Lately I've been on a Ninja Gaiden binge during my free time. When I first bought the Xbox 360 I purchased Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden 2 (along with some other games). However, I never got to playing them much until recently. After completing both the Xbox Ninja Gaidens, I returned to my root interest in the series. That's right, the NES trilogy of Ninja Gaidens!
(Also recommended viewing for anyone who is interested in the game at all!)
I still remember receiving this game as a christmas present when I was about 7 years old. I thought ninjas were the coolest, so naturally I loved this game! I don't remember too many of the frustrations I had with this game, but I'm sure there were many. Nonetheless, even as a kid I loved the challenges of games like the Mega Man series and the Ninja Gaiden trilogy. As a kid I remember I never could beat the final boss. This was mainly because you had to first make it through the entirety of hell (aka Stage 6-1 and 6-2) before you could get the chance to fight them again! That's right. When you die on the final boss, you start back at 6-1! No checkpoint before the final boss here! (This was weird even for NG1 though, since if you died on say stage 5-3, you started back on 5-3, not 5-1!)
Anyways, the final boss has three phrases, and is a decent challenge for you to learn the patterns and execute well. I recently recorded myself consecutively beating the final boss in all three phrases. I did really bad in the 2nd phase during recording, but oh well, I didn't feel like recording again!
Pros: Challenging, great gameplay, memorable music, cool cut-scenes. Cons: Climbing up and down by ninja hopping is a pain in some cases. You cannot tell which item comes out of the "lights" you destroy in the stages, causing you to replace your ninjitsu sometimes.
I don't recall playing this one as a kid much. I never owned it. It wasn't until high school that I started playing it via emulator. I like a lot of the changes in this game. The orange clones offered a new skill to master (I'm still not that good at controlling them, but once you are they make the game a breeze), the stages had some "hazards" in them (ice, windstorms, lights on/off), the animations were smoother, and the climbing was greatly improved (no more ninja hopping required!). Oh, and the bosses all around were more of a challenge than the original (where you generally just got next to them and slashed away to victory).
Similarly to NG1, the final boss has three phases, and dying to any of them brings you back to another hellish difficulty stage! However, one big change is between the phases, your health does NOT get restored! You must defeat all the bosses with the same health you originally came in with. Thankfully the only "tough" form to consistently get down is the 2nd one.
I also recorded myself defeating the final bosses, though Fraps did not properly record the clones sometimes, causing some weird looking situations such as in phase 3 where Ryu attacks facing away from the boss, and an invisible ninja is destroying the head.
Pros: The changes. Otherwise, still shines in the same ways as the original, except... Cons: Music is not as memorable, nor as great. Cut scenes were not as epic. You also still cannot tell which item you get from the "lights" you destroy.
I also never owned this game. I love the improvements in the animation, stage design, and difficulties of all the bosses! Also you could finally see what item you would get when destroying the "lights"! You also could improve your sword to make it cover more area when you slash, and you could now hang onto objects.
I will be playing NG3 again soon and record myself defeating the final bosses there. The biggest challenge in this game is you no longer had infinite continues. Instead, you only had 5 - then you had to START ALL THE WAY OVER! Also, there were some areas with way too many enemies on screen simultaneously leading to some frame rate issues as well as some cheap shots.
Final boss phases in NG3! Read the comments later in this thread for details on the frustration with the final stage and this boss.
Soon to come... I also have a lot to say regarding the Xbox versions of Ninja Gaiden which I'll get into in a separate blog post. One thing I'll say for now is I miss games like NG that are truly challenging to complete and leave you feeling rewarded for constantly improving.
The game isn't as difficult as some say. Once you get down the timings of the enemy attacks, you'll quickly learn how to handle each situation. It also helps to abuse the screen scrolling in some areas. Oh, and take your time to figure out how to handle any area where you may fall into a pit before diving into it! The most common mistake I see is people jumping into some of the more challenging parts without much thought.
I also hope to complete the Castlevania series again soon, as well as Battletoads. Love me some challenging games! Any recommendations for other ones?
The last stage always destroyed me. I could get up to the second phase of the boss, but never beat it, and then had to start the last stage over and over, and just gave up :O
I finished playing NG 3 with state saves and let me tell you, that shit is ridiculous. I heard that the american version (which is the one with 5 continues) had the monsters deal extra damage to increase the difficulty -_- . If you can finish the game with the 5 continues you are godlike! Good luck playing
I didn't know there was a version of NG3 without the 5 continues restriction! Yesterday I beat all three NG games again, I just didn't record anything from it. Today I decided to have saves at the start of each stage, and record myself defeating the final bosses in all of them. The most challenging part of every Ninja Gaiden game is not merely defeating the final boss without dying, it also is making it through the final stage from hell on your way to the boss! Tecmo were true sadists with their programming for the final boss. Why the hell do you have to start back at 6-1 or 7-1 when you die on the boss?!? I think it's more a product of the times where the game was too short by itself that it made the final stage all the more difficult to force you to play the game more to complete it.
