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[Robot Pants]

This game has terrible input lag. It's not responsive at all.
Also I really hate Hayashi's idea of enemies and encounters.
Hit them all 50-60 times before they die, coupled with the limited move set you have in this game, it just makes fighting all that more tedious. Also wave after wave of the same enemies before moving onto the next section. Whoever said this was "arena style" was completely right.

Before I thought 3.0 was a bit exaggerated, I would have given it a 5 based on what I saw before playing it.
But having played it, it does so much wrong and so little right, not just for its genre but for videogames in general (its laughable how Hayashi puts this out and says Bayonetta is out-dated), that it is easily a 3.0 game.
Itagaki had a falling out with Tecmo during NG2. I wonder what Hayashi's excuse for this game will be?

 

[Skilletor]

This game is as bad as Ninja Theory action games.


It's garbage.

DoA5, however, is sick as hell. So there's that.

 

[benzy]

ViewtifulJC, go back and play NG2 now. It feels like a fresh and better experience than before. lol

I'll post my impressions later after a few more stages. I'll leave out all the details ViewtifulJC already covered, but he's spot on the money.

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

Well, like I said - I may rent this and DMC HD collection will take care of the rest.

 

[Skilletor]

ViewtifulJC, go back and play NG2 now. It feels like a fresh and better experience than before. lol

I'll post my impressions later after a few more stages. I'll leave out all the details ViewtifulJC already covered, but he's spot on the money.

I agree with everything he said. This game is fucking horrible.

 

[benzy]

I agree with everything he said. This game is fucking horrible.

DOA5 is the only saving grace for Team Ninja Dog now.

The screen tearing in this game, holy shit.

 

[Defunkled]

I miss Itagaki.

 

[Mdk7]

I miss Itagaki.

I think we all do.

 

[ss_lemonade]

Now that more people have played it, reading all these new impressions is giving me the feeling that NG3 is truly a clusterfuck of a mess right now.

If I were Hayashi and saw all these impressions, I really wouldn't how I would defend my game.

 

[DoDonGouki]

HOW does this shitty game deserves a 9/9/9/9 from Famitsu ? How is this possible ?
Are they blind or dumb or getting a bag of money from Tecmo?

I played the first level of this thing......and its heart breaking ;(

Game starts -> QTE (you can die here, lol)

When you actually play its like button mashing with camera shaking left and right. You can not concentrate on one enemy, Ryu flips from one enemy to another - you have no control.
I will not go into detail ( ViewtifulJC explained it wonderful already) but in essence all the good things from NG1 and 2 are gone, completely.

IGN was right, its really that horrible !

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

My copy will be arriving tomorrow. From the recent impressions I feel like I've made a huge mistake :/ Was hoping to at least have some fun despite the issues. Anyone played the ps3 version? Hows that for screen tearing\ framerate?

 

[Darkmakaimura]

So what is the plot to this game? From what I read it's

Spoiler

alchemy group kidnaps girl to try and make her into a goddess. Which of course as of so far seems to have nothing to do with Vigoor and the Fiends or whatever like the previous titles! They just added Obaba in there for shits and giggles?

 

[ViewtifulJC]

The best strategy for boss fights is just mash the square button. There's no other weapons, no real patterns to learn, no items/sub-weapons to manage and utilize correctly, no health bar to determine what attacks and combos are most effective, fucking NOTHING. Just mashing square and dodging. That is the full extent of the strategy and depth to this ENTIRE GAME. Mashing square and dodging. Then you walk forward after that grueling battle of monotonous combat, knowing that the only thing on offer in this game is more and more terrible combat.

Outside of more and more and more square-button mashing, there's about a half a dozen QTEs the game repeats in every single level. Ya know, mix things up a little! Jump off a ledge, kunai climb, rope climb, ARRRGH MY ARM slow walk down corridor, and slide. You've seen all this by the end of the first level, and five levels(out of 9, I think) its the same thing over and over and over.

