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[GrayChild]

So, with the upcoming Ninja Gaiden 4 release in 3 days I decided to make a mini-marathon of sorts with the franchise.

I've previously played Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. I've had Razor's Edge as well, but never got around to play it, mostly due to its poor reputation among the fanbase.

- The game is ugly as hell. Some of the worst texturing I've seen from any AAA title released in the end of the PS3 generation. Every single surface is just a low-res sewage no matter the type. Even Sigma 2 looks almost a generation ahead and that came out what, 3 years before that?

- I do enjoy the slightly darker tone the game starts with. I kinda miss that Japanese edginess that seems to be lost lately. Hopefully 4 rectifies that.

- I really don't like the upgrade system. It feels tacked on and I kinda miss Muramasa's shop from the previous installments.

- Fuck whoever made the Kunai climb sections.

- I expected to hate the QTEs, but they don't seem that intrusive so far.

- The difficulty seems ridiculously cheap at times, and I'm playing on Normal. Now, I'm not the best action game player, far from it, but managed to clear Ninja Gaiden 2 Black on "Warrior" with just 5 or 6 deaths a week ago, even when I wasn't giving my best. Two chapters in, and I'm getting SLAUGHTERED. The first "boss" was ridiculous and I died 5 times only on it. The red hood cunt was downright unfair in his second phase.

Is the game actually much harder than Sigma/Black on hard difficulty even when playing it on normal? Any tips or general impressions from people who finished it?

 

[NeverYouMind]

It is harder in general but mostly because the windows of opportunity for connecting a strike without UT or Steel on Bone at the range of most weapons are tiny. Once you acquire Kusarigama and Scythe it is much easier. Best mechanic is execution switching when you delimb an enemy you can execute an enemy in opposite direction instead. I would recommend killing projectile users ASAP and then delimbing regular mooks to trigger execution on shielded enemies. Biggest challenge of bosses is finding their one point of vulnerability. Frantic movement is usually key to survival.

P.S. There is some dumb air combos to pull off by not finishing Izuna drop and using bow before resuming aerial combo with Ryu.

 

[Aion002]

It's a flawed game, but I really like it.

And yes, the game is extremely unfair. The other NG games are challenging, but they don't feel unfair on normal mode, while this one can feel unfair even on easy.

However, it's worth mentioning that the og NG3 was even more unfair and Razors Edge is a huge upgrade compared to it.

I personally don't think it's worth playing it on the normal difficulty, the easy mode is way more manageable with all the bs the game has and still is quite entertaining.

After finishing the game on any difficulty you can play with Kasumi, which for me makes the game even more fun.

 

[Giallo Corsa]

NG3 RE ?

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Greatly improved over the regular game, the new director basically undid every bad decision hayashi put in there, but it's still the weakest of the three.
The challenge sections are great though, reminded me of the ones that were in ng2

 

[Aldynes]

The combo are amazing but I hate the lack of essence pick up gameplay wise, and the story is trash, Ryu should never speak unless it's after killing a boss to rub the salt

 

[NeverYouMind]

Greatly improved over the regular game, the new director basically undid every bad decision hayashi put in there, but it's still the weakest of the three.
The challenge sections are great though, reminded me of the ones that were in ng2

Skull challenges kinda suck. They put cheapest enemies almost exclusively in the sequential wave right before a boss so you have to almost perfect the boss if you are lucky enough to get that far.

 

[cireza]

I'm getting SLAUGHTERED

Good. That's how it is supposed to be. Probably my favorite action game, pure bliss. I like to start the game from zero again, and do all the skull challenges in the process without being upgraded. That's a real challenge.

 

[WilyRook]

Good. That's how it is supposed to be. Probably my favorite action game, pure bliss. I like to start the game from zero again, and do all the skull challenges in the process without being upgraded. That's a real challenge.

How do you fight the mage guys, or the alchemists or whatever they're called? I find them unbearably frustrating and always feel like I'm doing something wrong when fighting them.

 

[cireza]

How do you fight the mage guys, or the alchemists or whatever they're called? I find them unbearably frustrating and always feel like I'm doing something wrong when fighting them.

I use charged attacks a lot. You can hold a button to accumulate a "red effect" and then release to make automatic attacks that kill anything close. You should rely a lot on this and hold the button at the end of a combo to accumulate as soon as possible.

Of course if an enemy is going to attack you have to cancel and evade. Then it is back to good old combos, but never be greedy, as you will rarely land a very long combo.

