 Team Ninja / Itagaki game pretty much guarantees two things – blood and boobs. Good to see both are delivered within the opening cutscene and seem to be a theme for the game. The first chapter sees Ryu chasing after boobs (well, I guess they are attached to a character – not that you’d notice) while shedding buckets of blood. Since Itagaki (the game’s creator) has now left Tecmo to pursue his career selling sunglasses, this was to be his legacy, of sorts. However, the game simply fails to meet the standards set by its thrice-released predecessor.
Ryu is a bad-arse ninja who gets drawn into some nonsensical story about Greater Fiends, and naturally decides to go on a limb-chopping expedition. The action is as exhilarating as ever, with Ryu bouncing all over the screen at lightning fast speeds, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. New to the series is the ability to remove limbs and finish enemies off with an Obliteration Technique, which causes the camera to pan around to give the best angle as Ryu slices and dices. The action is stylish and flashy, with wonderfully fast-paced and brutal combat. Fighting multiple enemies is difficult, yet rewarding when you start pulling off spectacular moves and efficiently dispatch them. There are several different weapons on offer in NG2; each with their own unique charms and it’s great fun to try them all out. Animations and character models are of a high standard (as expected), but game environments, whilst mostly impressive and beautiful, at times dip to drab and boring.
Team Ninja obviously made an effort to improve on the first game, but they ended up making the bad parts worse, namely
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the camera and cheap enemies. The camera is absolutely shocking. It is simply too close to the ground in most instances to let you see all incoming attacks, and while it does make combat look nice, graphical pretties should never come at the expense of functionality. You will be attacked from off-screen at many turns and the camera really does struggle to catch up. When it continually snags on objects – that’s when your controller will go flying out the window. It is that frustrating.
As frustrating as the camera is, the bosses are on another level. Simply put, they are incredibly cheap – and to beat them you have incorporate your own bitch tactics,
which takes away any sense of accomplishment in beating them. There is a specific instance where, upon defeating
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a final boss, it will explode and kill you in a cutscene unless you hold block going into that cutscene. Standard enemies are cheap bastards too. Rocket-launching ninjas (now THAT is an awesome enemy! – Ed) and ninjas with exploding shurikens are all annoying (yet still manageable). My favourite are the ninja dogs with swords in their mouths which bark bees... err, grenades, at you.
Team Ninja has tried to address some difficulty concerns by having save points restore your health once (then only letting you save) and introducing two forms of damage –
permanent and regenerative (which will restore after battle), but it doesn’t make it any easier. While we’re on the whinge path, exploring for items can be a real chore as you’re always worried about taking the wrong path and
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missing something.
Ninja Gaiden 2 feels more like an expansion pack than a proper sequel. It’s a good game, but too frustrating to be considered a must-buy, especially considering the RRP. But hey, it has blood, boobs and ninjas – so it’s still awesome.
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