Replaying Ninja Gaiden, the game that's (still) tougher than Dark Souls

OXM UK: "I remember the first time I tried to take on a tightly-knit bunch of Black Spider Ninjas. I remember it because they eviscerated me. These days, Dark Souls has cornered the market in player punishment - but in the era of the original Xbox Ninja Gaiden was the king of cruelty. Tecmo's action title might look like DmC or Bayonetta - but in those games the challenge is all about racking up high scores and making spectacular combos last as long as you can. Ninja Gaiden, by contrast, was all about trying to survive."

[Godmars290]

For different reasons. Yes any single encounter can kill you, but Ninja Gaiden is strictly an arcade experience. Whereas Dark Souls is all exploration with some roleplaying.

[mattdillahunty]

i've played every NES and 3D Ninja Gaiden game, and i've beaten them all. i've also beaten Ninja Gaiden Black, Ninja Gaiden 2, Ninja Gaiden Sigma and Sigma 2 all on Master Ninja Difficulty.

on top of that i've beaten both Demon's and Dark Souls many times each.

with that said, you're right, they're different games and aren't done justice with a direct comparison. i have always said, however, and i still stand by it, that the Souls games are not naturally difficult, they are just punishing.

if you are not patient in a Souls game, you can die and lose the past hour of progress that you've made. if you are not observant in Dark Souls, you can get hit by a boulder rolling down stairs. if you are not thorough and skip past sections without checking every nook and cranny, you can be ambushed by an enemy (or multiple enemies) and die, once again losing progress. none of these things equate to difficulty, though. is it hard to kill most enemies in Souls games? no, not really. is it hard to figure out how to beat most bosses in Souls games? again, no. most enemies have slow and very obvious movesets, and they just require the tap of the dodge button or holding block. that's it. then you attack. there's no difficult tells to learn, no complex combos or pristine timing to master. you just exercise patience and attack when it's your turn.

now, i do want to follow that up by saying that the Souls games are amazing and beacons of excellence for this generation, because they show that not every game has to hold your hand and pat you on the head when you die. they punish you, and they're not shy about it. the games are well designed in many aspects, and i hope From Software continues churning them out at a high standard.

with Ninja Gaiden, though...you have to learn combos, timing, enemy tells, each weapons' strengths and weaknesses, boss battles, dodging, overall movement on the battlefield...there's just so much to learn, so much to master, so much to practice. if you want to master the game, it takes an incredible amount of practice, patience, study, and most importantly...skill.

if you watch a master Ninja Gaiden player in action, you can tell they're a master. they're going to be doing things you simply can't if you haven't put the time in. if you watch someone who's spent hundreds of hours on a Souls game, though...they're going to be doing mostly the same things that a person who's only beaten the game once will do. with the exception of a few tips and tricks the more experienced player might have picked up along the way.

for the record, this is me in action in a Ninja Gaiden game, just as proof that i do know what i'm talking about (i'm jthamind). lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[kewlkat007]

@mattdillahunty - Great Post

[DestinyHeroDoomlord]

I still get hit by that damn boulder...

[NegativeCreepWA]

This only true if you play the first one that was on the original XBox, you had no option for a easy mode. The rest were casualized.

[admiralvic]

Not like Ninja Gaiden on easy was a super easy game. You still had to dodge, play smart and plan ahead, except you were allowed a mistake or two.

[Gamesgbkiller]

Ninja Gaiden is very tough in the beginning.

But not compared to dark souls.

[admiralvic]

Maybe on easy, but play it on Ninja Master and you'll be fighting enemies you see in the last chapter of Ninja Gaiden at the start. Bunch of explosive kunai and arrows coming at you.

[Gamesgbkiller]

Of course on Ninja Master is going to be HELL.

But imagine if there is the same with Dark souls.

were you can change the difficulty even HIGHER!

[admiralvic]

Yes, but that would COMPLETELY ruin the thing people love with the Souls games... The game is designed to be punishing, but also quite fair, so if you know what you're doing, then it's a lot harder to die. This is not true of Ninja Gaiden, since there were people that got completely owned by the game on normal, which lead to the easy mode being added.

Anyway, most of the difficulty in DS came from not knowing what to expect. Rush into a room? Dead. Go up a staircase? LOOK OUT! BOULDER! Cross the bridge? Dragon's Fire. Adding more enemies is just going to make the game awful, where as increasing their damage really makes no difference.

[fabiani]

dark souls is to fucking slow fo me

[Firan]

They are very different games to compare properly.

[admiralvic]

Yes, but no.

Nothing in Demon / Dark Souls is difficult per se, it's just a game where you're put in a lot of situations where you can fairly easily. Once you learn the what to do and what not to do, the game isn't really that hard. In Ninja Gaiden's case you actually have to learn and adapt to ever changing situations. There also wasn't an auto save, so dying could result in you losing a bit / a lot of progress.

Not saying it's really logical to compare them, but in terms of difficulty NG is on a completely different level.

[Firan]

Yes I agree that Ninja Gaiden is way harder than Souls. I just don't think Souls as a series tries to be brutally hard. They are designed to make the player play carefully and learn from mistakes.

Many Demon Souls players found Dark Souls easier since they were already used to it's game design.

My point being NG's and Souls's difficulty is designed so differently which makes comparison hard. Then again I might be just overthinking.

[wishingW3L]

Souls' games difficulty are vastly overrated. As long as you're patient you can beat it but play any Ninja Gaiden in Master and you'll not even be able to get past the first stage.

[admiralvic]

"Souls' games difficulty are vastly overrated. "

No, it was just an poorly worded explanation of the game. A lot of people at the start wrote it off because it was very challenging (easy to die, lots to learn, etc) and gave up / flamed the game (similar to the low review scores of Spelunker HD). Once people started hearing this, they naturally got curious and it quickly became a "feat" to beat the "infamous" Demon Souls. After people finally started to beat the game, we started to learn it was just a very punishing experience, though the difficulty term stuck around because it's the simplest term and of course makes some people feel like they're far more awesome than they're.

[My_Name_BTW_Is_Dante]

Only casuals think Dark Souls is hard.