The entire game is literally half a dozen different QTEs repeated haphazardly, and shitty combat.

Asura's Wrath is more engaging then NG3, no joke. At least that game's QTEs are FUN and VARIED and VISUALLY INTERESTING, and there's a story with legitimate emotional gravitas to back up its spectacle.

This is the worst game I've played since Duke Nukem Forever.

Wow.

 

[ironcreed]

Damn, some of these impressions makes me want to just drop this down a few slots on my Gamefly Q, lol.

 

[WickedLaharl]

Dayum would you say that it has more variety then a god of war title?

 

[Kai Dracon]

Asura's Wrath is more engaging then NG3, no joke. At least that game's QTEs are FUN and VARIED and VISUALLY INTERESTING, and there's a story with legitimate emotional gravitas to back up its spectacle.

This is the worst game I've played since Duke Nukem Forever.

Wow.

The game that can sell Asura's Wrath. God damn.

 

[Seraphinianus]

The best strategy for boss fights is just mash the square button. There's no other weapons, no real patterns to learn, no items/sub-weapons to manage and utilize correctly, no health bar to determine what attacks and combos are most effective, fucking NOTHING. Just mashing square and dodging. That is the full extent of the strategy and depth to this ENTIRE GAME. Mashing square and dodging. Then you walk forward after that grueling battle of monotonous combat, knowing that the only thing on offer in this game is more and more terrible combat.

Outside of more and more and more square-button mashing, there's about a half a dozen QTEs the game repeats in every single level. Ya know, mix things up a little! Jump off a ledge, kunai climb, rope climb, ARRRGH MY ARM slow walk down corridor, and slide. You've seen all this by the end of the first level, and five levels(out of 9, I think) its the same thing over and over and over.

The entire game is literally half a dozen different QTEs repeated haphazardly, and shitty combat.

Asura's Wrath is more engaging then NG3, no joke. At least that game's QTEs are FUN and VARIED and VISUALLY INTERESTING, and there's a story with legitimate emotional gravitas to back up its spectacle.

This is the worst game I've played since Duke Nukem Forever.

Wow.

did you start on normal or hard

 

[DrDogg]

I see.. so it's a very random thing, meh.
I'm at Day 03, in an area with

Spoiler

dogs, a fuckton of soldiers and a missile launcher up a stair

Man i died like 40 times (and i'm usually pretty good at action games).

If you're still having issues with that...

Spoiler

Slide toward the stairs, ignoring the soldiers/dogs. Attack the turret at the top of the stairs until the soldiers catch up to you. Use an Izuna Drop on the soldiers until the turret is destroyed. Slide back down the stairs and focus on the dogs. Use the Izuna Drop combo (without the last throw) to take them down in a single combo and clear the immediate area when you land.

Play through that section on Master Ninja and it's significantly harder. lol

Seeing most of my worries about the game get confirmed by posters here and even an IGN review, it's pretty disappointing.

To be fair, the IGN review was just a bad review in general. Having played the game more than most people at this point (and being a former gaming journalist - lol), I can see that he was playing on Normal (or maybe even Hero) and didn't spend much time in multiplayer or mission mode. He basically rushed through the game as quickly as possible, then wrote a half-assed review.

It's not Ninja Gaiden anymore, at least not Itagaki's Ninja Gaiden. It can still be difficult for me at times, but this is usually localized at the boss fights, and nothing further. The rest of the game can feel like a Musou hack 'n slash at times, at least for me on Normal.

You're playing on Normal and complaining about difficulty? >_>

The best strategy for boss fights is just mash the square button. There's no other weapons, no real patterns to learn, no items/sub-weapons to manage and utilize correctly, no health bar to determine what attacks and combos are most effective, fucking NOTHING. Just mashing square and dodging. That is the full extent of the strategy and depth to this ENTIRE GAME. Mashing square and dodging. Then you walk forward after that grueling battle of monotonous combat, knowing that the only thing on offer in this game is more and more terrible combat.

