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Review by Deadend
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To confess, I did not complete Ninja Gaiden 2. I found it to be too hard for me. Not in the good hard, such as Geometry Wars or Ninja Gaiden 1 which taught me to quit being a bitch and to mix it up and move around.
First Off, Ninja Gaiden 2 features a camera that would be considered horrible for an action game in the year 2003. There are several buttons on the controller used for camera and view manipulation, along with the right stick. Which in my mind is far too many. The way the camera tracks around corners and enemy attack patters works is also a plague. Thanks to the camera you will be hit. You will be hit quite often, and in the face, with exploding flaming arrows shot by a guy 100 yards away and off-screen that triggered their shot when you entered the room. Or there will be a guy who will be there around the corner you can't see around, ready to do a grab attack to take off a quarter life bar.
In boss fights, the camera tries to stay dynamic, which seems to mean low to the ground and trying to fit as much of Ryu and the boss on screen at once, which sounds great, but the camera and thus the directional controls end up being quite... strange, making it hard to read the level or the bosses actions or dodge properly.
From playing the game and looking at the level layouts, the person working on the camera system seems to have had zero input on the layout of rooms or anything. After playing the God of War series, and even Devil May Cry 4 and the Too Human demo, I can safely say that Team Ninja does not understand how to design levels and cameras to create a more enjoyable game.
The few levels I played were a grab bag of generic action zones.
First was a futuristic Neo-Tokyo, that sadly most of the time was spent fighting in back alleys, then a Ninja Village that seemed to consist of small arenas with high walls and archers who live off camera. The third and final stage I put up with was New York City, which I know it was NYC as there were signs telling me so. That stage consisted of barren rooftops, open Times Square which looked fairly unimpressive and undergrounds sewers, which sadly were lacking in Turtle Ninjas.
The storyline is laughable horrible and involves a demon of lightning and a demon of storms and some mystic item that is stolen. The worst part about the story is that the cut-scenes can not be skipped, which means crappy CG, bad voice acting and bad scripts will be your friend for 3 minutes at a time.
I did however, immensely enjoy the core of the game-play, which is fighting ultra aggressive and brutal ninjas who can kill you in 6 seconds flat if you don't defend. It plays like Ninja Gaiden but a bit faster, a bit more brutal with the limb dismemberment, and more flashy killing blow moves. The only time the game slows down in pacing is when you climb a ladder, otherwise everything happens at high speed. Opening doors takes less than a second same with opening chests, Ryu just kicks it all open, and it's great.
So really, it's a great game with a camera system and level design that are crap. But they are such utter crap and in a game that makes so few changes, it brings it down to being a disappointing game in my mind.
alienmastermind on 08/22/2008
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