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good game overall. slighty disappointing

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 28 / 34
Date: June 09, 2008
Author: Amazon User

NG2 had a lot of expectations to live up to. Having beat it, here's my review of what Team Ninja got right and what it got wrong. (I played on Path of the Warrior difficulty, so the easy setting may be slightly different)

Good:
* Much more detailed enemies and graphics, including the ability of nearly every bad guy to be amputated/decapitated and or chopped in half.

* Bodies of most enemies stay around after death, giving you an increased feeling of carnage and destruction. Leave a trail of death to follow!

* Cool weapons

* Easy saving of games at Dragon Statues

* Massive Boobage - unrealistic proportions and extra jiggliness

Bad:
* Some massive slowdown in certain levels when lots of enemies are onscreen. Game over screen visual effects styling is bad and often VERY slow framerate.

* No map. WTH? Some levels you need a map

* Almost completely WORTHLESS ninpo! The Inferno magic is about the only one that does anything (homes in on baddies). But being that many of the bosses are fire-based demons or flyers, magic is almost worthless. Piercing Void is absolutely useless as it requires you to target an enemy and by the time you launch he ball, the baddie has moved. Short-range on the wind magic equally useless.

* Some lackluster level designs, especially caves, tunnels, or building interiors. Several levels feel rehased, especially the Flying Fortress level.

* Added feeling of "cheapness", due to reliance on button mashing and cheap tricks by the level designers. Several areas of the game are maddeningly frustrating due to this kind of cheapness, whose idea of challenging you is to throw wave after wave of the same enemies at you, or put ranged attackers well out of your reach. Examples are the grenade launching soldiers that spam explosives at you from afar or archers, usually appearing in pairs. Exploding jellyfish/mines that respawn. There must be at least 30 of these each time you encounter them.

* The damn biting fish are all back, including the big grabby swimming ones and the airborne ghost piranhas.

* Stupid looking/ugly enemies, with lots of them having some skull motif. Many of the enemies' faces are modified versions of skulls. Stupidness includes wolves that hold katana in their mouths and chop you with them?!

* Having to kill bosses a second time. 1 guy you have to kill 4 times. I know this is a trademark of the NG series, but 4 times???

* Lack of replay value. NO UNLOCKABLES except a measly sound test option and new colored costumes when you begin the game again after beating it. No Sonia as a playable character, no Missions like in NG Sigma. Would be great to be able to play Sonia or Muramasa.

* Lots of dumb unrealistic mechanics like the ability to swim in lava! WTH??.. Invisible barriers everywhere, limiting your interaction with the environment and keeping you several feet away from touching what looks like accessible scenery. Another is the lava filled armadillo boss that comes out of the crashed air fortress.. this thing was the machine's power core??? Back to the cheapness of the design: this boss exploded after you beat it, causing instant death if you don't know what to do before hand. This boss is tough enough if you are playing it the first few times through and to have it explode and kill you is a cheap trick.

* Some bosses are VERY easy to kill with a fully upgraded Scythe

* Much uglier, sloppier items interface w/ blood splatter motif.

The predecessors Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden Sigma were much better in terms of gameplay balance.

Rent this first if you are a casual fan. Having owned and beaten all the variations of the first NG, I am highly disappointed by this game, especially the lack of extras. After seeing how many features Sigma packed onto the PS3 version, I expected those to carry over to NG 2. No chance. No way to view beaten cut scenes, no photo gallery, concept art, rotatable models, nothing!! It feels like a rushed product. No replay value at all. Perhaps they're going to double dip and release NG 2 Omega. Still a very good game, mind you, but just feels half-done.

Not a classic but still great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 15
Date: June 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

After putting in over 400 hrs. on the original Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black I was looking forward to 2 and now my fix is here. Well I was initially a little disappointed and felt that they released the game too early but once I got to tweaking the camera, cinema playback and controller options it solved or eased alot of the problems I was encountering.

