How hard do YOU like it?
There’s long been an argument that the entire concept of videogames being difficult and involving numerous player deaths are an antiquated hangover from the days before home videogaming, when games were designed specifically to tan your arse as fast as possible, thereby maximising their intake of 10p pieces.
Games should be about the experience they say - you’ve paid for it, so why shouldn’t you be able to have the entire experience regardless of your level of skill?
They have a point, but there should always be a place for games that are hard. Hard, but perfectly designed, perfectly balanced and perfectly fair. Games like Halo 3 (on Legendary at least), like Viewtiful Joe, and like the original Xbox Ninja Gaiden, which was a big favourite of mine four years back. These games force you to learn, to adapt, and essentially make you a better gamer than you were before you played. They were rewarding.
there should always be a place for games that are hard
To some extent, that ethos has been carried through to the second title in the Ninja Gaiden series, as you battle huge numbers of demons, ninjas, demon-ninjas and various vicious beasties. With each new type of enemy comes a new challenge, one that can usually be overcome with some observation, some patience, a dash of skill and a girt big sword.
However, Ninja Gaiden II doesn’t quite get it spot on like its forebear did - occasionally forgetting that it can be as hard as it pleases, but only as long as it’s fair. It cheats, it gives you unreachable enemies who pepper you with firebombs, it respawns enemies right inside your personal bubble, it even gives you a boss who explodes when it dies…killing you.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Put up with some of its more annoying design-flaws however and Ninja Gaiden II has an incredible amount to offer, most notably a brilliantly deep and fluid combat system, which is even deeper when you take into account the numerous melee weapons that are available as you progress, such as bladed nunchucks, Wolverine-style claws, bladed chains and a horrific scythe-style thing. Each new weapon changes the fighting style, opening up new ways to chop your opponents into wobbling lumps of red mess.
chop your opponents into wobbling lumps of red mess
Oh yes, it’s been a while since we’ve seen anything this gory – heads, limbs, chunks of flesh and fountains of blood bounce, skid, slide and spurt across the environment as you lay everything in your path to waste (they deserve it, honest...) in some of the smoothest and most-stylish action gaming has yet seen.
It’s also a bit of a graphical powerhouse. It’s not necessarily ahead of practically everything else on the market, as Ninja Gaiden on Xbox was at the time, but this is still a hugely impressive tour-de-force for the 360 with a huge array of gorgeous locales to fight through and hugely detailed, brilliantly animated characters throughout.
So, while not the apex of beautifully tough-as-nails ninjaness that its forebear was, Ninja Gaiden II can still claim to be a worthy action-game. Just don’t bother playing it through on Hard – if it’s not going to play fair there’s just no point. View it as an action-rammed adventure with a variety of incredible things to see and kill, and Ninja Gaiden II won’t disappoint. View it as a test of your purest, most zen gaming skills, and the disc will probably explode and blow your hands off when you open the box.
GAME's Verdict
- Team Ninja's usual graphical lavishness.
- A huge array of things to kill.
- Action gaming at its most violent.
- The challenge is no longer balanced and fair.
- Storyline leaves a little to be desired.
- The in-game camera leaves a lot to be desired.
Review by: Jonny Austin
Review Published: 06.06.08