Customer Reviews for Ninja Gaiden II (Platinum Hits)

Ninja Gaiden II (Platinum Hits)
by Tecmo/Team Ninja

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Video Game Reviews of Ninja Gaiden II (Platinum Hits)

Customer Review: good game, faulty disc
Summary: 4 Stars

good game, except I think I had a faulty disc, because it kept freezing on me at a certain spot in the game and only on the path of the warrior

Customer Review: 3.5; it ain't easy being a ninja
Summary: 3 Stars

As I was in the store, mind deadest on buying "Ninja Gaiden II" for the Xbox 360, a question ran through my head: "am I this crazy?" I mean after all, Sigma on the Playstation 3 was frequently frustrating but it was one that you got better at over time. NGII on the other hand I played previously, found it borderline controller-throwing and figured no game is worth this frustration so why am I in the store buying it? It's really the combat system which is arguably, for me anyway, the funnest and most satisfying of the fighting styles, easily besting those in God of War, Devil May Cry, Heavenly Sword or even something like Prince of Persia games. But you know what? That doesn't excuse the poor cheap hits, odd bits of programming and large amount of enemies and this makes this a game that's incredibly hard to love.

Story: There's a cutscene in the game where a werewolf named Volf (Volf the Wolf...lot of thought into that name, no?) declares to his minion werewolves that he wants an adversary worthy of him. That's all you need to know about this story: it's frequently stupid, doesn't make sense and is just a placeholder for the sexy violence. There's some kind of baddie who wants to revive a potentially world-destroying Archfiend and yeah, Ryu's the man to stop everybody's plans.

Graphics: Team Ninja's animators do really great jobs at delivering not only fast combat but having it be as fluid as possible and seeing Ryu jump, dash and slice his way on screen is quite something to watch. Cutscenes look great and certain locales are quite stunning. However there is one thing they still haven't been able to perfect which is the skin on characters. Quite frankly, they look like shiny mannequins and even with Dead or Alive 4 released several years ago, they still haven't fixed this. Oh and we get it Team Ninja: you love bouncy breasts.

Sound/Music: The music's quite dynamic, epic and nicely energetic though not memorable in terms of melodies but it provides an adequate soundtrack at your demon slaying parties while sound effects from roars to swishes of the blade(s) are very good at making the hits and kills that much sweeter. As for voice acting? Keep it on Japanese with English subtitles since the story and the VA becomes a hell of a lot more tolerable. I don't know why it is but even a flatly-delivered line in Japanese sounds cooler than English.

Gameplay: Team Ninja are notoriously in love for difficult games; ones that challenge you and push you to the brink but at a certain point you got to ask yourself: is the game worth it if I'm madder at the game the more and more I play it? That's the crux and indeed the proverbial straw that might make you stop playing this. I find it funny on the back of the game's box is mentions that having the ability for save points to replenish your health or major battles will refill your health bar is helpful to a "casual gamer". Well you know what? Having played all Devil May Cry games, God of War as well as Ninja Gaiden Sigma, I honestly don't get how they think this game will be easy to Ninja Gaiden newbies or veterans since it frequently adds things detrimental to the enjoyment of it all. Enemies throw exploding shurikens with reckless abandon. Enemies with rocket launchers. Giant mechs in addition to enemies with rocket launchers. Then we have all 3 at once and yeah, this game can frequently get unfair. The game was even winning me over with parts that were challenging but not too bad but then boom, one annoyance after another.

And all of this is further enhanced by one of the worst cameras you'll ever be in control of. This camera seems to love the scenery and you more than showing you what you're doing and very frequently I'd have to reposition the camera just to figure out what's going on or who hit me or where that enemy came from. I get that the kill animations wouldn't be as impressive if it was like God of War's camera being your eye-in-the-sky but at least then you could figure out what was going on in the battlefield. Like Tomb Raider games, you'd think with reviews and fans complaining of bad cameras, Team Ninja would go "damn, we should fix that camera problem next game" but apparently not. Game's so difficult even the game does stuff that'll make it easier to kill you faster.

Now the game as I mentioned way above has probably the most visceral and all-around entertaining fighting combat systems around. Sure it's really just LT to block, X for weak, Y for strong like most games but honestly; being able to go all over the screen tearing enemies apart limb by limb has never felt as rewarding as this. Like I said, save points can regenerate you to full health while major battles can heal you fully after they're done (provided you don't have any red sections) and the wealth of weapons make it apparently easy to make it through the game. Also thankfully, Team Ninja toned down the precision-based platforming sections as well as those damned ghost fish though in their place are respawning jelly fish that explode, a boss that explodes and kills you unless you hold block (chapter 7, so I save you the aggravation of replaying him) and an item limit of 3....3! You can only carry 3 of each item and yeah, fun fighting, annoying game design.

I wish Team Ninja didn't make such frustrating and difficult games since they'd make some of the best action games around but alas, if you're going to get into this, make sure you're not the controlling-throwing kind.

Customer Review: So close to perfect and yet so far
Summary: 4 Stars

This is a tough game to rate. On one hand, Ninja Gaiden 2 is the most masterful combat game of its style I've ever seen designed from the standpoint of the action itself. The combat sequences are fast, furious, fluid and fun, and the array of weapons offers players a huge selection of methods to their battle styles.

On the other hand, there are a few nagging flaws to the game that really stop it from being what it could have been. Probably the most prominent of these is the camera; it isn't just not good, it's actively bad. I've died a lot of times after dodging a boss's attack of death to the next swing because the camera decided that the wall I was next to was the most important thing to focus on as the boss standing two feet away split my body down the middle.

This game is quite difficult compared to nearly any other. While that's not a complaint of mine in itself, having beaten the first 2 levels of difficulty and having a blast (mostly), it's the way the difficulty is presented that is often aggravating. To me, the best part about the game is the sword-on-sword combat, but the parts that typically present challenges are parts where 6 or 7 enemies with bazookas or exploding ninja stars or what have you are placed way out of reach and having to deal with all of them. This has kept me from going on to the 3rd difficulty level, not because of the difficulty level inherent to it, but because the challenge is pretty cheap. Melee combat is really the strength of the game and what should have become more difficult as you go.

That said, the Acolyte (first) difficulty level doesn't really have this ranged element much and is quite fun for anyone, and is quite doable with some effort, although bosses will be died to quite a bit while you figure out ways to go about fighting each one (when you die to a boss, you start again right at the boss, so this isn't too big a deal). The second difficulty level I found fun too, but past that, excessive ranged attackers just struck me as irritating.