I'll keep this short by giveing the good points and bad.
Bad points first. There are frame rate issues if you have the auto cinema feature turned on they can get really bad when a lot of people are on the screen attacking you at one time. If you turn it off you probably won't see a problem with frame rates again.
Second problem is the camera, this can be a problem but you can manually adjust or speed up the auto adjust rate in the options menu and this helps a lot.
Graphically speaking it's a little inconsistent. The particle effects are great but at the same time some of the backgrounds are pretty bland. It's kind of a mixed bag but due to some of the things they've done regarding retaining chopped body parts long after you've left a room in the game it takes a toll on memory usage and thus taxes the 360 quite a bit. Add that to the size of the environments, the number of characters on screen at once and this game pushes the 360 pretty hard.
The other problem though not really a problem, but more of an annoyance is that the enemies are a little on the cheap side this time so you are forced to be a little more creative.

Now for the good:
Believe it or not they have actually improved the gameplay. You start off now with a long list of moves as opposed to hardly any in the original. Countering has been refinded so that you can properly time it. Weapons are now very varied and don't overlap in terms of usage. Enemy AI is incredible you can actually notice the enemies adjusting to your attack patterns. Granted this makes things more difficult but ultimately more satisfying when you win. The level design has gotten rid of a lot of the platforming and focuses much more on the fighting aspect of the game. Secondary weapons are chargable and are actually useful, can anyone actually admit that they used the bow much in the first one?

The story is actually a little more coherent now and makes a bit of sense, though not much. Last but not least It's a great game but a new Missions mode and a little more refinement of the default settings would have made this a classic.

Flashy Fun Gory- OMG is it HARD!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: June 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

wow let me start by agreeing with all the rest of the reviews so far. THis game is great. Good story slick graphics fun gameplay etc. My only complaint is that its HARD! I started on the easiest game mode and holy crap the bosses can combo kill youin like 20 seconds flat. the camera doesnt align itself during the action so that you can see your enemies either so you must anticipate where on the screen they will be when the stupid camera is pointing itself at a wall or some other inanimate object. Dont get me wrong, im all for a challenging game, but when your pulling every combo availible and using your entire healing inventory just to attempt to beat the third boss guy and still manage to die oh only about 20 times in a row- it stops being a fun challenge and just starts getting frustrating. good game but easy mode is NOT easy.

Spectacular

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 20
Date: June 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The title Ninja Gaiden alone will coax enough praise and groan-worthy comments from anyone who has had experience with Tecmo's long running series, and Ninja Gaiden II is no different. Once again, a Ninja Gaiden game has managed to provide heaping amounts of action-oriented gameplay that can become mind-numbingly difficult, and once again, for those that enjoy the series' gameplay, the game delivers in spades, and is a spectacular action experience. Once again playing as Ryu Hyabusa, you take on hordes of enemies that can be dispatched in some outrageously bloody and violent ways. The character models and action set-pieces are so flashy and well designed that there will be moments of trying to pick your jaw up off the floor. Yes, the game looks that good. The only drawback from a graphical standpoint is that some of the environments themselves aren't all that worth noting, but with so much frentic action, you'll rarely notice. Being a Ninja Gaiden game, there are spectacular boss battles to engage in as well, and the other enemies in general provide much challenge to boot. The only major flaw with Ninja Gaiden II would have to be the in-game camera, which at times can make the game even more infuriating to play. If this can be forgiven however, you will find some tough and rewarding gameplay that the series is known for; and the game's wonderful control, wild story, superb cut-scenes, great new weapons, and grisly finishing moves make this an even sweeter package. All in all, Ninja Gaiden II is a spectacular action game that nearly perfectly follows the same winning formula that the series has in the past, and is an essential pick up for XBox 360 owners that love the series, and a more than worthwhile introduction for new fans of the series as well.

Ninja Gaiden II

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: June 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is easily within the top 3 most entertaining games out there for current gen consoles... here are some of the things this game has to offer:

-Truly beautiful graphics, so much detail and definition
-A true level of difficulty for those who think games are a no sweat deal, it really is hard, so get ready to loose a couple of tears of fury here.
-The voice acting is really good even if hayabusa has his mouth covered I like the way it flows.
-Blood, more than the first, with even more intense boss battles, this game makes me feel good for owning a 360, and see that I don't need a Blu ray to have such beautiful and intense graphics, as well as the game play. Sweet combinations for sweet weapons, I can keep going here but let yourself tell the rest. Get it it is a really well developed game, it cannot let NG fans down, It won't... I assure you... so back to some butt kicking ninja time...

