Thanks to a sale I finally got my hands on Ninja Gaiden 2 which is technically the first new Ninja Gaiden game since the Xbox one came out so many years ago. Let me preface this with saying that I loved Ninja Gaiden Black; it’s easily one of my favorite action titles of all time. With that out of the way here is why Ninja Gaiden 2 crashes and burns. Like its predecessor, NG2 is about combat with fights against multiple foes that are very eager to tear you to pieces and once again the combat system is sublime. Enemies will not pull any punches as they come at you from all sides, so far this is sounding really good right? Unfortunately it seems the developer’s have lost their memory of NGB and in the process ruined the game.
Let’s start with the new game mechanic which goes side by side with the amount of gore in NG2. Enemies can now lose limbs as they take damage and many enemies may use stronger attacks as a result. By pressing the heavy attack button next to an enemy like this Ryu supposedly will perform a gruesome finishing attack that will instant kill the weakened enemy. This sounds good on paper but the execution is lacking (no pun intended), as the game’s finicky targeting system will sometimes not register you within killing range. Also you can’t be moving sometimes forcing you to be a sitting duck to pull off the attack. Moving on here are two issues that I would like to “discuss” with the designers and by discuss I mean beat the crap out of them for.
First the camera… what the hell happened!? One of the best parts of NGB was that the camera was zoomed out enough to give you an accurate coverage of the area. Now it wasn’t perfect but you had the options to either center it behind Ryu or control it yourself if the view wasn’t good enough. Here the basic camera view is too zoomed in and you’ll find yourself being attacked from off camera more times then from enemies the camera is facing. There are plenty of times I’ve noticed that the camera would be stuck in one position forcing me to fight with a suboptimal view. This becomes a nightmare during boss fights as the camera decides to focus on Ryu instead of the boss as you try to make heads or tails of where it’s going to strike you from. The designers were kind enough to give you the option of recentering the camera on the boss, except A. it doesn’t work every time and B. you will have to hit the button constantly in a fight. The next problem is more serious if that’s possible, the actual game mechanics and level design.
Compared to NGB, NG2 is quite frankly broken. Enemies have the ability to attack you through your own attack animations stopping you cold while they can proceed to kill you. Add in grab attacks that cannot be blocked or countered for added frustration. Long range enemies have become the bane of my existence; in the last NG they were rare occurrences or set up close enough to the fight for you to reach them without much difficulty. Here they have been given sniper bows that allow them to hit you accurately from at least 50 ft away which will of course stop you from attacking. The designers love to place them at the end of a very long hallway and place regular enemies in between. This + the camera can make it impossible to avoid damage as they pick you off from afar. There are many fights between regular enemies and enemies that are either off the ground or in a position where range weapons are the only option and as you know that ranged combat is what the NG series excels at, seeing as how sarcasm doesn’t flow well from text imagine me using as much sarcasm as I can on that last line. One boss nearly drove me to quit as the only way to attack him was with the bow and arrow, which forces you to stand completely still as he launches energy blasts at your head. One change to the formula shows that someone at Team Ninja wasn’t thinking clearly.
One of the biggest changes from NG 1 to NGB was the removal of the “Intercept” Technique AKA counter-attack. The reasoning from the designers was that it slowed down gameplay too much and gave the player too much of an advantage. Itagaki also wanted a greater emphasis on combat which was why the game was sped up. In NG 2 it has returned and showed a difference in design philosophy. You will be constantly assaulted by enemies from all sides forcing you to use the counter-attack to stand any chance of actually hitting them. In the process the game feels slower compared to NGB.
There is however one silver lining to this game the new health system. Ryu now takes two types of damage, some that will regenerate after the fight and permanent damage that requires a health item to fix. I like this mechanic as it allows Ryu to be ready for the next fight while still providing a reason to be careful during combat.
In the end I don’t know what makes me angry more, getting hit from an enemy off screen due to a crappy camera, or getting hit from an enemy off screen due to a crappy camera by going through my attack animation to do it. I really hate to say this as I don’t have any evidence to support this, but I can’t help but feel that Itagaki’s departure had a huge affect on the degrade of quality in NG 2. The game feels like everyone who was responsible for making NGB excellent, called in sick for NG 2. They could have given me another version of NGB and I would have loved it, instead we get this piece of crap. I don’t like to pull this card out but I’m going to say it, I could have done a better job designing this game then Team Ninja did. This review has probably come too late to affect your buying decision (if you want current reviews, then someone needs to start sending me games), but NG 2 has left a black stain on the series. I haven’t been this disappointed in an action title since Devil May Cry 2. I’m giving Ninja Gaiden 2 the rank of “Ninja Dog”, oh yes I went there (If you don’t know what that means, play NGB).
Josh
