Ninja Gaiden Series

[Spark Of Spirit]

Unfortunately, that seems to be the mentality the industry adopts when it comes to franchises. One bad seller and they just stop. It doesn't even matter the reason why, they just chalk it up to people not wanting the series anymore.

That stupid mentality has killed a lot of good series because of bad executive decisions.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

There was an article recently (which I'll try to fine) with an interview with Itagaki. In it he explained that (at least for Japanese companies, according to him) a lot of the higher-up executives of gaming companies these days are purely businessmen who don't really understand games. He said something like they pretend that they understand games but really they don't have a good grasp on the idea of how games work and thus can't really make a proper business out of gaming because they don't have a good idea of what the gaming community really wants, or the process by which developers should work by to get the best possible results. He mentions this in the context of explaining why he likes working with THQ so much (since he says some stuff about how Danny Bilson understands game development and gives him a lot of room to do what he needs to to make the game as good as possible).

Now, this is just purely Itagaki's opinion and not any straight up facts, but I only brought it up because as soon as he mentioned that I felt that there might be some bit of truth to that. I do think that the people running companies like Capcom and other big gaming companies these days are primarily businessmen, but businessmen who don't understand the business of gaming specifically, but just pretend to. I do think that you need to have a firm grasp on the perspective of gamers in order to make proper business decisions related to games. As for the sales thing, it seems to be more of a problem with Japanese games. Western companies generally seem to take criticisms into account to make a game better even if it initially flops, and will at least give it a few attempts before dropping it. With the Japanese games, though, it seems to be that if even one game in a franchise doesn't sell well then its at the very least in a danger zone of sorts (and in many cases they just drop the series).

I understand and accept the fact that gaming is now a multi-million dollar business and will be treated as such, however any good business people should understand their products, and if we have people who don't quite have and understanding of gaming specifically at the head of gaming companies, we will obviously get less than desirable results. Perhaps I'm looking too much into this, but that's just one possibility, I feel, that may be the problem with the mentality of how modern games should work.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I think Inafune said the same as well. And after he left, all this shit happened to Capcom, so there might be some truth there.

He also said the reason why Nintendo is so popular is because people like Iwata are in charge who actually made games and understand what both the audience, executives AND the developers want. It's probably why Nintendo's output has been of such high quality this gen, but its too bad most don't take from their example and instead actively try to avoid them.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Funniest let's play that I have ever seen for an NG game, yet (well actually ProtonJon has the funniest ones fro the original NES games, but this is the best one for the 3D games so far). I'm not usually a fan of these types of videos but since its NG related and I love the game to death, a lot of the humor really strikes home with me.

My favorite line in the video was something along the lines of: "Apparently in the world of Ninja Gaiden if you have gaping holes in your defense than you deserve to die...."

Even I didn't really realize how ridiculous that line in the game was until the Suede pointed it out in this video.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

New pre-TGS screens are out on Famitsu's website. They show Ryu in a desert setting this time, by the looks of it, which while not the most stellar of environments at least looks more interesting than the boring London level. Also, the new design for the bow looks admittedly cool, especially with how it now appears to be collapsible and folds up when Ryu puts it on his back.

I just thought it funny to mention that this game in many ways seems to parallel NG3 from the NES. It has more of a focus on futuristic technology and machines and robots and such among the enemy variety (along with mostly humanoid enemies), and also is the only 3D NG game now to feature a desert level (with NG3 on the NES being the only classic game to feature a desert level). It also still seems to be the weakest link in the series compared to the first 2 games, much like how NG3 on the NES was considered to be the weakest entry in the classic series, so its definitely living up to the NG3 title in that regard (though, to be fair, the original and un-butchered version of the game is quite good and still at least feels like NG-proper, which is currently more than you can say for the 3D NG3).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I have to admit....I laughed my ass off after watching the new trailer. For decades Ryu Hayabusa has been a video game character who just kills 1-dimensional enemies without a second though (and for that the player does so as well). It just seems hilariously contradictory in this trailer that he would even give one random dude the chance to beg for his life. I mean, in the world of NG he kills evil guys anyways, so why should it matter to him. At any rate, I don't really care about the story trailer, because I've never cared about story in an NG game (but if it somehow turns out to be interesting, which is doubtful, then that's just an additional bonus). I want to see if there are any new gameplay elements that can perhaps make me feel at least a little bit better about this game, because as it stands I'm still sorely disappointed with what I saw of its E3 gameplay earlier this year. Now's the time to see if Hayashi actually listened to any fan feedback since then.

