4 which can produce some amazing stuff when used together.
Here's one more vid for good measure that is just a personal favorite of mine with some DMC4 and DMC3:
Game is far harder then it should be due to the camera being total shit. Artificial difficulty isn't fun its just frustrating mainly due to when you die at times it of no fault of your own and it was because the camera got stuck in the wall or something equally silly.
I've not played Ninja Gaiden, but both DMC1 and DMC3 are absolutely worth playing.
DMC3 is most likely more fun overall if you're looking for an awesome action game. I'd say it's significantly more flawed because the enemy design ranges from bad to atrocious (other than the Vergil fights, which are actually pretty well-done)--the infamous Hell Lust spends much of its time doing nothing, and the rest of its time doing a near-instant uppercut that has no visual warning and only a small audio cue to really warn you ... and those are among the more fun enemies in the game.
But Dante has tremendous freedom, as watching any sort of combo video should indicate, and that means the game is tons of fun as long as you stick to the four or so missions that aren't filled with terrible enemies. So while its flaws are pretty big the good things are so good that it's still worthwhile.
DMC1 on the other hand has significantly less freedom--largely because you have no on-the-fly switching between Ifrit and Alastor--but the enemies are generally well-done. Other than a few times where you encounter packs of Blades you're looking at much smaller-scale fights than in DMC3, but then you're not dealing with enemies that have just one or two uninspired attacks either. The bosses are, with the exception of Nightmare and the first/third forms of Mundus, lots of fun as well. The camera tends to be less frustrating as well but that's partly because of the smaller groups of enemies. It's almost certainly a much better game as a whole imo, but the good parts aren't as amazingly fun as the good parts of DMC3 (but other than the Mundus 1 fight there is nothing that's seriously un-fun, while DMC3 offers a few missions that are painful at best).
I find DMC3 significantly harder, though on a DMC-related forum I used to frequent and still occasionally visit opinion about which game is more challenging is split.
I've heard from a couple people (from the aforementioned DMC-related forum) who have played Ninja Gaiden that its enemy design actually manages to be worse than DMC3's, but I can't speak to the truth of that for myself.
On August 14 2011 14:22 Sarasin wrote: Game is far harder then it should be due to the camera being total shit. Artificial difficulty isn't fun its just frustrating mainly due to when you die at times it of no fault of your own and it was because the camera got stuck in the wall or something equally silly.
While I agree the camera certainly was crap and had some major effects on the gameplay at times, I wouldn't say the game was "far harder" due to it alone. You at least had a button to switch the camera's view to behind Ryu so it wasn't forever stuck somewhere terrible. I thought NG2 had more scenarios where you ran into these issues - like I remember this one boss halfway through the game, with two flying dragons. You sometimes would die due to projectiles being outside of your view as you're dodging attacks and trying to pick up additional arrows from the corpse on the ground. Then you also need to deal with quickly aiming a charged bow shot and getting out to do any damage.
Watched a few minutes of those DMC combo videos. It's partially I've never played the game and partially I'm not that interested in extremely long combos that I didn't find them that interesting. I hope on harder difficulties you can get punished by enemies for trying to do long combos at least.
On August 14 2011 19:15 EscPlan9 wrote: Watched a few minutes of those DMC combo videos. It's partially I've never played the game and partially I'm not that interested in extremely long combos that I didn't find them that interesting. I hope on harder difficulties you can get punished by enemies for trying to do long combos at least.
Stages in DMC are resolved by a much more thorough scoring system than the Ninja Gaiden games - the test of skill is more in speed, intuition, and creativity (since combo repetition is heavily punished) as compared to straight-up survival.
EPT
Were you mocking my writing style for this post? lol