PS, even if you are not a hardcore gamer, in easy, you'll enjoy it as well

Best 3D action hack and slash game... again!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: June 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have and played every single Ninja Gaiden game on the original Xbox and the recent PS3 version and beat them multiple times on varies difficulties. I consider the Ninja Gaiden series the best 3D action hack and slash games in the world (no, it's not God of War. Devil May what?). The latest is no exception and brings the action few steps above previous games. Like most of the other reviewers have said, all the Ninja Gaiden games are hard, but very enjoyable once you learn the system and moves. You can button mash but it won't get you very far before you see the "game over" sign repeatedly in your face. Ninja Gaiden series is really a deep fighting game mashed into an action game. People who plays fighting games know you can't just button mash to be successful. For fans and NG lovers, don't hesitate to get this game. It's awesome! For new comers to the series who will invest some time to learn the fighting system, Ninja Gaiden 2 will be your ultimate action game. Lastly, for people who button mashed your way to the first boss and died 10x and gave up in the original Xbox games, this game is not for you.

Good game, but...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: June 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I thoroughly enjoyed the first Ninja Gaiden on the original Xbox, so I figured I would give this one a shot. Graphically, it is pretty amazing! It's probably one of the prettiest 360 games so far.
The gameplay and controls are pretty similar to the first one, with some minor improvements and some noticeable increases in violence. Now you can remove limbs and the Obliteration Technique is pretty brutal (which I like).
Where the wheels come off the bus for me is in the little annoyances, some of which were present in the original, some of which are new:
First, this game is buggy! It has locked my Xbox up on more than one occasion. It will also "pause" at random times for about 10-15 seconds. Once, when I died, instead of going to the game over screen, it just kept the enemies moving, albeit in slow motion, with the brown screen...it's like everyone knew I was dead except the game! I let it sit for about two minutes but the "do you wish to continue" dialog never came up, so I had to go to the dashboard to unfreeze the problem.
Second, some of the annoying time delays from the first Ninja Gaiden are still present. For instance, when you die, it takes a full 20 seconds before you can get back to the action, because you have to tell the game you want to continue, then it has to show you the chapter title and summary again (why?!?!) and there is a little bit of loading there. I could understand this if it had to load a save point from a few minutes ago, but when it's just resetting you so you can fight a boss again? Should it really take that long?
Speaking of bosses, the boss battles so far are kind of lame. Expect to die at least three or four times until you figure out what works against each one. Truth be told, after chapter 1, each boss probably took me at least 20 times to beat. That kind of repetition gets frustrating.
Having said all that, the game is fun. The lock-ups and long load times really frustrate me though. I guess I don't feel like a game that runs on a system with a hard drive should have long load times. Lots of other 360 titles don't have those issues. Maybe I'm just spoiled?

Bloody ultraviolence at its best

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Once in a while, a game comes along that justifies lying about going to a meeting so you could take off early from work and head home to play; Ninja Gaiden 2 is one of these games, and this was exactly what I did. It wasn't a complete lie however; I did have a meeting, a meeting with Ryu Hayabusa.

This game is bloody, the major selling point of the game and I absolutely love it. The bone-crunching, flesh-slicing action is intense and fast, and unlike anything in previous hack n slash games. Both graphics and audio are tip top, and the controls are smooth and responsive.

One function I particularly like is the convenient weapons and item menu that can be easily accessed in the middle of heavy combat. This is important, as enemies outnumber you 6 to 1, you will inevitably take some pounding and as your health drops to dangerous levels, you can immediately hit the D-pad to consume various herbal remedies to stay alive. Furthermore, you can switch weapons in the middle of a fight - so if you've been clobbering some poor dude for half a minute with your Lunar Staff and want to finish him off by slicing his throat from ear to ear, you can do that by switching to your Dragon Sword.