Also, one thing that ticks me off is now that they have announced DOA5 for 2012 as well, I have to wonder just how seriously they are taking their games. It takes a long time a lot of focus just to develop a single game that's good. Splitting Team Ninja's focus into more than 1 game may just make for 2 completely mediocre games as opposed to 1 great game that stands out. Why can't he just wait until he's done with one game before announcing and working on another one? I'm not even a fan of the DOA games but I'm sure DOA fans would feel the same way about wanting Team Ninja to focus on that game after NG3 is done rather than developing both games simultaneously. That just splits up the effort and both games would end up being poorer products for it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, apparently the guy that Team Ninja highered to write the story for NG3, Masato Kato, is credited as being the original writer for the first Ninja Gaiden on the NES, as well as JRPGs like Chrono Trigger (which is the only game in the entire genre that I've ever beaten) and FFVII. You know, if this game were meant to be a call-back to the NES classics and Hayashi learned not to take a damn story about a ninja running through modern cities so damn seriously, I would actually be excited for an over-the-top and absurd story in the vein of classic NG games. As it stands it just looks like another dull attempt at generic story-telling, and while it'll certainly be better than the previous games by default which barely even had what you could call stories, it still looks overly cheesy mostly in the bad ways, rather than in a fun and tongue-in-cheek way.

Either way, though, I never gave a shit about the story-line in NG games, but since Hayashi stresses how much he's focusing on it (especially over gameplay, apparently) so damn much, than it better as hell be fucking great (which is obviously never going to happen), otherwise I'll have another reason to be pissed at him for focusing on something so trivial (for an NG game, anyways) over the gameplay.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Hey guys, remember when the enemies in NG used to be so aggressive, like how in NGB they were so intense and constantly looked for openings or weak spots in your defense, forcing you to keep on your toes and always moving? Or how they would blow up their own arm to damage you and use suicidal attacks just to try and kill you in NG2?

Now let's look at how Hayashi, who clearly stresses how much he has payed attention to what fans love most about the 3D NG games, gives his own spin on how enemies should be handled in NG3. In other words, we go from insanely threatening and skillful ninjas and demons who cared nothing for their own lives as long as they could take you down, to these guys over here:



So, yeah, NG is dead. It was a good run while it lasted. RIP.

[Spark Of Spirit]

... I think I'm good with waiting for Shinobi 3DS as my ninja go-to game this year.

I still wish Sega would have let Platinum make a new 3D Shinobi game to go with it. It might give the NG series the kick in the pants it needs.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You should try NGB someday if you have the chance....that shit's a good game, even if it may not seem too appealing at first.

Anyways, based on how Hayashi flat out ignored the success of Bayonetta and instead cowered away into trying to pull this shit by making NG a pussified version of its former self, I doubt that he would pay much more attention to even a ninja-themed game made by Platinum.

[Foggle]

E-K will love this.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Oh, the hero and ninja mode thing was mentioned back at the beginning of TGS, so I knew about it. To be honest, I don't have any problems with it. If they were going to make the game more accessible to newcomers, I'd rather let them have the option for auto-guard and auto-evade then to dumb down the enemies and ruin the whole game for the hardcore fans. Games like DMC4 and Bayonetta also did something similar without compromising the challenge for more serious players, so I'm not against that type of addition to the game itself.