A lot of your complaints aren't anywhere near as significant when you play on Master Ninja or Ultimate Ninja. I'm not saying the game suddenly becomes amazing, but I found it to be much more rewarding the higher the difficulty setting.

 

[ezekial45]

The best strategy for boss fights is just mash the square button. There's no other weapons, no real patterns to learn, no items/sub-weapons to manage and utilize correctly, no health bar to determine what attacks and combos are most effective, fucking NOTHING. Just mashing square and dodging. That is the full extent of the strategy and depth to this ENTIRE GAME. Mashing square and dodging. Then you walk forward after that grueling battle of monotonous combat, knowing that the only thing on offer in this game is more and more terrible combat.

Outside of more and more and more square-button mashing, there's about a half a dozen QTEs the game repeats in every single level. Ya know, mix things up a little! Jump off a ledge, kunai climb, rope climb, ARRRGH MY ARM slow walk down corridor, and slide. You've seen all this by the end of the first level, and five levels(out of 9, I think) its the same thing over and over and over.

The entire game is literally half a dozen different QTEs repeated haphazardly, and shitty combat.

Asura's Wrath is more engaging then NG3, no joke. At least that game's QTEs are FUN and VARIED and VISUALLY INTERESTING, and there's a story with legitimate emotional gravitas to back up its spectacle.

This is the worst game I've played since Duke Nukem Forever.

Wow.

I'm sorry to hear this. If my experiences match up with yours, then I'll be very sad for this series.

At least we'll always have NGB.

 

[NoirVisage]

Poor Team Ninja Dog, With no quality control all the new guys good changes will be for naught, i dig the new character designs..i think Devils third will be gabbage when it drops though, Team Ninja without Itagaki is Itagaki without Team Ninja, mark my words.

 

[Tadale]

So I'm playing it. Way too mashy and quick time events are boring.

 

[anonymous12390]

[deleted]

 

[Tadale]

I've definitely found myself skipping cutscenes already.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Dayum would you say that it has more variety then a god of war title?

HELL no. God of War (2 in particular) does all the basic stuff that NG3 fails at:

-You have a limited amount of moves/combos that actually matter ranging from the all too-useful square-square-triangle, to more situational fare like the L1 modifiers.

-There's a variety of magic you can properly manage in combat as well, upgrading with money you earn or find, and the game's encounters are built around the upgrading so there's an even difficulty curve.

-On top of that, there's a Rage of the Titans you can build up and carry with you to other battles, a tool you can preserve for other, tougher encounters instead of losing it at the end of a battle like NG3.

-There's plenty of secrets to find that increase your health, magic, money, or give you fun ways to play the game again. You have an incentive to earn money through chests/kills to upgrade your weapons and magic.

-The boss fights are actually good, with smart visual and audio cues to learn, that require you to use a little brain with the attacks you use(aka don't use the move with the huge start-up time when Perseus does the short stab combo, for example), and satisfying QTE finishes.

-There's a great amount of enemy variety. There are dozens of different enemies in GoW2, with most of them having unique finishes are requiring different usage of skills to beat. "I can air combo this chick with the area of effect shriek, get the blue orbs for magic, ok now I have enough magic to do my big Atlas attacks I maxed out, the grab works wonders on this guy but I can't grab these dudes without breaking their shields" etc. NG3 has like...5 different enemies so far.

-Boring Peageus sections aside, there's a pitch-perfect pacing to the game. There's always a cool vista or a unique puzzle just around the corner in GoW2. Memorable moments that keep the game varied from all the combat, like swinging through the Lowlands, or managing the room of skeletons and dogs while getting in time to push back the ceiling from smashing you, or that big mess of a rocks is a giant monster, or there's a clever puzzle that can net you a lot of money, or dodging giant boulders suspended over lava, or a 2d silhouette battle with the fallen spartan. NG3 has NONE of these clever, unique or fun ideas in its level design. It's literally just walking forward, hours and hours of boring combat, doing one of the same fucking QTEs you did last stage, rinse and repeat.

