Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z Thoughts and Rant

I played this game out of sheer curosity since game critics at the time ravaged it and fan reception didn't fare better. What really sparked all of it was the fact that this game never got remastered and on top of all that no one is demanding the game to get a modern port or cried foul when it wasn't included in the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection that came out a few years ago. There's no vocal cult following that is defending the game and calling it a misunderstood masterpiece. Also because there's a recent resurgance in the franchise with the recent release of Black 2 and the upcoming Ragebound and NG4. This was the game that "killed" the series for a good while or at least finished it off when NG3 laid out the fatal blow.

I got around halfway into the game. 3 out of the 6 levels and I played on easy and oh god this game sucks. It's a bad game that lives up to it's reputation. Things were already feeling off when there is no jump button and this was a game that is aping off the God of War games of the time. The platforming angers me when I'm doing it. I rag on Uncharted and automated platforming but this game, it's so simple and relies so heavily on context sensitivity that it's QTEs but with certain buttons presses for specific actions. Why is this even in the game? It's like the game plays itself and I just press buttons here and there while Yaiba shows off his moves. Later in the game, the game throws in obsticles and hazards and it's so out of left field since everything in the late part of the canyons level, it was simple reaction time tests but now I need to be precise and methodical now? The magnetic jump button also stopped worked and I couldn't start the steam pipe section again. The best part? I can't restart from checkpoint even though the game has one. There's only an option to restart from level and the level was almost an hour with a challenging enemy wave with lots of mini bosses and a repeat of the fight with the mechanical dog. I gave up here. Nice that the game has checkpoints, would be even better if I can restart from them especially when the game is very buggy.

The writing sucks and I'm very forgiving of bad stories in games but the whole thing seems like it wants to be campy self aware stupidity but it comes off as lame and tryhard. I was in disbelief when Yaiba used like words "dick" and "dickhead" back to back. There is also a scene where the titular character is reveling in being covered in woman's panties. I thought this dude was supposed to be a super serious no nonsense killing machine, but he's a pervert too? It's so bizarrely at odds. The druglord that employs you seems like he just wants to be Tony Montana really badly. And you really think some low end overly vulgar jobber is going to kill Ryu? Sure man. There isn't even enough to the female character that provides radio support than her design.

The combat is where the game really sucks. On easy mode, it's terrible. Fodder enemies just stand around as you whail on them since they are zombies but the mini bosses are awful. They have status effects that can take away large amounts of health, frontal attacks might also take away health as well as stagger you since they have elemental shields. Kill animations to bring back lost health is unreliable and might not always work and the grappling hook is a 50-50 game of will the grab register. The only way to get past an enemy wave especially when minibosses are in them is to die over and over since your rage meter doesn't reset after death and will keep going up after dying in combat. After that tank hits and fight them and thin away a good number of the enemies and then use your rage to kill and lay out as much damage to the minibosses as you can before it wears off.

Yes, on easy mode in order to feel competent at combat, I need to overly heavily on your rage mode to get anywhere. When this game came out in 2014, what niche did it even fill? You wanted a God of War game? Ascension was there. You wanted a game where you played as a ninja who was proficient at killing with a sword? Metal Gear Rising. You wanted an over the top violent game with lots of crude humor and an over the top protagonist? Deadpool. 2 of the above mentioned games came out months apart from Yaiba with the latter coming out a year and 2 months after MGRR.

I can surely say that me trying out Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z is a good example of the saying, "curosity killed the cat". I did know this game was bad going in but some small part of me really wanted to see if I can salvage some fun out of it. Nope. The best thing I can say about this is that the game didn't cost me too much to get. The cel shaded visuals are nice but I've already seen all this before so it's not enough to really wow me.