Here's the problem, though: Based on what I've seen, they DID basically dumb down the enemies anyways. We've gone from seriously threatening enemies that would blow up their arms and even use suicidal attacks all for the sake of killing you to a bunch of worthless whiners who constantly beg for their lives in the middle of the actual gameplay itself. That's the exact OPPOSITE of what NG's gameplay philosophy has always been about. I mean, that's seriously disappointing. I at least would be able to stomach it more if the enemies learned to shut up once in a while instead of repeating the same 2 or 3 stupid phrases a million times over in the span of just a few minutes. Its at times like this that I'm glad that enemies in the previous NG games at the very least knew the art of silence and not annoying the fuck out of you with their constant blabbering. Who the fuck even gives a shit about what the things on screen that you're slaughtering have to say. Imagine if in the classic NES NG games every enemy stopped to fucking talk and beg Ryu no to kill them while still attacking him anyways.

So, yeah, the dumb-ass Hayashi doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Even if you pretended that this wasn't an NG game and looked at it in his own rights as a general action game, the way he's applying his ideas to this game are still beyond stupid.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, instead of just bashing NG3 which I already know is going to be lame, I thought it'd be better to reflect on why I think NGB is such a great game, and why I wish I could experience another action game like it.

If you ask other people what the best game of the last decade was, you'd probably hear something like Halo, Resident Evil 4, Half-Life 2, Grand Theft Auto (insert number or subtitle here), or something along those lines, and to their credit they are all great games that have had a ton of influence on their respective genres.

However, as for me, my favorite game of the last decade was Ninja Gaiden (specifically Ninja Gaiden Black, but the game in essence is just Ninja Gaiden). Really, its more coincidence than anything else that I'm a fan of both the classics and the new 3D iterations, because both series have little to do with each other aside from sharing the Ninja Gaiden title (actually in Japan, the classics were titled Ninja Ryukenden, with Gaiden only being used for the American release of the old games). Many people don't know this, but back when work was first starting on Team Ninja's new action game in 1999 which was then untitled, it was never actually meant to be a Ninja Gaiden game. About half-way in development Tecmo just told Itagaki to slap the Ninja Gaiden title onto the game for marketing value, so he did, but really the game is its own action game that really isn't supposed to be related to the classic games, and for the most part it doesn't other than having Team Ninja add in some last-minute references to NG, such as making the main character Ryu Hayabus and adding in clever nods and references to the old games. A fun fact is also that one of the main creators of Ninja Gaiden was Itagaki's mentor back when he started working at Tecmo in the early 90's, and his first project there involved helping out with the SNES trilogy port of the classic series (that and Tecmo Bowl, I believe).

Anyways, its interesting looking at the game's development history, because originally it was supposed to be for the Dreamcast, and it certainly would have been interesting to see what the game would have been like had it finished development on that system. Needless to say, when Sega went under and stopped making DCs, Itagaki decided to move production of NG to the PS2, but that decision only lasted a short amount of time because after Itagaki received a dev-kit for the XBOX, he immediately decided to move the project to that console since it was the most powerful (in terms of processing power) of the current-gen consoles at the time. Another piece of interesting trivia which I've never been able to verify for accuracy is that after announcing Ninja Gaiden at E3 '02, Tecmo held an online poll asking fans which console they would most like to see a new NG game on, and the one that got the most votes was apparently the Nintendo Gamecube, which makes sense being that the classic NG titles (excluding the arcade game) were all NES titles back in the day (not including any ports). I don't know why they would do that when Itagaki was already clearly developing for the XBOX, though, so that piece of information might have been false or I may have read it wrong.

Anyways, the fact that Itagaki WAS developing it for the XBOX got him and Team Ninja tons of hate from fans of the classic games. That, and the fact that Ryu wasn't wearing his classic costume (which was later featured in NGB as an unlockable outfit) and that classic NES characters weren't present in any previews of the game.

So, that's just a brief history of the game's development, but overall it spent a total of 5 years being developed, though it took really long partly because of all of the system changes that the game had to go through. However the time and effort put into this game showed when it was released. At the time, and IMO still to this day, it had some of the best and fastest action around. The controls were perfect in how tight and responsive they were, and it really nailed the hack n' slash formula that many games follow today, even though NG doesn't really get any credit for that. It was different from DMC's combat style, which was equally great but was mechanically very different, but to me that was a good way for the game to stand out on its own rather than coming off as a pale imitator of DMC.

