Ninja Gaiden 2 - Video Games

Ninja Gaiden 2 is the true sequel and first next-gen installment to the critically acclaimed series. This game features the return of Ryu Hayabusa as he travels the world and kills a ton of monsters and bad guys along the way. The core gameplay remains largely unchanged from the first 3D Ninja Gaiden with a punishing difficulty, fast action, and an unparalleled variety of killing moves. Most changes in the game are an enhancement and amplification of previous designs, moves are more brutal, the action is substantially faster, the game is gorier, and the harder difficulty is even harder.

Pros & Cons
Pros:

•Super fast action
•Obliteration techniques are very satisfying
•Great level progression, no backtracking
•Unrelenting enemies force you to come up with innovative techniques and strategies
•Large variety in weapons

Cons:

•Unpolished experience
•Big slowdown in some specific instances
•Enemies can be TOO aggressive
•Still too difficult for casual players
•Still has camera problems

More information

Story

Ninja Gaiden's story is largely uninspired and quite silly, intentional or not. This time around the Black Spider Clan is attempting to ressurect the "arch fiend" to take over or destroy the world, and only Ryu can stop them. The story is told through a combination of in-game cutscenes and full motion cinematics, and works largely as a little filler to drive Ryu from one slaughterfest to the next.

Gameplay

The first 3D Ninja Gaiden game gained notoriety for the huge move-list and brutal action. In NG2 Ryu has 7 melee weapons available to him, each with one or two level of upgrades and a move-set with dozens of combinations. There are also 4 projectile weapons, including the popular boomerang shuriken, and the return of the ninpo (magic) arts for clearing rooms of enemies.

One of the bigger changes to the game is the introduction of cutting off limbs. From the surface this appears to be a more cosmetic change, but in the higher levels of play and difficulty the severed limbs and accompanying obliteration techniques become very important.

Another significant change comes in the way you can change your weapons and use items. The previous games required you to enter a menu screen and select your items from there, now you can select items just by using the d-pad which is a more streamlined process.