Cool man. My roommate and I like to get down with NES games(he has a nearly complete collection of carts) and we went thru NG1-3 over the course of a few days a few months ago. :D They were fun, not as difficult as I remembered when I was a kid. Last stage of NG2 was definitely one of the most annoying sections
NG3 challenge accepted. Failed! I ran out of continues on stage 7 Previously, I've beaten the game with save states at the start of stages. No saves and limited continues in this game is quite the feat.
So many cheap shots! Near the beginning of stage 7-1 you can get the fire-shield/wheel ninjitsu which makes it easier. Only problem is if you die you never can get it again. Oh, and it isn't just the enemies and pits of death you have to watch out for here too! You need to do some precise jumping from moving platform to platform, or else you insta die! Oh, and the timer also is another "enemy". If you don't have like a perfect run, you pretty much have to die just to reset the timer. Aghhh
This game and Castlevania III were always a huge pain in my rear end to beat. Actually had an easier time with the Mega Man series to be honest. Still amazing games that I love playing to this day. I use my Dreamcast emulation discs to play all the Sega and Nintendo roms.
The true test of gaming skill and patience is Adventure Island - not for the faint of heart. It took my roommate and I over 13 hours, and probably over 200 continues to finally beat this before we nailed it to the wall, never to play that hellish game again.. (As far as NG goes, I've beaten 1 and 2..never played 3..and gave up on Black for Xbox360 - that game was way too obnoxious with the projectile attacks/unforgiving play if you didn't know the perfect timings for combos/dodging)
Adventure Island! Such a classic game, if not terribly repetitive. Every stage has time gradually running out and you need to collect apples/fruits/whatever to restore some time. Of course there are plenty of obstacles along the way. I never played it long enough to get to any truly difficult areas. I'll consider playing it again to feed my masochism with these games though
NG2 and NG3 had some great sound and music at times, I just thought NG1 was done better overall. Though I will admit I surely am biased here since NG1 is much more nostalgic to me.
The biggest problem with the modern Ninja Gaidens without a doubt is the horrid camera.
The NG1 game over theme is the saddest theme i've ever heard.
before NG for Xbox came out I decided to master NG1. I'd complete the game every day, setting up new challenges as I got better. the first week would be to use only 2 continues, till it got down to no continues... then later to no lives lost. i'd restart if i died. things like that.
amazingly enough, completing it only takes 30 minutes on a good run.
On March 22 2011 04:13 kainzero wrote: The NG1 game over theme is the saddest theme i've ever heard.
before NG for Xbox came out I decided to master NG1. I'd complete the game every day, setting up new challenges as I got better. the first week would be to use only 2 continues, till it got down to no continues... then later to no lives lost. i'd restart if i died. things like that.
amazingly enough, completing it only takes 30 minutes on a good run.
Grats! The only game where I've gone hardcore with challenges is the Mega Man series. I've completed the mega buster only (also no e-tanks, w-tanks, etc) challenge in all the games! In MM9 I also beat the game without dying (attempted it because it was a challenge for an Xbox DLC achievement).
I've seen perfect runs of the NG series in less than 15 minutes each! Check out SpeedDemosArchive for instance. There's a glitch in the first game with the spin-slash ninjitsu that makes every boss die pretty much instantly.
I just finished recording me defeating the final boss phases in NG3.
Phase 1: I can avoid the lightning bolts like 95% of the time without too much an issue. Sometimes I'd still get struck by one. Due to the increased difficulty in the US American version (confirmed! Apparently it was made more difficult because at the time difficult NES games were popular, so the developers were directly told to "Make it harder!"), you lose a substantial amount of health. Add to this that I already only started off the fight with half health, and this final boss becomes a nightmare. I messed up on the first four attempts by getting hit by lightning once or twice, and then messing up on the 3rd phase once to kill me. This is the 5th recording.
Phase 2: Ez pz lmn sqz. He always starts absorbing the balls of energy on the left side, so just get to the right platform at start, and then swap platforms after he condenses the energy into a big ball.
Phase 3: Generally a predictable fight. However, there is a small chance for some randomness, like the beams firing twice, at a different angle, or the timings for the beams and sonic-boom-thing can change up significantly. I end up getting hit once here because of that.
Uploading the video to YouTube now. Stage 7, the final stage in NG3 is such a nightmare. IMO it's the most difficult NG level out there. I'm sure it'll get easier with practice, but I had a hell of time trying to consistently get through it. And I certainly do not make it with the time restriction, so I intentionally kill myself at the start of 7-3 to reset the timer and give me enough time to complete the game. Otherwise you have to complete all sections of the stage AND the final boss phases within the 240 seconds you start with. Pain - in - the - ass!
EPT![[image loading]](http://ui12.gamespot.com/1227/ninjagaiden_2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.nintendocity.com/pictures/nes_cart_scans/NinjaGaiden2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.nintendocity.com/pictures/nes_cart_scans/NinjaGaiden3.jpg)