To me, an already amazing game was made even better when they re-tweaked it through 2 Hurricane packs and then downright perfected the mechanics with the release of Ninja Gaiden Black a year later. With NGB, the game now had 5 difficulty levels ranging from Ninja Dog to Master Ninja, and a total of 50 mission scenarios with 4 difficulty settings applicable to each. In the story mode, enemy types and spawns differed in each difficulty level to some degree to keep a level of unpredictability, items cost more, and the locations of items that you found were changed around, such as with items that you would find in a certain chest on one difficulty would be completely different from what you would find from that same chest on a different difficulty. In some cases it would be a healing elixir on normal mode but then it would unleash some bats to try and attack you on hard mode. It kept the experience fresh and interesting on each new difficulty, and it made overcoming new challenges even more rewarding.

The game itself could easily take the average player from 15-20 hours to complete on a first run through (it actually took me 20+ hours to complete my first time though, though that includes time I spent dying and retrying some tough boss fights). On top of that Mission Mode was so extensive and challenging that it added well over a hundred hours of play-time value to the game just in terms of trying to beat the missions on each difficulty and trying to maximize scores in them. Really, this game gave you at least as much value as other top-profile AAA games like RE4, and even more value than a lot of other ones that were considered to be amazing games and some of the best of the decade.

The game did get unanimous praise from critics, but it seems to go by mostly forgotten by them these days, though admittedly it didn't have nearly as much influence on its genre as other high-profile games did in theirs (the influence is certainly there, though), and if one were to pick the best hack n' slash game from a more objective stand-point it would usually be the first DMC which is understandable since on top of still being a great game it is also arguably still the most important game in the genre, being that it actually invented it to begin with. Still, while I have the highest level of respect for DMC, and even other great hack n' slash games and other action games in general that get a shit-ton of recognition, NGB will always my my personal favorite. I've just been kind of disappointed that ever since then the series has never been able to come close to matching the quality of that game for me.

I really like Ninja Gaiden II despite the flak it gets from a lot of people, and to me its a flawed game but still a great game at its core if you can look past its flaws, which can personally do. However it was no NGB and while I respect it for being very different from the first game in a lot of ways (whereas most videogame sequels would just play it safe and stick to the exact same formula as the first successful game without much deviation or new features added), some of those changes and the overall rushed feeling of the product ended up making it an inferior game to the first one instead of a superior one (although some of the changes were indeed superior). To me the NG games also have the best melee-based combat out of any action games made thus far, in terms of pure satisfaction and the sharpness of the controls, but of course that's just a personal preference. From what I hear NGS2 felt a bit sluggish in comparison and killed some of the responsiveness, and NG fans who have had the chance to try the demo of NG3 tend to complain about the controls feeling sluggish or downright unresponsive in areas that should control smoothly, so that just shows you how much Hayashi apparently likes to fuck up what the series already had right to begin with.

Anyways, I was just in the mood to annoyingly praise this game and rant about how great I think it is, so that's why I just wrote-up this post. A lot of people would probably think that I rate this game too highly, which is fine as I have to admit that its not as univerally appealing as some other high-profile games, but to me it will always be one of the greats. I think at the very least it deserves at least as much recognition and glory as Bayonetta, another fantastic hack n' slash game and probably the best one that's been released this generation.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

One thing I realized that has always pissed me off about the 3D games in this series is how fans, including myself, have to wait an incredibly long time between installments. After Ninja Gaiden released in 2004, all we got for the next 4 years were revamps of that game, and don't get me wrong, I loved Ninja Gaiden Black (its the proper way to do a revamp of an already great game), and I can understand the point of Sigma in that it gave PS3 owners a chance to experience the game, but we didn't get a new Ninja Gaiden game until early on in 2008, 4 full years later. To be fair, at least we got 2 new games that year, 1 being Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for the Nintendo DS which is a seriously underrated DS game, and the other being an actual sequel which it felt like I had been waiting forever for, and even then the sequel was unfortunately released in a rushed, unfinished, and unpolished state, which was really disappointing despite it being a great game underneath all of its flaws. I was still optimistic though and hoped for a 3rd installment to expand upon what the 2nd game did right, bring back elements from the 1st game that should have remained in the series, and also add in great new core concepts of its own to make for the best action game ever. But then all this shit came up with Itagaki leaving Tecmo and Team Ninja being in a rut for a while trying to get things organized under new leadership.

