Ninja Gaiden Black Was The Original Dark Souls

Decades later and this action classic is still hard as nails.

[CrimsonWing69]

Um… what!? They don’t play the same, like at all. If we’re only talking about difficulty then Ninja Gaiden is on a whole other level.

[Sonic1881]

Especially the first game. Even the game on Nintendo in 1988 was hard from what my older brother said 😂

[Popsicle]

@Sonic your brother is correct. Despite so many tries I never beat the 1988 version on the original hardware. I only beat it many years later via emulation with save states. There was a late game jump in a mine with multiple flying bats that would make me fall to my death every time. Since it was “Nintendo” hard and game over meant back to level one, it made it that single jump exceptionally stressful.

I picked up NG for OG Xbox in 2004. It was a very difficult game (which made it really fun for me), but I was able to beat it in a relatively short period of time.

To this day I don’t think I could beat the NES version without save states no matter how hard I tried.

[Soy]

I think they just meant in terms of being known for their extreme difficulty compared to their peers. "Oh, you wanna be tested? Go play Ninja Gaiden Black/Dark Souls!"

[Angyobangyo]

They meant by being unforgiving and hard as nails, not mechanics or genre. When a game tester said to Itagaki that his game was too difficult, he simply decided to make it even more difficult.

[The_Hooligan]

True and the camera angles in NG games could have been much better.

[Popsicle]

The bad camera controls that increased difficulty were not a problem, but a feature when it came to NG. Lol!

[Gamehard]

I think Demon's Souls was the original "Dark Souls" or Kings Field even. Ninja Gaiden is a totally different style of game. And if we're being honest here, it borrowed heavily from Onimusha and Devil May Cry at the time.

[Popsicle]

I had a ton of fun with Onimusha, but if we are discussing difficulty only, Onimusha was a breeze when compared to NG.

[babadivad]

No it wasn't

[jznrpg]

Difficulty of is part of the games but that doesn’t make it like Souls games. Gameplay is much different so no

[Inverno]

Actually… the OG is King's Field. The Souls games aren't about the difficulty and From has pretty much been working on the formula since 1994

[Miacosa]

Incorrect, it was just a difficult action game a la Devil May Cry. Soul like ≠ difficulty.

[Baliw]

Ghost’n’Goblins was the original Dark Souls.

[JunonZanon]

Don't mention that impossible game ever again. :(

[wesnytsfs]

I was disappointed NG 2 Black remake still had that piss poor camera.