What are you currently playing? 4.0

[Spark Of Spirit]

NES NG 1 < NG Black
NES NG 2 > HD NG 2
NES NG 3 >>>> HD NG 3

I haven't played a whole lot of the 3D games, but Black is more ambitious and has much less cheap deaths than the NES one. NES NG 2 is one of the best sidescrollers ever. It's way less cheap than the original, yet has all its good points as well. NG 3 NES might be a mess, but it still has the core of what made the first two good games. The HD 3 looks like everything I dislike about modern gaming.

[Foggle]

NES NG 1 < NG Black
NES NG 2 = HD NG 2
NES NG 3 >>>> HD NG 3

IMO.

[talonmalon333]

Whoa. Maybe cause I haven't seen anything about the next one, but I didn't even like the NES NG3.

[Foggle]

Whoa. Maybe cause I haven't seen anything about the next one, but I didn't even like the NES NG3.

NES NG 3's actually a pretty good game, but the NA version's difficulty level is just incredibly cheap.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I pretty much agree with Desensitized's post, though if I were to rank all NG games together, Black would be my favorite of all, and NG2 NES and XBOX360 would be more or less at a tie (though for quite different reasons; but, I'd probably give the edge to the NES version for being a much better game in its own respective series, whereas NG2 HD was a huge step back from NGB in terms of quality, IMO).

As for NG3, the game was kind of butchered for its North American release. Its the weakest game of the NES trilogy no matter which version you play, but it honestly has its own merits and brings some interesting new additions to the gameplay which make it a worthwhile side-scroller, IMO. The problem is that they wanted to make it more challenging for American gamers who liked that sort of thing at the time, but instead of reasonably adjusting the difficulty, they were cheap and made all attacks do double damage to you and gave you limited continues (when the game had unlimited continues in Japan). Playing the fixed up version on an emulated version of the SNES trilogy version of the game (which is an unlockable in NG1 on the XBOX that was sadly removed from Black thanks to Nintendo threatening Tecmo with some legal BS after they did that), I was able to discover that at its core it was still a good NG experience when played without the cheap BS that the NA version of the game threw at you.

Its a very flawed game, to be sure, but its that type of flawed game that has a soul to it and that has its appeal if you give it enough of a chance. The current NG3 we have is by far the most shallow and soulless NG game ever made (except for maybe NG shadow and the Gamer Gear games which I heard were both shit, though I haven't played them myself). Its technically less fundamentally flawed than NG3 on the NES or NG2 HD, but it is so shallow and mundane that it never actually raises up to the level of being fun to play. Most people have reported being able to repeated mash buttons WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING AT THE SCREEN and find that they are clearing entire rooms that way. That is NOT what an NG game should be like, or even ANY action game for that matter. Its pitiful design. I don't like God of War, but even that game has some minimum requirements to be able to beat it, and it doesn't insult the player by doing EVERYTHING for them. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that NG3 is BY FAR the worst main series NG game that currently exists. I can't imagine the series getting much worse than this....

[Foggle]

Ninja Gaiden Shadow is a pretty good game IMO. It's a decent effort for the original Game Boy and fun enough to warrant a playthrough.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, technically it wasn't really a Ninja Gaiden game, or wasn't supposed to be. As I recall, it was another game that was being made but then all of a sudden Tecmo decided to slap the Ninja Gaiden name onto it and make the character sprite resemble Ryu, since that gave it more marketing value. At any rate, I never had the opportunity to play it but maybe some day I will hunt it down.

Ninja Gaiden on the Game Gear, on the other hand, is nigh impossible to find. I don't think its even available via an emulator. That said, the few who own it and claim to have beaten it all confirm that its pretty much garbage. Ninja Gaiden on the Sega Master System, however, is a pretty decent side-scroller in its own right.

[talonmalon333]

I'd rather play pure garbage than a soulless shell of what was once a quality series. Even garbage has it's perks.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Well, technically it wasn't really a Ninja Gaiden game, or wasn't supposed to be. As I recall, it was another game that was being made but then all of a sudden Tecmo decided to slap the Ninja Gaiden name onto it and make the character sprite resemble Ryu, since that gave it more marketing value. At any rate, I never had the opportunity to play it but maybe some day I will hunt it down.

Ninja Gaiden on the Game Gear, on the other hand, is nigh impossible to find. I don't think its even available via an emulator. That said, the few who own it and claim to have beaten it all confirm that its pretty much garbage. Ninja Gaiden on the Sega Master System, however, is a pretty decent side-scroller in its own right.

Ninja Gaiden was lucky back in the NES days as there were a lot of good games that tried to emulate its success like Shadow Of The Ninja (which is almost co-op Ninja Gaiden), Ninja Gaiden Shadow (a reskin of the sequel to Shadow Of The Ninja) and the Master System/Game Gear game which looks decent enough.

If you want to wash the taste out of your mouth of the foul NG3 debacle, there's always the Shinobi games. Seriously, go play some Shinobi 3- it'll make you feel a lot better!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've been meaning to play some old-school Shinobi for a while. I know Shinobi 3 is largely considered to be the best game of the entire series, so I'll look into it when I get some more free-time time on my hands.

[gunswordfist]

Shadow of the Ninja is such a great game.

[Foggle]

Escort missions are the worst thing in video games. Period.

[gunswordfist]

All escort missions should be call Dum Dum Dugan. That gets the point across/

[Spark Of Spirit]

I'm really digging Kid Icarus. It's like Sakurai took Star Fox, Smash Bros., and the original Kid Icarus and put it in a blender and came up with this. He also put in a ton of content. I have no idea how long it will take me to get everything.

If you have a 3DS, I highly recommend it.

[gunswordfist]

I played Marvel vs Capcom 3 for the first time on Sat. I liked it but even more irritating than the fact that Mega Man is not in it is the exclusion of the greatest fighting game character ever, Ken Masters. How can they put C. Viper in the game but not Ken is beyond me. MVC2 Ken is my favorite version of the character so that's a real disappointment.