Ninja Gaiden has never been about it’s story, it always has and always will be about chopping off as many limbs as possible in the time it takes you to say “decapitation”, so it will come as a surprise to no-one that the much anticipated sequel sticks to the same principles, after all if it isn’t broken why fix it?
One of first things that you will notice if you have ever played any of the previous games is that the game is no longer set at a very high difficulty, sure even the lowest level is quite testing, but not nearly as difficult as it used to be (although the same can’t be said for the higher difficulty levels). This change is certainly a good thing for those who are new to the game and it may even encourage those who didn’t feel it was for them to be tempted to try it out.
At the beginning of Ninja Gaiden II you are just in time to witness the lovely Sonia, a CIA operative who is looking for you, being kidnapped, the rest of chapter one is then spent cutting through as many bad guys as possible in order to rescue her, which you eventually mange to do. Of course rescuing Sonia is not the main point of the game, you see the Black Spider ninja clan have got it into their heads that it would be a good idea to resurrect the Archfiend, who where banished deep underground a long time ago. The only way for the Spider’s to free the Archfiend is by getting their hands on the demon statue and the only person who can stop them once they do get their hands on it is Ryu. Well you get the picture.
Anyway, while most of the story will have you wishing you could press start to skip it (you can’t unfortunately), thankfully the action is where Ninja Gaiden shines and it is just as well really. The beginning of the game sees you armed with only two weapons, your shuriken and The Dragon Sword, throughout the game you will also find a staff, talons and tonfa clubs as well as the combination of dragon’s claw and tiger fangs, some exploding shuriken and a bow. When you combine Ryu’s magic with this choice of weaponry you can see that you will have many different ways of dismembering the enemy.
There are many ways to take enemies down, hitting the enemy with a quick attack requires just a push of the X button, whereas a more powerful attack is executed by pressing the Y button, both of these moves will present you with plenty of gore and blood if that is what your heart desires. As well as close combat attacks you can also press B to use projectile weapons such as your shuriken or bow and if you are in a tight situation then pressing the left trigger to block will always be a good idea. Of course there are more advanced techniques to be found in the game such as counter attacking and the crucial obliteration technique, but I don’t want to spoil the fun you can have learning these.
Gameplay is certainly of a graphic nature, limbs seem to be made of paper mache such is their tendency to fall off with a swipe of Ryu’s blade and blood seems to be the decor of the month in each of the 14 chapters. One of the interesting things about this game is that even when enemies have no legs, they will still try to kill you by crawling towards you, latching on and then blowing themselves up kamikaze style, this is where using the obliteration technique I briefly mentioned above comes in handy. Speaking of enemies, they certainly provide a challenge, even the minons will have you thinking rather than just button bashing, which is always a good thing. It’s the bosses that provide a real challenge though, using a good number of combos should see you by them but you may find yourself with a few handfulls of hair before this happens.
As well as being full of ninjas determined to stop you, each level has a Blacksmith shop, which allows you to purchase items to restore your health and Ki gauge, as well as giving you the option to upgrade your weapons. Other points of interest throughout levels include a new health station, which allows you to restore health and save the game, which is obviously handy when you have all of those ninjas breathing down your neck.
Graphically the game is a bit of a mixed bag, quite a few times during the game my screen would lock up for at least a second, this happened to me quite a few times, especially when things got heated and I have to say that this is very disappointing, sure it didn’t really take away from the action too much but it just makes you think to yourself “why is this happening”, anyway hopefully a patch will appear to fix this issue. Elsewhere in the presentation department everything is as it should be, the backdrops look pretty impressive as does all the combat. The cutscenes are also well presented, even if they have the unenviable task of trying to tell the story.
If action games are your thing then Ninja Gaiden II certainly won’t disappoint, there are a few issues which should have and need to be ironed out, but overall this is a great game and one that is still very challenging even with the difficulty toned down.
