Ninja Gaiden 2

[SummAh]

Ah, Itagaki's latest creation....I had hoped after the somewhat dissapointment that was DMC4 (I still played it for over 200 hrs...still, it's not as good as 3) NG2 might come and deliver a solid experience.

First impressions - It's a very fast and furious game, with tons of enemies flooding the screen. The enemies are EXTREMELY well programmed...it makes the enemies in DMC4 look like cute little digital punching bags. Even on the easier difficulty level, it shines rather well.

The graphics unfortunately, it's a very mixed bag. The first stage had some really pretty gfx, then mid way through the stage, the standard dropped considerably...wait till you get to new york city...puke, the backgrounds looked like XBOX 1 quality.

Chapter 5-7 though, had some really nice gfx. It's very inconsistent.

Boss battles unfortunately, were soooo......lame and poorly thought out. Their designs shows a severe lack of imagination. It's almost as if Itagaki saw Berial and decided ' I can do big bosses too!'. Except Berial was truly majestic and with spectecular flame effects. Every move Berial did in DMC4 fitted his personality. Too bad for Itagaki, the only 'big' thing he got it right was ensuring Sonia's cup size.

Bosses in NG2 on the other hand falls into 2 category.
1)Human size bosses - very speedy, almost teleport God-like speed.
2) Giant size bosses - inspid design, stupid and boring attack patterns, and generally, very very very very very very....poorly thought out. One particular boss fight had ME chasing the idiot looking Berial (First DMC4 boss for those in the unknown) wannabe boss except it looked like a lizard + turtle shell combination. I had to run after the boss because the AI glitched and did nothing but walk in circles. But since he was SO 'big', him walking in circle and me running after him made me feel like a total fool for wasting my money and time in this game. Another DMC4 boss wannabe is the electric / mechanical 'snake' boss in the subway, except it's one of the worst designed boss visually for the past ten yrs, coupled with one of the worst attack patterns (because it's so...boring), you really have to see it to believe.

Oh, while we're still fresh on the topic of glitch, this has to be the first Itagaki game from memory where it's glitchy! I've had the game freeze on loading screen, had to reset game due to enemies being stuck behind walls, causing him to be unable to proceed. Changing your weapons occassionally will result in Hayabusa oddly enough, always WALK to his left without me inputting any command. Let's give a big round of applause to ths QA team. Nice napping team!

Anyway, it's 4am now..I'm gonna go sleep. I'll continue the bitching tomorrow.

Btw, this game has all the hallmarks of an Itagaki creation

1)Big breasted woman in distress
2)Very Stupid Story which no no opening
3)Very stupidly acted out cut scenes.
4)Big breasted woman is naturally blond.

[Morph]

that doesn't sound good - I suspect Microsoft got teamNINJA to rush this so they could get out in time for the release of MGS4.

[El Leone]

Doubt it. Neither game overlapps each other when it comes to the markets they appeal to.

[eastyy]

right big question for me....is the blocking more instant then in the previous game ?

[Morph]

Doubt it. Neither game overlapps each other when it comes to the markets they appeal to.

even if the games aren't similar they needed a big release on 360 to counter the big release that is MGS4. Still really looking forwards this and will give my opinion when I get my copy - one thing I have noticed with this game is every one has a different opinion on it.

[prinnysquad]

One particular boss fight had ME chasing the idiot looking Berial (First DMC4 boss for those in the unknown) wannabe boss except it looked like a lizard + turtle shell combination.

Sounds like Godzilla and Gamera's love child

[Mephistopheles]

Btw, this game has all the hallmarks of an Itagaki creation

1)Big breasted woman in distress

I think it's only fair to point out that many developers are nowadays displaying a great fascination with big breasted women. DMC4 had Gloria, Lady and Trish. Soul Calibur 4 is also heading down the same route. This is no longer an Itagaki phenomenon. Not that I'm complaining. Not at all. Just making an observation.

The boss fights sound disappointing. NG had some great boss fights (Doku being the highlight) and I was hoping this game would follow suit.

As for the story, I honestly couldn't give a **** about it. As long as the gameplay holds up, that is all that matters. I hope to get my hands on this game very soon. NG was always a marmite game. I never expected the sequel to win many new people over.

[SummAh]

Blocking is instant this time around, so that's one good news.

Chest being big is one thing. But Itagaki's version of well endowned means they are the size of mars and pluto put together, making it very fugly. Trish and Lady were sexy!

The human boss fights are very cool. The great fiends boss fights are not cool, but at least in a way, challenging. As long as you're facing a human or a human lookalike fiend, I guarantee you will have fun.

It's the non humans that will make you go 'wtf'.

The mandatory ' I'm a big mutha fking ugly boss, I spit flames from hell, I can roll into a HUGE ball and roll all over the stage' bosses, are not cool at all. They are down right stupid. They look stupid, act stupid, sound stupid and attack stupid. Sometimes, just sometimes, they also talk stupid.

A BIG problem I have with this game is the sound efx synch during the cut scene. It's very outta synch at times.

