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If Ninja Gaiden II had absolutely no plot, no cut scenes and nary an instance that required anything but fast-twitch fibers, fans of the franchise would still buy it….for sixty bucks. Point being the sales pitch here, after the Natural Born Killers blood numb effect kicks in, is furiously paced, third-person action good enough to stand on its own.
Followers of the series will quickly realize that Team Ninja didn’t go overboard with the changes when concocting the gameplay for Ninja Gaiden II. Those familiar with its predecessors will be able to pick-up-and-play Ninja Gaiden II with a decent amount of success on the lesser diffi***ies. The good news for the hardcore NG faithful is that Ninja Gaiden II seems to possess less parity among the weapons, which means individual skill sets brought forth by the user will need to be more sharply honed. This goes right along with the Gaiden series being as cerebral as a game deemed hack-and-slash can get.
Don’t let the blood and internal organs fool you: Ninja Gaiden II takes even greater skill to play efficiently than its predecessors. The combo system has been tweaked to allow for more rhyme-and-reason when certain buttons are purposefully pressed (notice I didn’t say “mashed” this time). In earlier games, the pay-off for actually using scroll techniques, available combos, well-timed blocks and wall parlays was that you wouldn’t get hit as much. In Ninja Gaiden II, you’ll still be rewarded with a fuller health meter at the end of a strategic encounter, but gauging the process all along will be the animation system. Press the right buttons in the right context and enemies will become lighter and lighter as appendages disappear. Do things really right and it’s one-slice-one-kill, which sounds as sweet as it looks. Of course you can play through Ninja Gaiden II without even knowing a block button exists, but you’ll die often and won’t be treated to as cool of a blood fest. This, however, is still worth noting for the beginners, as Ninja Gaiden II is enjoyable even if one hacks when they should have slashed….or blocked. Yes, even the blind squirrel Ninja Gaiden II player will get a nut–and score an Obliteration finisher– every now and then
There is little that keeps Ninja Gaiden II from being the best third person, fast-twitch game that I have ever played. One has already been mentioned: The framerate that sometimes gets as anxious as the player does when the intensity ramps up. Again, the trade-off is worth it since the hiccup isn’t consistent, but a game this challenging becomes even more so when, at times, combat seems like it’s taking place in a strobe-lit club. You’ll also find some clipping here and there, but again, it’s at pretty acceptable levels considering the amount of animated polygons on screen every frame.
The camera? Well, I think we should all just accept it as the way it is since it responds exactly the same as it did in its predecessors. The camera angle and auto-zoom does fine when the action is away from Ryu a bit, but when near a wall, it will zoom in and make the already-diffi*** multi-enemy attacks a lesson in futility. The cam can make it feel like you’re playing the game in the (useless) first person mode at times, but we’ll again ring it up as being a “Japanese” thing, as no attempts have been made to tweak it and the anomaly is evident in other JDM action titles.
One thing you won’t hear us complain about with Ninja Gaiden II is the diffi***y. This is a tough game. Deal with it, or go play Devil May Cry. Team Ninja gave you the Halo-style regenerating health bar in Ninja Gaiden II and special ways in which to lengthen said bar. If you don’t think this is a gift from the game-finishing Gods, go play the original Ninja Gaiden and get back to us. In fact, there’s no better way in extending the life of a single player action game like Ninja Gaiden II than to make it super-tough, but super fair. Yes–Ninja Gaiden II is a GIGO affair for sure, but you’ll still have loads of fun with this near-perfect title even if your mash does nothing but create trash.
Although we had a bit of a scare with the early review builds of Ninja Gaiden II, Team Ninja has done it once again. But we usually like a developer to back up a stellar freshman effort with a solid sophomoric affair (Black was more like summer class) before we begin to speak legacy.
With school finally out for summer and a boxed copy of Ninja Gaiden II in our trays, there’s no denying Team Ninja’s uncanny ability to make super-addictive action adventures. The way I see it, only a battlefield God stands in the way on Ryu for the throne’s position in the console slasher hierarchy.. |
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