Ninja Gaiden Series

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

My own personal bias:

Ninja Gaiden Arcade (6/10)
Ninja Gaiden (8/10)
Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (9/10)
Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (7/10)
Ninja Gaiden/Black/Sigma (10/10)
Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (8/10)
Ninja Gaiden 2 (9/10)
Ninja Gaiden 3 (4/10)
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge (5/10)
Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z (3/10)

[talonmalon333]

Now, which do you hate more between 3 and Z? I know you recognize Z as the worse game, but I was wondering if maybe you have more negative feelings about 3 being that it is the game responsible for killing your favorite series.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, I've played more of 3 than Z, and it certainly feels like a bigger disappointment to me since it was actually made by Team Ninja and still sucks. With Z, it was made by a shitty NA developer who had never made a hack n' slash game in their life, so it kind of makes sense thst it would suck.

[talonmalon333]

Since successors to dead classic franchises are currently a thing, maybe Ninja Gaiden should go on the list.

[gunswordfist]

Made me think of the 2D series.

[talonmalon333]

That would probably be the Ninja Gaiden style that would get a revival. Simply because it's an action platformer, and platformers seem to be the types of games that currently are getting successors (for example Banjo-Kazooie, Mega Man, and Castlevania are all, to a certain extent, platformers).

[gunswordfist]

I'd love that. We need more NG style platformers.

[talonmalon333]

So today, I finally started playing Ninja Gaiden (feels weird to finally say that). I'm only about an hour in. I would play more, but I have work soon, but I'm hoping to get in plenty of playtime tomorrow. Anyway, as I predicted, I'm kind of bad at the game right now. The first boss of the game, the old man in the temple, gave me a bit of trouble as did some of the ninjas that I faced shortly afterward. I'm currently in the middle of the burning Hayabusa Village, and faced some of the enemies on horseback. They gave me trouble, too. Yeah, I've encountered some difficulty, though I'm not sure good I am relative to you guys when you first played it.

I have to say, I'm really digging the combat system. The game's been tough for me, as I made clear, but it's also pretty exhilarating, in a good way. And the controls? Ryu is a lot of fun to just move with. Jumping, running up walls, running up walls and then jumping, and running on water, I've been very pleased. In that sense, it's like the original games on the NES. May be a different genre, but Ryu feels great to use just like he did then. Speaking of Ryu, is he wearing the same outfit that he did in the NES games? It doesn't look totally identical, but I figured it might be like a modern update.

Also, even though the game was made for XBox, I have to say that, aesthetically, it looks pretty nice.

[Spark Of Spirit]

This is the classic costume:



It is pretty cool.

[talonmalon333]

Yeah, I recognize that for sure.

Nice.

[gunswordfist]

Wait, Ninja Gaiden 1 had water running?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It's surreal to see you finally playing this game.

Anyways, since the game doesn't do the best job of explaining how its own mechanics work, let me clear a few things up for you:

-You can charge up attacks for Ultimate Techniques with each weapon, as I'm sure that you know, but you can also absorb essence to do a quick charge to unleash on enemies in a practical sense. Doing this is extremely useful and powerful, but it will come at the cost of whatever the essence itself that you used up was. But killing enemies with this techinque will yield you multiple times more yellow essence than normal. And as I'm sure that you've already determined, yellow essence is currency, blue essence restores health, and red essence restores Ninpo/magic. Absorbing one piece of yellow essence insta-charges a level 1 UT, but absorbing 2 pieces will insta-charge a level 2 UT. Since they are more rare, you only need to absorb a single piece of either blue or red essence to charge a full UT. Additionally, to do an even quicker animation charge for UTs, you can time it so that you press and hold Triangle right after landing from a jump to skip the animation entirely and come straight out with a UT. Though, the enemy has to be in range, otherwise your attack will whiff.

-The horseback enemies are admittedly among the least fun to fight, but take solace in the fact that they literally only show up in the second level. Furthermore, there is a much easier strategy to fight them. First, completely forget about the bow in this case. You really don't need it. Just stand in a corner of the arena, and take out your Lunar Staff (I'm assuming that you picked it up by now, unless you somehow missed it), and just charge up UTs while waiting for the enemies to approach you. They will be off camera, but when they get close the camera will pan out toward their direction, which is how you'll know that they are coming close. Time it so that you release your UT just before they are close enough to hit you (UT's also give you i-frames, so you can't be hurt or interrupted during those attacks). You might get hit by an arrow or two doing this strategy, but it's no problem as you can just get back to your corner and keep going. This is the easiest strategy to take down these enemies, and it always works well if you do it right.

-You can chain together rolls and jumps to keep yourself mobile and nearly impossible to hit. Practice doing that often, and get in the habit of holding down the block button when you aren't on the offensive. It saves you from the trouble of having to quickly react to a lot of quick attacks, saving you a lot of health in the long run.

In general, there is so much to this game's combat and mechanics, and the brilliance of its design is that all of the tools are there for your success. Plenty of skilled players have beaten the game on Master Ninja difficulty without taking any damage, so take that as encouragement that you can prevail through any situation, even if you are low on health and items. I almost wish I could be sitting in the same room as you to coach you in person and demonstrate what to do, but a lot of the fun of this game comes from learning the more intricate nature of its gameplay mechanics for yourself, and the rewarding feeling that you get for starting to play it better. I hope that you remmeber to enjoy yourself, in that regard, even at moments when you are losing.

Wait, Ninja Gaiden 1 had water running?

How did you never notice this?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

And yes, the Legendary Black Falcon costume is an update for the reboot. While I like Ryu's classic costume, which is unlockable in this game, I can understand why they made the change to better appeal to a modern gaming audience.

[talonmalon333]

I may have been late, but I always intended to get to it.

I was playing around with the way Ryu moves for a while and I've got a hang of it, well at least to a certain extent because I'm sure there's still so much I've yet to learn. The Ultimate Techniques ability is the one where Ryu charges the Dragon Sword in place, right (by the way, I think I remember the Dragon Sword being the weapon from the NES games)? As for the horseback enemies, they remind me that there were really quite a few times when I came close to death in the hour I played.

That strategy you mentioned, of getting in the habit of keeping the block button pressed when not attacking, is something I was working on doing. I was also working on utilizing jumping in combat, though I need to keep training on that as I kind of made Ryu look goofy flying all over the place. I do want to get better at this game and master strategies, which I think is a very good thing for a game to motivate the player to do. This game is also getting me excited about really exploring the hack and slash genre.

Also, I recently purchased Sigma 2 and it's currently being shipped to my house, so I think we know what game I'll be playing after this one.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The Ultimate Techniques ability is the one where Ryu charges the Dragon Sword in place, right (by the way, I think I remember the Dragon Sword being the weapon from the NES games)?

Yes, the Dragon Sword is from the NES games. It's a sacred, ancient weapon passed down through generations to the head of the Hayabusa clan. And the UT is the charge-up move, but it can be done with any melee weapon in the game except the Nunchucks and Wooden Sword, not just the Dragon Sword.

That strategy you mentioned, of getting in the habit of keeping the block button pressed when not attacking, is something I was working on doing. I was also working on utilizing jumping in combat, though I need to keep training on that as I kind of made Ryu look goofy flying all over the place. I do want to get better at this game and master strategies, which I think is a very good thing for a game to motivate the player to do. This game is also getting me excited about really exploring the hack and slash genre.

Yeah, there are some really great games in this genre.

Also, I recently purchased Sigma 2 and it's currently being shipped to my house, so I think we know what game I'll be playing after this one.

Glad to hear it! Just keep your expectations in check, as it won't be as good as this game, except for the combat which is better in either version of the sequel.