You can also evade a red attack from an enemy and automatically counter to kill them instantly.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

They put cheapest enemies almost exclusively in the sequential wave right before a boss so you have to almost perfect the boss if you are lucky enough to get that far.

Just on-land UT your way to victory like in NG2

 

[NeverYouMind]

Good. That's how it is supposed to be. Probably my favorite action game, pure bliss. I like to start the game from zero again, and do all the skull challenges in the process without being upgraded. That's a real challenge.

No cicada surge, no counter, and no flying swallow...

 

[WilyRook]

I use charged attacks a lot. You can hold a button to accumulate a "red effect" and then release to make automatic attacks that kill anything close. You should rely a lot on this and hold the button at the end of a combo to accumulate as soon as possible.

Of course if an enemy is going to attack you have to cancel and evade. Then it is back to good old combos, but never be greedy, as you will rarely land a very long combo.

You can also evade a red attack from an enemy and automatically counter to kill them instantly.

Ok so it really just is spam the charged attack. I guess I'm disappointed that you can't really be aggressive with them, they slow the pace down too much for me. Thanks, though, at least the red-mist countering is fun

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I guess I'm disappointed that you can't really be aggressive with them, they slow the pace down too much for me.

As I mentioned above: on-land UT.
You basically press the button right before landing, this speeds up charging massively; if you hold block you won't absorb essence either so you can just spam UTs over and over by hold block > jump > charge.

 

[NeverYouMind]

Just on-land UT your way to victory like in NG2

The problem is the wave before boss with enemies that dart out of UT range and use homing attack in the middle of charging. Even then most of the challenge is a slog when you just want to take a swing at a boss like Doku.

 

[Celcius]

I feel like one of the few who enjoyed the game

 

[WilyRook]

As I mentioned above: on-land UT.
You basically press the button right before landing, this speeds up charging massively; if you hold block you won't absorb essence either so you can just spam UTs over and over by hold block > jump > charge.

I know, I just don't like to HAVE to rely on that all the time for these guys.

 

[Arsic]

I can't even be bothered to fuck with master ninja on this. The enemies have insane health pools and the combination of shit it throws at you is brutal.

If you don't master steel on bone you're fucked.

That said on normal this game was a blast. Some really stupid bosses, and it felt in a lot of ways like a platinum action game.

Overall a 7/10, but worth playing if you like the franchise.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

I can't even be bothered to fuck with master ninja on this. The enemies have insane health pools and the combination of shit it throws at you is brutal.

If you don't master steel on bone you're fucked.

That said on normal this game was a blast. Some really stupid bosses, and it felt in a lot of ways like a platinum action game.

Overall a 7/10, but worth playing if you like the franchise.

If I remember correctly there was a difficulty called Ultimate Ninja which was much worst than Master Ninja imo. Endless waves of super aggressive enemies that keep coming out with tons of health points and high damage combos over and over again in each section of the stage.

I finished both NG3 and NG3: RE multiple times and I don't even remember if I made it off the first stage or not before I just gave up on Ultimate Ninja in NG3: RE. It was beyond insane.

 

[Arsic]

If I remember correctly there was a difficulty called Ultimate Ninja which was much worst than Master Ninja imo. Endless waves of super aggressive enemies that keep coming out with tons of health points and high damage combos over and over again in each section of the stage.

I finished both NG3 and NG3: RE multiple times and I don't even remember if I made it off the first stage or not before I just gave up on Ultimate Ninja in NG3: RE. It was beyond insane.

Bingo.

The first 2 waves of enemies is so overturned it makes NG1&2 look like kids games.

The only way to kill stuff is steel on bone or whatever it's called.

 

[Pasta la Vista]

Weird, I dont remember this game being difficult at all, at least compared to the previous two games.

 

[Arsic]

Weird, I dont remember this game being difficult at all, at least compared to the previous two games.

On normal it's cake.

 

[GrayChild]

Whoever designed the alchemists, shouldn't design any enemies in a video game.... or anything related to gaming on that matter.

So frustrating, man....

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Whoever designed the alchemists, shouldn't design any enemies in a video game.... or anything related to gaming on that matter.

So frustrating, man....

I believe the staff is better against them than the sword.