After that I got severely disappointed once they announced Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (yet another revamp) instead of a full-on sequel, and in addition to that they announced their involvement in developing Metroid: Other M, which meant that they weren't even working on a new Ninja Gaiden game at the time. Then they finally announced NG3, but only a few months later at E3 fans were treated to huge disappointments as almost everything they feared would happen to the series after it came under new management happened.

To put things into perspective, between NG2's release and NG3's announcement, Bayonetta was released and declared one of the best action games ever by fans and critics. As someone who really admires that game, I was hoping that my favorite hack n' slash series would be able to come back and come out with a more refined game that could compete with it, but instead what I've been seeing is a derivative  8-hour hack n' slash campaign that is completely uninspired and not only removes most of the depth and overall quality of the previous games, but also manages to look below par by the standards of much greater action games. It also has seemingly removed the trademark difficulty/challenge level of the series that fans were proud of. And I don't mean by just adding in an easier mode or something, which people would be fine with, but in that the whole game in general is just too easy, even on Hard mode (according to fans who have experienced the current demo-build of the game). And at 8 hours, its significantly shorter than previous games in the series (with the first game lasting players an average of 20 hours on a first run through, and the 2nd being around 15 hours).

Going back to the issue of how long it takes for a new NG game to come, after this game releases and undoubtedly disappoints fans, whether a new installment will remedy its faults or disappoint us even further, one thing is for certain: it'll take a long time for us to even hear about it. I mean, at least with other series that have a new gave every 2 years or so, if one game is not too great at least it can be fixed with a new game in half the time it takes for a new NG game to come out. I mean, look at the first 3 DMC games: the 1st was great, the 2nd released 2 years later was a disappointment, the 3rd released 2 years after that fixed everything that was wrong with the 2nd game and pleased fans once more. In the case of NG3, fans will be stuck with a sour-after-taste of sorts in the series for quite a long time, and even when a new NG game is announced after that there is still a good chance it'll suck.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, the new stage demo went up on Gamespot today.

The bad news is that a lot of things that fans complained about are still in the game and won't be going anywhere, but I expected as much since I already know that this is not going to be a true NG game at heart (at least not in my eyes, anyways).

That said, I will say that the new demo showing the dessert stage shows substantial improvements over the boring London demo (the setting is still really dull, though). First off, 2 new enemy sets were show-cased (3 if you count the enemies riding on those dessert hover bikes) and they were both awesome. They both felt like proper Ninja Gaiden enemies as opposed to the whiny little bitches from the London stage. The sand assassins looks fucking cool and I love how they pop out and attack you by surprise (sort of like real assassins ). They maneuver you a lot and also block really competently. I hope they represent more of the enemy types in this game than those pussy terrorists that beg for their lives all of the time. The alchemists were even better. They have a lot of moves that can damage you and they are EXTREMELY offensive. That's what I want to see from an NG enemy. They block you a lot of course, and they also work really well together as a team which forces you to use some strategy in taking them down. My only gripe about them is that most of their attacks are grabs and I hate when enemies have too many grab attacks, but they can still be skillfully avoided which should still make them fun to fight.

Also, the new bow is bad-ass. I love how it slows-down when you actually aim with it to make aiming and shooting much less needlessly frustrating like in previous games, and I also like how it folds up and fits onto Ryu's back so it doesn't look as bulky as the old bow.

I also liked how there was some pretty competent platforming in this stage of the demo. I'd like to see more platforming in the actual game as long as it is as fluid as that and actually has a good camera to support it this time around.

That said, I still think that the game is disappointing compared to previous NG games, but if this demo is indicative of the quality of the rest of the game, it should at least be decent to play through once. Its definitely no NGB, though.