Concerning the difficulty, the hand-to-hand combat is very fierce and gets a little overwhelming at times; typically enemies attack in waves and by the time you're done with half of them, not much of your health may be left. The good news is that dead enemies' souls help restore health. The AI is pretty smart and injured enemies adjust their AI from aggressive to sneaky and psychotic - just waiting for you to turn your back and plunge that sword or talon through your chest. So remember - don't expect an enemy with only one arm left to just happily sit there, finish off him.

Unlike a lot of other games, bodies of dead enemies don't disappear off the screen, so bodies, limbs and chunks of bloody meat litter all over the ground after you've been through a wave of attackers, this is nice effect.

Also, blocking in this game is like taking cover in Gears of War, you can't do without it. Yet, while blocking you can either execute a counter attack after the enemy has finished his moves or dash away to escape. So, there is a huge number of fighting techniques and tactics that you can experiment with. Other aspects of the game are pretty conventional and straight forward - occasional save and heal points in the form of a dragon statue, a shop to purchase weapons and items, boss battles (which will REALLY test your wits and reflexes) etc. There isn't too much of a learning curve (which is good), all you need is to come to grips with the pace, various combos and pick out your favorite techniques.

This is one of the best games on the 360 ever, right up there with Gears and Devil May Cry; NG2 certainly edges Devil in the fighting department. For those into achievements, NG2 provides some 60 achievements, and what's fun is the ease of gaining achievements - you can earn achievements just by discovering and executing new skills, but as expected they are valued at only 5 gamescore points each. By the time I completed the first level, I've gained 11 achievements.

I knocked one star off because of camera issues, although awkward angles can be easily fixed by hitting the right trigger. Also, frame rates aren't entirely smooth and tend to slow down at various points, but this isn't too big a problem. Some levels will come across as just plain and ugly, and it seems level designers were lazy in this respect.

Another problem is the 'cheapness' of the levels, as others have mentioned, for example frequent and unexplained explosions on certain levels drain away your health - a clear indication that level designers were too damn lazy to think of challenges to test your skill.

But my biggest problem with NG2 is that you can't replay past missions, that is a real disappointment as mission replays are crucial to the replay value of the game.

Overall this is a great game, certainly an intense experience; as an above-average difficult game, you can feel satisfied that you'll fight many enemies and bosses many times before finishing the game, so getting your money's worth.

Not as good as Ninja Gaiden I; extremely CHEAP AI!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: June 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Needless to say, I was so impressed by Ninja Gaiden for the XBOX, I beat it multiple times on the hardest difficulty level because it was really THAT fun to play despite the difficulty. Even after that I went out and bought Ninja Gaiden Black and beat that as well. You can imagine my excitement when Team Ninja announced the release of Ninja Gaiden 2 for the XBOX 360. However, as I am close to finishing this game, I must say I am a little underwhelmed by Team Ninja's apparent lack of effort on this latest release.

There is no big surprise that the graphics and detail in this game are extraordinary. Just like the first Ninja Gaiden for the XBOX, I was awed by the attention to detail and the fluidity of the character movements. Ninja Gaiden 2 you will soon find to be much more violent than its predecessor. You will almost immediately see Ryu effortlessly chopping of baddies arms, legs and heads all complete with blood spatter all over the ground and even screen. There are also a few instances in which Ryu slices bodies completely in half and the game shows in amazing detail the two vertically severed halves falling to the ground. Ryu also has an array of finishing moves usually ending in a beheading that will satisfy the gore lover in you. If you like blood then Ninja Gaiden II has a lot of that to offer.

Almost equally impressive is the sound; again just like Ninja Gaiden I. While I think the soundtrack is slightly better in NGI, the sound effects in NGII are excellent. The sound of metal to metal sword fighting action is quite realistic sounding as well as the many explosions.

All of this is fine, but the meat of any game is the game play. The question for me always comes down to, is the game fun to play, and sadly NGII fails to answer this question with an resounding "yes". It's certainly not a bad game, but it is not as fun to play as NGI. The main reason for this is that the game all too often resorts to cheapness and cheesiness rather than offering a legitimate challenge that one would enjoy for long.

