Ninja Gaiden 2

[Chux]

Dear Itagaki:

Just because you can fit 100+ enemies on the screen doesn't mean the zboz can handle it.

Cut that shit out.

[Do You Like Erotic?]

Chapter 10.
lol elizabet is such a pushover, also lol naked bloody chicks.

None of the bosses have been anywhere near as challenging or intimidating on Warrior as they were initially in the first game. And I agree with you on that 100 ninjas crap. That was terrible. At least it looked cool to blow them away with gravity hadoukens.

[Nash]

This game's got the flu! It's so sick!

[Tain]

I thought the stairs of slowdown were actually pretty cool, given how weak they all were. I agree with the bosses, though. They just needed a little more HP; I feel like I kinda slid by most battles.

[Chux]

The only boss I really had issues with were the 2 dragons, and that was because you had to use the fucking bow, and the camera was atrocious.

[Nash]

I didn't think I was going to complain about the camera, since I didn't have a problem with the camera in Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black, but the LB button in this game is broken as fuck. Instead of resetting the camera behind Ryu like before, it makes Ryu face whatever direction the camera is facing. That's completely useless because pushing "up" does the exact same thing.

[Rumpy]

Right trigger puts the camera behind you.

Tried the demo tonight, it's a blast.

[Do You Like Erotic?]

*smh at this dude getting mad when pressing the wrong button*

So I finished the game. It definitely delivers. The bosses that I thought were mediocre, while never actually *powerful* ended up being pretty likable and cool at the end. Both Volf and Elizabeth had spectacular second intros.

[FuryFox]

I finished the game on Warrior last night. I always seem to get caught unexpectedly in boss sequences with little to no healing items, which makes some of them frustrating. Everyone seems to find the bosses easy, but I actually had to die a lot in trial in error to learn to best way to beat them, especially since some I'd go in with half a life bar and no items. The final sequence I was definitely not prepared for, and it was kind-of garbage to boot. On another play through, I wonder if things will go much smoother knowing what to expect, but overall, each fight felt like a race to exploit the boss, rather than learn how to effectively avoid and dismantle it (which I felt was the pattern in NG). Fighting bosses with minions is a nice touch, but usually result in off-screen projectile hell.


My thoughts after the first playthrough:

+ Just amazing combat. I think I'll go for the 1-weapon achievements. All the weapons have huge movesets and diverse enough strategies to make it an interesting, legitimately fun challenge. I was still learning new things by the end, and I think focusing on just one weapon will reveal all the nuances the designers considered (for instance, I found you can cancel tonfa combas with a special dash). I didn't really take time to learn the wall variants for juggles either, but they looked awesome when I did them by accident. The weapon-specific UTs and OTs are pure crack-icing; they must have some giant brain in a vat doing the animation at Team Ninja.

+ Graphics are sweet and the increasingly surreal settings, while expected, were executed nicely.

+ Revisiting Ryu's village was a nice touch.

+ Plenty of boss fights, without too much (DMC4) recycling, and when they did it at least made sense in the story, and it was in a new environment.

+ Clocktower sequence was cool, reminding me of Castlevania

+ Some great enemy designs and attacks. The tactical swat-dudes that bust crazy Snake-Eyes moves on you are probably my favorite...next being the ninja dogs that can air juggle you and throw incendiary shuriken with their mouths.

+ Many on-screen enemies at once. Too many next-gen games cop out by giving enemies tons of hit points to make up for their engine being unable to handle so many on screen.


- Bad camera. Makes certain boss fights flat-out stupid. Huge enemies can get between you and camera (i.e. winged demons) blocking out everything. No way to move camera higher. Unable to move camera during UT or OT animations (the only time you really have adjust it) to plan next action. Not a gamebreaker, but disappointing.

- Buggy game. Very sad for a game with so much polish in other areas. I had creatures get stuck "popping" in terrain, vanishing, glitching...sometimes a creature I need to kill to open a door gets stuck, outside of range, in a wall...I've had Ryu get flung outside the world geometry, and the camera get stuck during non-interactive sequences (like when a centaur throws me). Accessing the quick menu wouldn't always pause the game and resulted in some deaths.

- Too many off-screen projectiles. Especially the incendiary shuriken. There's ways around it (mostly keeping to animations that can't be interrupted), but challenge or not, I don't find it fun.

- Bow-related fights suck hard. Especially when Ryu auto-aims a direction contrary to the way I was facing.

- Underwater sequences are poorly designed. Most just involve firing the spear gun from one spot until everything's dead. The stick seems overly sensitive when swimming too.

- Sonia is just a dumb slut that adds absolutely nothing to the story and looks creepy to boot.

- As I predicted, they shied away from having any overtly female enemies (which is fine). However, strapping some tits on those scorpion things is retarded, and the robot manikins were silly and felt out of place. Elizebet's boss intro and boss design were nice though.

[Do You Like Erotic?]

While there are some subtle things that I disagree on, I think that you nailed the game to the wall in your observations.

I was especially disappointed by the lack of female enemies too. And yeah, Rachel > Sonia. Never thought I'd be saying Rachel > anything, but here I am.