Ninja Gaiden II: A Play Journal: The Game Improves
Despite my initial misgivings regarding the first few levels of Ninja Gaiden, the game improves considerably the further I play.
The camera caused much frustration early on, which was compounded by inexplicably tight level design. When you can’t see what’s going on, a game can be pretty difficult to play. Thankfully, after exiting the second chapter and entering the third in New York City, you’re given much more breathing room.
Opening up the arenas does wonders for the view. In New York, you’re immediately placed in a close facsimile of Times Square, and just about as big as you’d imagine it to be. Accordingly, you can see much more and have significantly more room to move about in. And thank goodness for that, because you’ll be immediately tested.
Ninja Gaiden II, just like the original, rarely gives you the chance to rest on your laurels. Just as you begin to think you’ve got things nailed down, that you’re on the up-and-up from that point forward, the game kicks you square in the crotch with bigger, stronger, faster enemies. When a gang of monsters three times the size of Ryu rushed me in Times Square, I almost lost my marbles.
But taking on these larger creatures is at least workable given the expanded setting. Your enemies move fast, but with some room, Ryu can scoot about very quickly himself. This offers a great deal of reprieve if you can manage it. Then again, “reprieve” for Ninja Gaiden is entirely relative.
Anyway, without as many grievances with the camera, the combat really starts to soak in. The weapons in particular are all beautifully animated and a joy to wield. Whereas I was prone in Ninja Gaiden to use nothing but the dragon sword, I find the opposite is the case in Ninja Gaiden II. I’ve currently come across several weapons: the Lunar staff, the hand and foot claws, the dual katanas, and ball-and-chain-and-sickle combo. (Their exact names escape me.)
My personal favourite thus far is the dual katana combo, and their propensity for taking off limbs with ease. They animate brilliantly, are incredibly fast, and certain combos are just devastating.
But the weapons are all uniquely satisfying and useful given certain situations. The scycle, by way of example, is slow to get going, but has incredible range and striking capability from all directions. The chain and blade whirl circles above Ryu, striking anything and everything within a significantly large distance and with great speed as it picks up momentum. As you can imagine, this weapon is quite useful with many enemies threatening to surround Ryu.
I was quite pleased to discover that each weapon has a large bevy of combos as well, just as the first game did. The pause menu reveals “techniques” for each weapon and the button combinations used to employ them. I was reminded just how intricate the combat can be if one chooses to put the effort into it.
That said, there are still issues with the game that drag it down. The camera, again, is not perfect despite the improvements seen thus far. You’ll find yourself facing and/or staring at a wall while large, brutal enemies are just off screen waiting to strike. This happens too often.
Another criticism centres on the game’s difficulty. It approaches being cheap, which is something that could not be said of the original. I touched on this in the first play journal: the game is tougher (at least on the “Way of the Warrior” difficulty) than the previous Ninja Gaiden, which may be in part due to the new health regenerating system. This may seem ironic, but Team Ninja appears to have felt comfortable making things tougher once they implementing something that makes the game more palatable in the long run.
Let me explain. Ryu’s health does not regenerate during a battle; only after all enemies are cleared from screen will your health regenerate, and it does not regenerate fully. So in the meantime, during the heat of battle, this health regeneration doesn’t make a lick of a difference. When you’re surrounding by enemies, the camera isn’t co-operating, and projectiles are being tossed at you with deadly accuracy from every angle, the game pushes your patience to the boundaries of what’s “fair”.
Thankfully, these moments of indignity don’t happen very often, and the combat is still very satisfying for the most part - once you’ve torn a brutal foe, limb from limb, into little pieces strewn about the floor, the satisfaction of overcoming huge odds is that much more palpable.
peachey @ June 11, 2008