Ninja Gaiden III: What We Want… And Why Ninja Gaiden II Sucks

DealSpwn writes: We were delighted to hear that Team Ninja are developing a third Ninja Gaiden title, with director Yosuke Hayashi promising us “the number one 3D action game of the time.” We’re excited partly because we love the series… but mainly because Team Ninja have a lot of making up to do. Sure, the first 3D Ninja Gaiden was a work of utter genius, but we genuinely can’t understand why anyone played the sequel. Let alone bought it.

[hennessey86]

xbox exclusive my xbox is lonely and my ps3 is getting all the love and thats not going to change with killzone 3 less than a month away

[Godmars290]

Once those games where finished and released, well after their release, they were ported over to the PS3.

[Raendom]

NES? SNES? :D

I know what you mean though, but the PS3 version always ends up getting a lot more love, SIGMA proves that.

[Godmars290]

Except, like most 360 to PS3 ports, where review scores are concerned :p

Though seriously, I wish Tecmo would remake the original 2D NG and keep it 2D while integrating some aspects of the modern one for a PSN/XBLA remake.

[AssassinHD]

It hasn't been confirmed of course, but I am betting that Ninja Gaiden 3 releases on both consoles at the same time.

[Eyeco]

NG2 was extremley linear to NG1 that was my biggest problem with the game, everything else , like the gameplay mechanics was perfect and fine tuned, but the level design was narrow and monotonous also enemies were extremley cheap, a term that doesn't stand next to Ninja Gaiden

[Serjikal_Strike]

The article made good points...

[BLACKBOIJONES]

I think NG2 was a good game and it did not suck.

[The EDGE]

hopefully they improve the over all look of the game. it has potential

[hot111]

NG2 didn't suck,on 360
It was a little rushed,but fine otherwise.

[despair]

I like how you plugged 360 in there lol. But yea it was fine but nothing too amazing and that's the problem as the first one was just incredible, I actually bought an Xbox for Ninja Gaiden and Jade Empire. Part 2 was meh at best and this is from a huge NG fan.

[gorebago]

NG2 sigma was a vast improvement of the xbox 360 version which was already a pretty good game.

[kaveti6616]

Except for the toning down of the gore, yeah.

[gorebago]

True. I picked it up for $20 bucks at gamestop not too long ago so I wasn't too upset.

The original was pretty gratuitous with the blood which I liked especially with the Wolverine claws.

I think I'm going to go play this game now -)

[hot111]

Sigma was gimped by Hayashi,easier also
Don't like him one bit,have little hope for NG3:(

[gamingdroid]

I greatly preferred the original NG2, the way Itagaki made it rather than what Hayashi did. Beyond the graphics, nothing about the game improved.

Instead he added a bunch of stuff that reduced the game:

- removed blood
- timing of the button inputs changed
- pacing of the game changed
- added a gun, wtf?
- removed projectiles

The only thing I thought was a great addition was the co-op, and the jiggly boob sixxaxis on NGS2. Beyond that, I still play NG2 on my Xbox 360.

Some people take issue with the offscreen enemis, but generally speaking I find that moving around at all times definitely mitigates that. If you just stand there like most other games, you will get your ass whopped.

Personally, I love NG2 and it is my favorite game this generation next to Mass Effect and maybe Gears of War.

[GSpartan777]

Suck isn't the right word, but it have some things that should be worked on in the third game. First one is the camera. Sometimes I found myself not being able to see Ryu and enemies that were attacking me.

The ridiculous damage scaling in my opinion, should go. Especially when you have enemies that auto-lockon exploding kunai, projectiles, grabs and also unblockable attacks. I know that they want to make this game challenging, but frustrating =/= the right way to make a game challenging. Good balance is.

The problem I also had with Ninja Gaiden was that they throw a number of enemies on you that when you are busy comboing one, another hits you and as Ryu flinches, they all combo onto you and you are unable to respond to that till you are throw to the ground.

Boss battles feel too much of the same. You are in a closed circular area and you just have to dodge, attack, dodge attack. Nothing interesting. Enemies were overall uninteresting.

Give us check points. Honestly, it's not fun to go through the same linear path again because one enemy hit took 1/3 of your life. Make the stages less linear. I know they are trying to keep the traditional NG feeling, but there has to be a better way to do it.

Less useless combo's, more interesting abilities with the weapons.

[Blues Cowboy]

To coin a phrase: "+1"

Team Ninja have their work cut out, especially as far as balance is concerned. They also need to deliver an experience with all the bells and whistles that we're used to (checkpoints etc)- possibly with a hardcore mode for the purists?

[jetlian]

play gow then. if you blindly attack a foe and think his friends should wait your playing the wrong game. the boss battles are the same in every game

[dorron]

Ninja Gaiden II was great for me...it ain't nothing wrong about it.

[Led-Zeppelin]

Would be cool if you can actually sneak around stealthily like a real ninja.

[Fallouts]

ninja gaiden 2 was great. time for a better block/counter system and a better camera too though, i dont care if they take the same camera from gow3 actually i would like that...

better graphics, tighter game play, and co-op on AND OFFLINE for the story and arenas.. i just dont understand this gen with games like this, gow3, dantes inferno etc. why dont they ever add co-op/2 player to them on and offline.

edit

Give us check points. Honestly, it's not fun to go through the same linear path again because one enemy hit took 1/3 of your life. Make the stages less linear. I know they are trying to keep the traditional NG feeling, but there has to be a better way to do it.

yes genoz! i forgot about that problem..

[Godmars290]

One thing I can't help but notice is that several times the the author criticizes swapping color palettes on monsters and cheap hits in NG2, asks that more traditional enemies like ninjas, except that ninjas in NG1 where mostly just different colors. Cheap hits especially the ones who threw exploding shuriken.

Also can't help but note all these and other issues happened while Itagaki was the chief dev.

They want to do something different, they could start with a guard/catch move. Have enemy ninja using more than swords/blades.