Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Review

This game was a complete surprise along with the fact that it shadow dropped along with an announcement of Ninja Gaiden 4. However with that said, it seems the entire existence for this remake is to hype of NG4 and nothing more since there isn't very many differences that I can notice between this and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 however I never played the original Xbox 360 game. With all this said, if you bought the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection that came out a few years ago, you don't really have much reason to get this remake since Master Collection comes with Sigma 1 and Sigma 2 and even NG3 Razor's Edge. If you played NGS2, most of the major moments you will already be aware of. Outside of the additional of blood and gore and more "realistic" visuals, it's the same game, unless if you are a NG super fan who wants to know the difference between every version of every NG game, 2 Black at it's current asking price just isn't worth it with the Master Collection avaliable, unless if you really want the blood and gore and prefer the look of 2 Black.

Anyways, with that out of the way, since this is very much Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Black 2 carries that game's strengths and weaknesses.

Let's start with the weaknesses, the story is terrible, I know playing an NG game for the story is already a dumb idea to begin with and the game is taking the John Carmack Doom 1993 approach where story in a game is like story in porn but I argue even as an excuse plot, Ninja Gaiden 2's story fails. It's like the developers had a bunch of cool ideas and epic set pieces moments but could never make them logically transition to each other. A game story at the very least should give reasons why the player is going from level to level but NG2's story never really tries to have any of it make sense.

Characters are never given very clear motivations to why they are doing what they are doing, villains get introduced out of nowhere and have their character be expressed by entirely through monologuing, they never do anything with their actions to annoy Ryu or the player, and most of the cutscenes show Ryu in a new location but never really establishes how he got there. Sonia can't decide if she wants to be a tough girl or a damsel in distress. Villains also come back after being killed in previous chapters and the final boss has little to no actual characterization to him other than he is evil.

Ryu Hyabusa himself is basically Devil May Cry 2 Dante except the latter has more memorable lines and moments by comparison.

I know I'm harping on the story, but compared to something like God of War and in many ways it's rival series Devil May Cry, NG's story feels like it is trying to be a dumb action movie but fails at trying connect the major moments together.

The camera is pretty bad, but it's been said a million times already, it's tolerable but there are times where it gets cramped and it gives you a bad angle on the action. It's also easy to get attacked by offscreen projectiles and fast moving enemies.

Bosses are okay but they feel easy by comparison to the hordes with only their unbreakable grab moves being the only threat they pose to you.

With all that out of the way, I mostly had a great time with the game. There are multiple major changes. The heavy focus on action and less on platforming and puzzles, the dismemberment system, the higher enemy count, the changes to ranged weapons, an easier to access dodge button and being able to hold less healing items.

When you combine all this together, this makes for a much more entertaining, frantic and over the top game than the first Ninja Gaiden.

Combat is basically an over the top ballet of dodges, attacking enemies, cutting off their limbs then doing an execution attack then timing everything to perform an max essence attack to kill more enemies. The enemy count is much higher giving you even more reason to do these attacks.

Enemies drop health and there are always healing itsems lying around so the combat while having it's annoying moments always felt fair and never did it feel cheap. Murmasa shops are always around when low on healing items.

Weapon switching is also somewhat encouraged too. Dragon Sword is a good starter weapon, but the bigger weapons like the Emma's Fang and the Scythe are great for bigger enemies since it staggers them better, Vigoor Fail is great for the ghost fishes, and lunar is great for large groups. You do get a little too many melee weapons and stuff like surikens hardly got any use but I do like that weapon switching is encouraged at all.

Platforming is still not good but rarely if ever do you need to be super precise with it and you need to actually avoid death pits so that is a massive point to NG2's favor.

The death animations are also really fun to watch and each weapon has it's own set of animations which is impressive.

Overall, I do enjoy NG Black 2 even if this remake feels about as nessescary as Last of Us Part 1.