The original Ninja Gaiden for the NES was the second console game I ever played. A friend of mine had it and a few times a week I’d go over to his house and we’d play all night, trading the controller back and forth as our hands got tired. We were deliriously happy if we managed to beat one new level in four hours of playing - it was that hard. You did it flawlessly, or you died and tried again.

A lot of older games were like that. It was a very Japanese sort of idea: the more challenging an obstacle, the more satisfying the victory. As the American market become more and more important, games started becoming easier. I guess we have a lower tolerance for brutal opposition.

When Team Ninja decided to resurrect the Ninja Gaiden franchise, they decided to go back to that old school approach to gameplay. I can appreciate this. When I first started playing the Xbox NG1, I was astonished when some random schmoe ninjas on the second level handed me my ass on a platter. The genius of Team Ninja though is that the enemies in NG1 are never cheesy. They don’t cheat, they’re just fast, aggressive, and smart, and if you’re faster, more aggressive, and smarter, then you prevail. It’s a simple kind of idea and the results are very addictive.

NG1 packed some fairly generic story, exploration, and platforming elements around this sweet caramel center and called it a game, and it worked out pretty well. It didn’t do exploration and puzzles as well as the Onimusha series does, but the combat was so much more addictive that we didn’t mind.

Even still, NG1 had some pretty obvious problems. The controls were very twitchy, which is great for lightning-fast combat, not so much for precision platforming. It was really easy to jump at an angle instead of straight ahead, and the game frequently had a hard time recognizing whether you wanted to run UP a wall or ALONG it.

Even worse though, NG1 had the worst camera I’ve ever seen in a 3D game. It somehow always managed to be pointing the wrong direction, so you’d get a wonderful view past your character of an empty hallway while the enemies coming from behind the camera proceeded to turn you into fillet-of-ninja.

Still, technology has improved a bit, and Team Ninja had nailed the combat aspects of the game down so tightly, that I had high hopes that NG2 would focus on correcting these problems and generate the best action game the world has ever seen.

That is not what happened.

NG2 still has 3D gaming’s worst camera. Honestly, it really does almost ruin the experience. How am I supposed to fight these ruthlessly skillful enemies if I can’t see them because the camera is constantly pointing where I’ve just been? In truth, I can see exactly what they’ve done. Team Ninja has designed a camera that focuses exclusively on giving you the best possible view of the brutal assault you’re delivering on the enemy in front of you. Unfortunately, this means that you can’t see ANYTHING ELSE. You can’t see the other enemies, so you can’t dodge their attacks, you can’t chain combos from enemy to enemy unless you just get lucky, and generally you spend a lot of time fighting with the right thumbstick to try and keep an eye on what’s going on. Left to its own, the camera will spend most of its time pointing AWAY from your enemies.

Rating:

Playtime: 15 hours

Replay Value: High

Favorite Weapon: Lunar Staff

Favorite Level: Chapter 7 - Air Fortress.

But it gets worse. Not only has NG2 not fixed any of the big problems from NG1, they’ve dumbed a lot of stuff down too. NG2 has some of the most linear level design I’ve seen on a 360 title. They’ve removed the map functionality from NG1 because you don’t need it. There’s one path, that’s where you can go. There are still hidden things tucked away in corners like life upgrades, but they’re pathetically easy to find by comparison even to NG1, and any life upgrades you don’t find, you can just buy from the shop on the next level.

They’ve made other aspects of the game easier too. ‘Money’, in the form of yellow soul orbs, comes much faster than in previous games. I had no trouble at all upgrading new weapons to their max level almost as soon as I got them. Most of the damage you’ve taken during a fight regenerates as soon as the fight is over, so you only need health regeneration items and blue soul orbs to stave off immediate death in combat, or top off the stuff that didn’t regenerate. Unlike NG1, health upgrade items refill your life to the top, and you can carry them as long as you want, so they’re a free full heal during boss fights.

The combat is still amazing. It’s not just the depth of the move lists and how fast and powerful the moves are. The sound effects for combat are superbly done, giving a real sense of impact when things connect. There is a broader array of weapons this time around, each with their own very distinct character and strengths. If you can manage to keep things moving, you can roll up some spectacularly long combo attacks. Even better, it’s precision timing and accuracy that reward you the most. Any enemy will go down under a continuous barrage of blows, but skilled players can demolish their foes in moments with just a few carefully chosen attacks. I LIKE this. There are moments in the game where things come together, where I can flow from enemy to enemy leaving a trail of severed limbs and headless torsos behind me. This is nothing less than pure gaming nirvana.

But it never lasts. The camera always intervenes to hide my foes, the tedious level design saps my desire to press on into the level, and at the end I just get bored. Even with its flaws, NG1 managed to captivate me all the way to the end of the game. I’m about halfway through NG2 at this point, and I don’t think I’ll go much further. I just can’t be bothered.