Brutal Gamer

Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox 360) Review

By Leigh - August 1, 2008 - 18:21 UTC

Ninja Gaiden 2 is the 12^th installment of the Ninja Gaiden franchise (I didn’t actually realize there was this many!) and it is the first Ninja Gaiden game on 360. The black spider clan are back again and there trying to resurrect the arch fiend once more to take over the world, who will save the world? You guessed it the one man army Ryu Hayabusa and he is looking better then ever.

Read on to find my full review of Techmo’s Ninja Gaiden 2.

I’ve never been to fond of the story line in Ninja Gaiden mainly because it is hard to concentrate on the story line when your being attacked by several were wolves throwing blood corpses at you and being ambushed by numerous different sorts of gargoyles and ninja’s. Anyway, let me explain the story to you.

Basically Ninja Gaiden 2 follows the old story lines from the previous games, the black spider clan are back to release the arch fiend from the depth of hell to reek havoc on the world (again.) But do not fear, as Ryu Hayabusa is here to kick some serious ass and be showered in blood from numerous different forms of enemies (trust me, they vary a lot.)

Ninja Gaiden has always looked stunning and it still does. Every object and character model is well designed and extremely well polished. By far one of the best things in this game is the character animations, they all look so fluid and smooth, it does honestly look like a real person doing the actions. Another good thing about NG2 is how detailed all the characters are and the different items within the game such as the weapons.

One thing which the guys and gals from Techmo should be proud of is how gorgeous the game looks from any situation, even when the walls are covered in numerous different shades of blood red it still looks f*cking amazing. I really can not emphasis how well detailed everything is in this game; I really do suggest that you go check out some videos of this game (or rent/buy it!)

I felt it quite hard to settle on a score for the lasting appeal with Ninja Gaiden 2, that being IF you are skilled enough and crazy enough you can carry on playing through the different difficulties on the game will keep you busy for one hell of a long time. Each campaign difficulty will easily take 10’s of hours to complete and also expect to break several controllers due to how frustrated the different enemies and boss’s will make you.

Due to the recent announcement that there will be downloadable content coming to the game it could easily stretch the amount of time you play on this game considering you’re willing to spend the 800 Microsoft points on the pack. Whether or not there will be any more downloadable content is a different question due to the lawsuits Techmo are going through.

Ninja Gaiden has always been about hardcore Game play, and as you can expect ninja Gaiden 2 doesn’t let you down there. One thing I have always loved about Ninja Gaiden is just how fluid the game always has been, being able to link your combo’s to shred your opponents into 20 different pieces all within the space of 5 seconds is always fun.

The only real problem I had with this whole game is there is a bug within the game where everything just slows down to matrix bullet time speed. Although the few people I have spoken to about this have said that they like it when this happens due to its easy to get combos going but I honestly couldn’t stand it! Another problem I had with NG2 is the fact that the difficulty curve per chapter/difficulty was just insane even compared to the old ones, the jump from normal to hard is beyond a joke.

Audio is the one area of NG2 which it is let down in, I am pretty sure that every sound clip is the same for each monster. Every werewolf howl, every gargoyle screech and every ninjas gun shot sounds exactly the same, there isn’t even the slightest difference. Although how much I do love the Ninja Gaiden franchise this is one area which really, really needs improving on.

In my opinion this is one of the best Ninja Gaiden games to date, it’s a lot friendlier to the people playing the game, however don’t get me wrong the game is still a pain in the ass. The game easily could have been improved in different areas and some patch’s to fix the bugs in the game will definitely make it a lot better and more fun. If you are even slightly interested in this game I do highly suggest you at least rent the game, you will most likely love it you have to be patient with it though!

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