First of all, Team Ninja's idea of a challenge in NGII is just flooding the screen with seemingly countless enemies that all have a good number of cheap moves up their sleeves. Even when just starting the game, some baddies will decide to stab you with their sword that explodes a few moments later, killing them instantly and greatly damaging you, 3 or 4 of these and you are dead. You can obviously block or counter, but when surrounded by 10 enemies or more you can't block or attack in all directions at the same time. There is even one stage in the game in which the game sends so many enemies at you, the entire game slows down to a crawl because even the mighty 360 can't handle it. I thought this type of thing was left behind with the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System.

Yes, the black Spider clan is back with their cheap incendiary shurikens, that they throw all over the place, in addition they are fast as all get up so winning a battle against them while taking minimal damage is nearly impossible. However as cheap as the Black Spider Clan is, the cheapest enemies I have encountered so far are the enemies on the "Submit or Die" level that just shoot bombs at you all day, they are always camping way out of attack range so you don't even have time to get of a well placed shot with your arrows to kill them quickly. By the time you have your arrow charged, you never have enough time to actually aim because there bombs will hit your forcing you to start all over again. Having to fight OTHER enemies while dodging the cheap bombs, greatly adds to the frustration factor of this game. Most of these bomb throwers are standing by exploding barrels and many times these idiots will shoot the barrels lighting themselves on fire because the game's AI apparently isn't sophisticated enough to do anything other than being cheap. If you are lucky you can shoot the barrels before they do, but good luck in doing that on a consistent basis. If this wasn't bad enough there is one area on this level in which you have to walk between landmines while also dodging these bomb throwers who are now shooting out of a 3 story building. Then when you get close to them, you ALSO have to contend with some automatic gun turrets coming from another direction! Give me a break! How CHEAP can this game get?

Most of the bosses in this game are extremely difficult unless you get lucky. Keeping true to form as the other bad guys, the bosses are cheap as well; they will just grab you all day long leaving you powerless to do anything to counter until they are done having their way with you. Nippos are useless so you have to resort melee combat or try your hand at aiming your arrows. One good thing however is that once you get killed by a boss, you can try again at the boss and not have to spend time a lot of time back tracking to get back to it. You also restart the battle as if you never fought it before meaning that any health items or Nippos you may have used are reset to what they originally were when you first encountered the boss. The only thing is that if you decide you are tired of fighting that boss for the day, you will have to start from the save point when you turn the game on again.

NGI was an absolute gem, and I suppose Team Ninja took the many compliments they received and went way overboard this time around. They figured we would like the increased "challenge", but the problem is, it's not a challenge anymore, it's just CHEAP! Even the countless moves and techniques each weapon has to offer are impossible to effectively perform due to the cheapness of the AI and nearly all battles just end up being a repetitive button mashing affair; not fun!

To me, I don't think this game has much replay value; it's just too frustrating for me to want to go back and beat it again; I just want to beat it, be done with it and move on. I don't know what happened, but NGII does not live up to the hype, and Team Ninja did little to make this game as fun as NGI. Rating this game is difficult because I really WANTED to enjoy it; at LEAST as much as I did NGI. I honestly feel bad about being hard on this game, but it is what it is. On a 1 - 10 scale, I'll give fun rating a 6.5 and the overall rating a 7.5. Rounding these values, this correlates to a 3 for fun and 4 for overall. The only thing saving this game from a 3 overall are the fluid animations, superb graphics and sound, and despite the cheapness, I would still say it's worth completing.

Sweet, Sadistic, Sensational Super NINJA!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: June 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I'll keep this short and sweet. This game is SICK! Buy it now or as soon as you can. Combat, Blood and combos have all been improved since Ninja Gaiden Black. This game is outstanding. You should be able to tell just by the first 5 reviews written on this page alone. This is no joke. This game kicks a** down the street. One of the best games out there on any system. Do yourself a huge favor and pick up this rare treat it will not dissapoint.

J.

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