 

[digimaster7]

I can complete NG2 on very hard no problem. I've completed NGS1 like 7 times and even beating doku to instantly unlock the very hard difficulty

but for some reason NG3 is giving me a lot of trouble even in normal difficulty… my biggest problem is you can't heal and your healthbar got permanently shortened. still a fun game but not the one I'll be replaying constantly

 

[Arsic]

I can complete NG2 on very hard no problem. I've completed NGS1 like 7 times and even beating doku to instantly unlock the very hard difficulty

but for some reason NG3 is giving me a lot of trouble even in normal difficulty… my biggest problem is you can't heal and your healthbar got permanently shortened. still a fun game but not the one I'll be replaying constantly

If you master steel on bone you'll cruise.

It revolves entirely around that one mechanic.

 

[Giallo Corsa]

Whoever designed the alchemists, shouldn't design any enemies in a video game.... or anything related to gaming on that matter.

So frustrating, man....

Out of all the shit the game does badly, the alchemists are literally the worst.
Cube shield/barrier which you can only break with charge attacks while having 2 other of these fuckers zipping across the screen like ninjas AND trying to avoid their flying cube projectiles at the same time.

It's not fun, it's not hard, it's just tedious since you can't kill them quickly, it's a battle of attrition every time you encounter them on higher difficulties and it just sucks out all the fun.

I said before but, I'll take the NG2 Incendiary shuriken off-screen spamming ninjas AND the teleporting wizards on Master Ninja at the same time over this shit any day of the week.

They're the reasons why I'll never revisit this game again - that. and the friggin' guest character levels, they sucked in Sigma 2, they sucked in this one too.

It's Just shit design

 

[GrayChild]

I'm right at the end of day 3 and I'm not sure if I want to continue.

The game is completely oblivious to what makes a genuine challenge and unlike the previous two, it just.... isn't fun to actually play. The dinosaur boss is some next-level idiocy. And it's almost infuriating how you can actually soft-lock yourself or at least make the game much harder if you enter the arena with depleted health bar after some of the previous battles.

NGL, at times it feels the game is actually making this out of pure spite. I can actually hear Yasuda and Hayashi mocking the players with "oh, NG3 vanilla was too easy and streamlined. TAKE THIS THEN! What, you're not happy? Didn't you want the game to be HARD? What's the matter?"

Hopefully NG4 will be free of this bullshit, as it's barely tolerable.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

I played the first version... Repetitive to the point of exhaustion... You face a boss... Like 3 or 4 times...

It doesn't have good obliteration mechanics.

Enemies that keep repeating.

What I do like is the bullet-time effect of the bow when aiming.

Weapons I love like Lunar or kusarigama feel like a downgrade.

And the story is just okay. It's the only Ninja Gaiden game I ever bothered to finish, not because it was difficult... But because it was so tedious.

 

[Punished Miku]

NG3: Japanese Hamburger
NG3RE: Japanese Hamburger with cheese

 

[Giallo Corsa]

In retrospect, it's pretty funny that my first post in this thread was a meme.
After getting the Master Ninja Collection and putting another solid 30+ hours into the game, I can now say that Razor's Edge is not only NOT the worst Ninja Gaiden (that unfortunate title goes to NG4) but that it's actually good -
not as good as the god-tier NG Black or the very good OG NG2, but when everything clicks, it clicks very hard.

Yes, the CoD-ified, military-inspired grey-and-brown, desaturated aesthetics of that cursed Xbox 360 era (Ace Combat: Assault Horizon suffered from the same disease) are a real sore point. The general visuals are ugly, the level design is super mediocre, and the textures are low quality almost everywhere.
But the combat man... it really, really shines once you understand that they were going for something different this time.
The Steel on Bone system, paired with the hyper-kinetic enemy behavior, fundamentally changes the flow compared to previous games.
Add to that the weapons they brought back (I genuinely don't know what they were thinking with the original version), and the game finally starts to feel like a true Ninja Gaiden again.
Once you begin chaining SoB into Izuna Drops and on-land UTs, the combat opens up beautifully.
From a pure combat and action standpoint, it actually comes very close to NG2 when you know what you're doing.
Yes, the story is trash (like all NG games, let's be honest). Yes, the aesthetics are ugly but these games live and die by their combat, and in this case, Razor's Edge excels.

Vanilla NG3 was a 5–6/10 at best. NG3: Razor's Edge, once you learn how to deal with the bullshit (alchemists, slithering enemies, etc.), is an honest 7–7.5/10 with great replay value.
My only real con - and maybe this was also present in the original release - is the noticeable input lag. I'm not sure whether it was introduced with the Master Collection or not, but it is there.