Either Itagaki is so rushed for time, or the man is so arrogant that he couldn't be bothered fixining it...a good example is Ryu destroying 'something', you can clearly see the onscreen explosion and Ryu is walking away from it but you will only hear the explosion some few secs later. My money is QA testers found it so stylish, they decided it's not an issue.

OH! I just remembered one of my all time fav glitch.

I fought off a horde of fiends and was stuck in a room and wandered around for 10 mins trying to find a exit...so I returned to where I entered the room, couldn't go out..wandered a bit more....it turned to desperation, I started to to try everything and anything.

Wall run, swallow, attacking the ground at random for a good 10 mins.

Lo and behold, a boss fight suddenly takes place.

Perhaps the game is smart enough to detect my absolute desperation in leaving the room and decided ' ok, enough hide and seek, let's just get it over and done with'.

Maybe?

All in all, try the game if possible. I can see alot of people disagreeing with me and calling me stupid in return haha. Certainly there are alot of plus points to the game.

I just wished the bugs were not there. It's not that prevailing tbh, it's just annoying knowing they exist.

I also wished some of the bosses didn't scream 'DMC2 CASTING REJECT' out loud.

[spagmasterswift]

This sounds pretty awful - I'm not gonna waste my time on something thats worse than DMC4 tbh...will wait for more impressions though, but looking more likely that Lost Planet will get my time this weekend.

[Paulos G]

looking more likely that Lost Planet will get my time this weekend.

Mind you, I did like the demo of NGII so will prolly pick that up this weekend too.

[jimmbob]

It's better than DMC4 by a long way Spags.

[spagmasterswift]

Cool, what level are you up to Jimmbob?

[MJ]

I know it's not all about graphics, but I was disappointed to see this not looking much better than its Xbox predecessors from a few years ago. At least the action is fast and furious and bloodier than before.

[MattyD]

This game is HAMAZE. It's the first game since God Hand* to make me actually sit there gape-jawed in amazement at the sheer levels of ass-whuppin I'd accomplished. Every other battle seems to bring another 'woaw!' moment as my skills increase. Sometimes I surprise even myself

Took me a while to get used to it though as you can no longer 'lock onto' and roll around your opponents like in the first one. I guess that idea's been ripped off too much by other games COUGH*God of War*COUGH so they ditched it. Combat now seems to centre around fighting multiple opponents - the guys in this will not just stand there dancing around you whilst you fight with the 'head' baddie, as seems to be fashionable in these types of games right now. You need to fight one guy until he's stunned / de-limbed then quickly use Reverse Wind (the replacement for rolling, which is really just a dash) to dodge quickly away from him and face a new enemy, rinse and repeat. Enemies that aren't close enough to engage you hand-to-hand will constantly harass your with shurikens, which don't do much damage but they interrupt your attack anims and obviously reduce your ability to manoeuvre and fight back.

Guys with limbs missing are really nasty actually. The ones with legs lopped off will crawl around trying to grab your legs, and the ones with arms missing do things like jump on top of you with explosive shurikens. These attacks take LOTS of your health so you can't just take a leg off everyone in the room and then go round finishing them off.

Two difficulties are available at the start, Acolyte and Warrior. The latter says "Every day lived as a Ninja brings one closer to death." That's the skill I'm playing on of course

Another thing worth mentioning is that health doesn't seem to be an issue, at this stage at least. The health bar 'layers' like in some fighters - if you get hit the blue health decreases, and if you get hit again (or take damage from certain special attacks) your health starts to turn red. Anything that isn't red recharges at the end of the battle so you really only lose a little health each battle. BUT, attacks do quite a lot of damage during battle so you can also die fairly easily if you make too many mistakes. You've got to be on the ball all the time and constantly moving. You also get a full health recharge the first time you use each save point.

Basically, the emphasis is not on attrition any more but on surviving each fight as it happens. I quite like this actually as it makes the battles far more tense - you are only ever so far from death but at the same time you get punished less for making the odd mistake. It also means not having to worry about getting far into a stage and dying then having to do it all over again or use rare health items just to get you to the next save point. Blue health orbs seem a lot more forthcoming but you do have to work for them.

After fighting ninjas with swords, ninjas with two swords, ninjas with claws and ninjas with claws, shurikens and magic, you then have to fight a pack of ninja dogs. DOGS! They've got spikes and blades all over their bodies and somehow or other they manage to throw explosive shurikens. Christ-knows how they do it - I've been so busy trying to chop their heads off to notice.

I'm guessing this is the pussy filter level as there's one bit where you have to fight dozens of enemies in a courtyard to progress. I think you can run through it but if you do you miss out on an incidental item that seems like it might be quite important to ranking up your score etc later on...

The only mild disappointment so far is the graphics, which as others have said are basically like the original Xbox but in HD. That said the first game really punched above its weight in graphical terms and it doesn't affect the gameplay.

* Which is not to suggest it's in the same league BTW. God Hand is the true Undefeatable Fist!

[Uli]

the graphics discussion is worthless in my opinion. we all knew what to expect from Itagaki. more troubling is the camera issue. i'd like to know if it's gotten any better or is it even worse than in NG Black?