Ninja Gaiden II

I just beat it on Path of the Warrior. My save game time was 15 hours and total playing time 24 hours over a span of 3 days. Just for comparison sake, it took me 24 hours over two days to beat Ninja Gaiden Black.

First, let's address the difficulty. You know how Tomonobu Itagaki was saying that Ninja Gaiden II will be more accessible (read "easier") than its predecessors? It's a joke. It must be an inside joke for Team Ninja. I don't remember being beat down this badly in Ninja Gaiden Black and I didn't even know how to play properly back then (instant charge ultimate technique, what's that??), I'm supposed to be a seasoned veteran now!

So, what do I think of the game? It's the most frustrating and most satisfying game I have ever played.

Well, "frustrating" might be the wrong word. There are a lot of mechanisms in place to make it less frustrating than it's predecessors. Here's a nifty list.

• You regen health after you kill all the enemies in your immediate vicinity.
• There are many more save points.
• Save points fully regen your health.
• If you die on a boss, you start right on that boss instead of the last save point.
• If you die at the beginning of a new level, you start on the new level instead of the last save point.

So maybe I just mean "brutally difficult" instead of "frustrating", although the game does take quite a few cheap shots at you so there is some level of frustration baked in still. I suspect they use all the health regening as an excuse to make the fights more difficult.

The game is massively satisfying on multiple levels. First off, because it's so difficult, it's satisfying just to move forward and make progress. You really feel like you've accomplished something.

Second, the combat is truly amazing. The depth and the precision of the fighting system is unrivaled in this genre. There is no room for button mashing in this game. All the aspects of a dedicated fighting game are present:

• light and heavy attacks
• combos (including air combos)
• throws
• blocking
• dodging
• counters (like in Dead or Alive)
• super moves (called ultimate techniques)

They even added a little something extra that they call "obliteration techniques" which are stylish (cool camera zooming and angles) finishing moves on wounded enemies.

Third, the animation is spectacular. The moves are so crazy over the top (without being cheesy) that you never get bored with them. It also helps that there are so many of them. Each weapon has tons of moves, combos, ultimate techniques and obliteration techniques. What's even cooler is that the obliteration techniques differ according to what limb the enemy is missing, your orientation to them, and even the environment sometimes.

Lastly, it's disgustingly violent. Remember playing games back in the day and wondering, "I'm hitting this guy with a massive sword, why aren't his limbs coming off?" Problem solved. Any combination of the following can happen:

• left arm sliced off
• right arm sliced off
• left leg chopped off
• right leg chopped off
• head decapitated
• head smashed into goo
• body cleaved in half
• upper torso smashed into guts

Sometimes after a good combo, your enemy will just be arms, legs, half a body, and a rolling head on the ground. It's awesome.

So what's bad about the game?

• Really bad framerate issues sometimes.
• Camera can be frustrating at times.
• Story feels like an unnecessary vehicle to get to the action.
• Prerendered CG cutscenes feel dated.
• Graphics are not ahead of their time (like its predecessors' were)

But who really cares about that? It's all about the fighting and stylish violence!

Final thoughts... the rational side of me wants to give it 3 out of 4 stars because of the technical issues and absurd difficulty, but it's just too damn fun and entertaining. 4 out of 4 stars!

These pictures really don't do it justice. You need to see it on a high def tv at full 60 frames per second. It actually looks nothing like these pictures (where are the weapon tracers??)