Ninja Gaiden 3

[Dareos]

Picked this up today, had been waiting a while for this

reasons why

Ninja Gaiden - One of my all time favourite games, dream of a control system, amazing combat, phenomally interesting level design, well thought out story ,some tricky scarabs to find that didnt distract from the gameplay ala assassins 40000000 flags Creed, a plethora of deadly weapons and different styles to take on each boss/mob type with and our Hero ninja is as a ninja should be, silent, deadly, elusive, silent, acrobatic, stealthy and above all - SILENT

Ninja Gaiden 2 and sigma 2 - Didnt come close to the orginal in my opinion, but still, plethora of weapons, a few new ones in there, similar controls, level design nowhere near in the same realm, decent story, nice variety of mobs/bosses, and combat as a whole was fun, challenging and once again the side quests of collecting crystal skulls was of interest. and once again our Hero ninja was (wait for it) SILENT!

Shadow Warriors - The orginal Ninja Gaiden from waay back in the late 80's, some of us loved this game, some of us spent all our lunch money on games like this in our local arcades, this was a much loved game upon which game the later 2 and all of their incarnations (sigma, black etc) were based, it featured a ninja, WHO WAS SILENT!


so, now we have the background, lets look at Ninja Gaiden 3

Combat - Quite frankly sucks - The fast fluid controls have been replaced with button mashing and quicktime style sequences, pressing X when it flashes on screen is not representative of a fluid fight scene, nor the series as a whole in my opinion

Magic - Ninpo fire icons have been replaced by a bar that builds slowly as you fight, no longer to be replenished by rare red orbs, (orbs dont exist anymore), meaning that getting you out of a tight spot is no longer possible as you have to have fought your way out of a tight spot in the first place to have enough Ninpo to use, the developers also seem to have thought that its a nice touch to have the bar deplete itself after every fight scene, great, aint it?

Special moves - No longer does trying to get enough space around you for an ultimate technique prove part of the challenge, your arm will glow and you can perform one, no time needed really, extremely frustrating when you use it on a single guy halfway through a fight rather than on the squad lurking around the next corner, stupid stupid stupid

Weapons - well, you have the dragon sword, wont ever lose that now will we, even if we happen to digest it....through your arm, and its kinda disagreeing with you, who would thought? so we have a replacement, not sure why, or whose? wasnt really explained, possibly one of the swords from a previous game, ahh well, not to worry, lets break out the flails and the moon staff and the scythe and the tonfa and the...oh wait....really, no weapons?

well not yet anyways, im on about level 3 or 4, beat a few bosses, nothing major. Maybe there will be weapons, but so far its not looking like it. tbh i am not sure I even want to keep going to find out.

And then there is our intrepid hero, our elusive, stealthy, enigmatic Ninja, a man who makes Batman appear garrulous, a man to whom speech is necessary only when the keen whine of his blade cutting the air doesnt say it all, a man who previously to this game spoke sparingly, and all knew him through his actions and slaying of fiends, ninjas and NINJA FIENDS!

It seems he loves kids, and wont shut up, ever


Its a bit like watching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and finding out The Man With No Name was called Simon and worked at a youth club on his days off

This is not as annoying however as the terrible english accents on the guys he fights (who knew there were so many english ninjas?) who tend to repeat the same thing over and over, (I never expected him to be this good, Killing is our business) yada yada and of course yada.



This, on first glances, appears to be a travesty of a game, which would probably have been ok if it didnt have Ninja Gaiden in the title, just 3 would have done, or possibly just Gaiden, but its association with imo the greatest ninja game ever made (yes, even better than Last Ninja) brings down the entire series, and thats a 10 year old game or so now.

Its as if they fired the entire team, brought in some new guys who played through the first 2 games, played Bayonetta, took the best elements of all 3 games and decided against using any of them.

I will return to the game now, in the hope that I was mistaken in my judgement and I am actually playing a masterpiece of gaming history, but only after the first 4 levels are finished....

[Dareos]

Oh, and the acheivements - You ran up a wall,have an acheivement, you killed a bad guy, have an acheivement, you broke a fingernail while picking your nose, have an ache....

its that bad

[Zhaoman]

That sounds so very depressing. Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox was one of my favourite games ever. I don't know how many hours I spent trying to get all the Scarabs (in the time before Youtube :O) and when I found out about the Unlaboured Flawlessness (what a great name for a weapon lol). All of the bosses were extremely fun and unique and the controls were unbelievably slick. Getting massive combos with the flails was another thing that was incredibly pure and fun.

I was really disappointed with Ninja Gaiden 2 as it is, I thought the feel and visuals were no where near as crisp or smooth because they tried to jazz it up with sexy special effects and camera angles and glowing things everywhere... and all I ended up doing was playing it a bit at my friend's house and decided that I didn't want to ruin my memories of Ninja Gaiden. I wasn't even aware Ninja Gaiden 3 was out, I'm so out of the loop in games now. It's sad to hear how far it's fallen.

Btw this really makes me wanna play Ninja Gaiden again, will pencil it in for this summer!

[Dareos]

Ok, game finished, Verdict reached.

If the defendant currently posturing as a Ninja Gaiden game could rise, the verdict shall be delivered

On 1 count of being a poor clone of God of War and Bayonetta, we find the defendant GUILTY

On 1 count of paying absolutely no attention to the games illustrious history, we find the defendant GUILTY

On 2 counts of being thoroughly addictive, thought provoking and in general a pleasure to play, NOT GUILTY



Seriously, its a button mashing hack n slash with a terrible storyline, weak characters, cringeworthy dialogue with few redeeming features, go play the orginal instead.

Its probably the first time where I have seen a sequel to a game offer less than its prequels. The original had everything, a bit of platform, a lot of hack n slash, some strategy, amazing variety of weapons, secret areas, hidden collectibles, good story, minimal yet essential dialogue, puzzles, running away from giant boulders, bone dragons, power ups, lava pits. It was a gem of a game wrapped up in a cocoon of ethereal ninjaness (yes, thats a word!) that forced you to replay it just so you could appreciate its brilliance again and again. The 2nd one was...well, tbh half the game of its predecessor, but still well worthy of a few of your hard earned pounds, fairly challenging and generally enjoyable. The 3rd is worth renting, barely, and even then just to remind you how good the first 1 was.

I know I am ranting a bit at this game, but this is a game years in the making, and a sequel to the only good game series Team Ninja do (Dead or Alive sucks, be honest, yes, even the beach volleyball). Its basically all the american pie movies after the first 2, Its Alien 3, or the remake of Knight Rider, its basically a shadow of the game it should be, which in ninja speak would be a good thing, its not.

[Dareos]

Stuff magazine gave the game 5 stars....