Rate top gamesBoy, is this series tough. Ninjas though, so I'm here for it.
Other reviews2
Concise Review:
Amazing: The visual style to the combat including the gore, blood splatter and dismemberment is amazing.
Great: The weapon variety, enemy variety, boss variety, and location variety are all surprisingly creative, numerous and awesome.
Good: Combat mechanics are good not great, it’s a bit simple and button mashy at times, and too often you can win by cheesing in some way.
Fine: The simple weapon and character upgrades serve their purpose.
Bad: Aiming the bow or other ranged weapons sucks.
Awful: The camera angles are so painful, platforming is so frustrating due to the awful camera angles. The swimming controls are awful and it makes water sections a pain.
Journal Style Review:
I like the ninja violence. The blood splatter is excellent and excessive. The dismemberment is great. The combat feels quite good for an old game. I dislike the camera angles though. They are bad. Really bad. Still a pretty cool first mission. Ridiculous story but this obviously isn’t going to be about the story. The enemies look to be cool. If the enemy and weapon variety is sufficient then I think this game will be pretty fun.
Initial reaction is I like this game more than devil may cry V. DMCV Obviously looks a lot better than this game but this one has better combat mechanics and I like the style more.
I don’t like the platforming at all, mostly because of the camera. I hope it’s few and far between. Tight corridors combat is also less than ideal because of this camera.
Starting mission 3. So far the bosses have been challenging but fun. The enemy variety has been sufficient. I think this game is sweet.
The awful camera is starting to annoy me more. I really hate the platforming in the game. It’s awful. It’s hard but not in a challenging way it’s just difficult because you can’t tell what direction the game wants you to push the sticks because the camera is so fucking bad. I did not enjoy the sewers. The wolverine claws are cool though.
God the claws are so good. Definitely my favourite weapon. I love the combat feel to this game. The later open underground sections are great. I just hated the parkour parts.
I think I play the rest of this game almost entirely with the wolverine claws. I love them. They are so sick. This game fuckin rocks. I would be so psyched for a modern ninja Gaiden game with amazing graphics and a good fucking camera but this style of violent action combat. Fuck I would love that.
Boss fights are pretty epic. I liked the Goliath one. The electric worm wasn’t as good though.
These werewolves are fun. I was ready for a new enemy and it came right on queue.
The swimming controls are also awful. My favourite levels are the simply long and wide corridors so I can actually see shit.
Venice level was pretty good. The water boss fight i cheesed. It wasn’t that good.
Bone boss was good. The location and enemy variety is great.
The 4 armed werewolf king coliseum boss fight was a favourite. This game is awesome and the only thing holding it back from an A- so far is the horrible camera angles causing frustration.
The wolf kings giants scythe is awesome also. This game has excellent unique weapons and plenty of interesting unique enemies to fight. It’s awesome.
The scythe might be better than the claws. It definitely is better in heavy hit situations. It’s a very fun weapon. The number of weapons that feel different and unique is very well done. This game is awesome. I want a new one. Badly.
These hand canon chainsaw enemies are also great. The enemy variety is trending towards amazing. Same with weapon variety. Certain weapons are much more effective vs certain enemies. It’s very well done.
The scythe I think is my new fave. I love it. Chapter 10 was great. Excellent new enemies and the blood lady boss fight was ridiculous and fun.
I’ll say it once. Ridiculous female characters. This game suggests that Japanese culture doesn’t respect women, at least not when this game came out. I feel embarrassed during cutscenes if anyone is around. That’s how bad it is.
Fuck me I died a lot during the underworld fire demon boss fight. It didn’t actually feel that hard but I struggled.
The ridiculous and all over the place story is kind of fun after awhile. The nonsense of this ninja jumping from one ridiculous conflict to the next is great.
Bloody skull Beetle was super hard. The bow boss fights are my least favourite. I used a lot of items on that fight. Turns out it was the last chapter, I thought there were more. It makes sense it was that tough. I will say the final 2 boss fights weren’t the best but overall I can’t complain. This game was really fun and definitely surpassed my expectations. I think even just a fancy remake of this game could be excellent. There are some areas where it could be greatly improved through modern quality of life changes and overall polish. NG2 finishes as a high B+.
Final Score: B+
Amazing: The visual style to the combat including the gore, blood splatter and dismemberment is amazing.
Great: The weapon variety, enemy variety, boss variety, and location variety are all surprisingly creative, numerous and awesome.
Good: Combat mechanics are good not great, it’s a bit simple and button mashy at times, and too often you can win by cheesing in some way.
Fine: The simple weapon and character upgrades serve their purpose.
Bad: Aiming the bow or other ranged weapons sucks.
Awful: The camera angles are so painful, platforming is so frustrating due to the awful camera angles. The swimming controls are awful and it makes water sections a pain.
Journal Style Review:
I like the ninja violence. The blood splatter is excellent and excessive. The dismemberment is great. The combat feels quite good for an old game. I dislike the camera angles though. They are bad. Really bad. Still a pretty cool first mission. Ridiculous story but this obviously isn’t going to be about the story. The enemies look to be cool. If the enemy and weapon variety is sufficient then I think this game will be pretty fun.
Initial reaction is I like this game more than devil may cry V. DMCV Obviously looks a lot better than this game but this one has better combat mechanics and I like the style more.
I don’t like the platforming at all, mostly because of the camera. I hope it’s few and far between. Tight corridors combat is also less than ideal because of this camera.
Starting mission 3. So far the bosses have been challenging but fun. The enemy variety has been sufficient. I think this game is sweet.
The awful camera is starting to annoy me more. I really hate the platforming in the game. It’s awful. It’s hard but not in a challenging way it’s just difficult because you can’t tell what direction the game wants you to push the sticks because the camera is so fucking bad. I did not enjoy the sewers. The wolverine claws are cool though.
God the claws are so good. Definitely my favourite weapon. I love the combat feel to this game. The later open underground sections are great. I just hated the parkour parts.
I think I play the rest of this game almost entirely with the wolverine claws. I love them. They are so sick. This game fuckin rocks. I would be so psyched for a modern ninja Gaiden game with amazing graphics and a good fucking camera but this style of violent action combat. Fuck I would love that.
Boss fights are pretty epic. I liked the Goliath one. The electric worm wasn’t as good though.
These werewolves are fun. I was ready for a new enemy and it came right on queue.
The swimming controls are also awful. My favourite levels are the simply long and wide corridors so I can actually see shit.
Venice level was pretty good. The water boss fight i cheesed. It wasn’t that good.
Bone boss was good. The location and enemy variety is great.
The 4 armed werewolf king coliseum boss fight was a favourite. This game is awesome and the only thing holding it back from an A- so far is the horrible camera angles causing frustration.
The wolf kings giants scythe is awesome also. This game has excellent unique weapons and plenty of interesting unique enemies to fight. It’s awesome.
The scythe might be better than the claws. It definitely is better in heavy hit situations. It’s a very fun weapon. The number of weapons that feel different and unique is very well done. This game is awesome. I want a new one. Badly.
These hand canon chainsaw enemies are also great. The enemy variety is trending towards amazing. Same with weapon variety. Certain weapons are much more effective vs certain enemies. It’s very well done.
The scythe I think is my new fave. I love it. Chapter 10 was great. Excellent new enemies and the blood lady boss fight was ridiculous and fun.
I’ll say it once. Ridiculous female characters. This game suggests that Japanese culture doesn’t respect women, at least not when this game came out. I feel embarrassed during cutscenes if anyone is around. That’s how bad it is.
Fuck me I died a lot during the underworld fire demon boss fight. It didn’t actually feel that hard but I struggled.
The ridiculous and all over the place story is kind of fun after awhile. The nonsense of this ninja jumping from one ridiculous conflict to the next is great.
Bloody skull Beetle was super hard. The bow boss fights are my least favourite. I used a lot of items on that fight. Turns out it was the last chapter, I thought there were more. It makes sense it was that tough. I will say the final 2 boss fights weren’t the best but overall I can’t complain. This game was really fun and definitely surpassed my expectations. I think even just a fancy remake of this game could be excellent. There are some areas where it could be greatly improved through modern quality of life changes and overall polish. NG2 finishes as a high B+.
Final Score: B+