-GoW2 also doesn't have a close-up QTE when you kill every single fucking person with your sword on the ground(aka the vast majority of the kills you get in this game). At least GoW are mostly optional.

There's enough depth and variety in GoW2 that it keeps me coming back to replay it once a year. It's a phenomenal game.

NG3 is just absolute shit.

did you start on normal or hard

Hard

 

[AAK]

Yikes @ these impressions....

I'm considering returning the game before I open it out of fear of wasting money.

I take back my Hayashi defense earlier in the thread. This does sound like a travesty.

 

[Tain]

Just started this, but I compared the initial battle in Normal and in Hard.

The difference between the two is a joke. I can picture the enemy behavior programmers cracking the fuck up as they make difficulty level clauses that cause the rocket soldiers to have zero accuracy. No doubt in my mind that Normal mode is a joke mod of Hard mode. The T-Rex makes sense now.

I'm still very early in the game, but things aren't looking bad. Not NG2 or NGB good, but I figured that would be the case. There's no point in listening to any opinions from those who have only played Normal.

 

[∀ Narayan]

HOW does this shitty game deserves a 9/9/9/9 from Famitsu ? How is this possible ?

Famitsu has been irrelevant for awhile, FYI.

 

[Brannon]

http://www.twitch.tv/fourwudegaming

Just finished a boss fight and is taking a break. He'll be back in just a moment.

Still ridiculous how the game doesn't distinguish between different types of QTE buttons. That's just a gratuitous oversight.

EDIT: Just ended and will stream later tonight.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Famitsu has been irrelevant for awhile, FYI.

Correction Famitsu has always been god damned crazy. It's just that people stopped assuming they were Word of God just cuz they were Japanese

 

[AcceptableGhost]

To make up for this I will be (attempting) to stream Ninja Gaiden Sigma for an hour.

http://www.justin.tv/mtmbstudios

 

[raven777]

Is DOA5 demo up?

 

[Kayo-kun]

I've been watching some NG3 streams and I believe I've never seen a game with so much screen-tearing. Does Team Ninja Dog know what Vsync is?

 

[louie]

Hmm, was going to get this just for the DoA5 demo, and had assumed that this game would've been at the very least a nice distraction. I guess I'll just wait, bummer.

 

[Tain]

I've been watching some NG3 streams and I believe I've never seen a game with so much screen-tearing. Does Team Ninja Dog know what Vsync is?

You'd prefer input lag and drops to 30fps over screen tearing? Swap-tear is the way to go, here, which is what they seem to be using.

 

[LuCkymoON]

is the online pass and DoA5 demo code the same? I preordered from Amazon and only received the online pass slip.

 

[Kayo-kun]

You'd prefer input lag and drops to 30fps over screen tearing? Swap-tear is the way to go, here, which is what they seem to be using.

I never said that. The previous NG games didn't have this much screen tearing, especially the later NGS and NGS2. It just shows that NG3 was badly optimized. I find it really distracting during the combat parts of the game.

 

[Skilletor]

A lot of your complaints aren't anywhere near as significant when you play on Master Ninja or Ultimate Ninja. I'm not saying the game suddenly becomes amazing, but I found it to be much more rewarding the higher the difficulty setting.

The framerate on hard is atrocious and makes it difficult to play just because it's so unresponsive. I'd hate to see it at higher levels.

I'm fighting the masked man in level 1, one on one, and sometimes when I swing it doesn't target him. Makes it especially difficult since I'm trying to dodge his attacks and immediately strike while he's vulnerable.

Any difficulty in this game is artificial.

 

[Pachinko]

Poor Team Ninja Dog, With no quality control all the new guys good changes will be for naught, i dig the new character designs..i think Devils third will be gabbage when it drops though, Team Ninja without Itagaki is Itagaki without Team Ninja, mark my words.

I don't think it's actually going to come out. At least not as a current gen title. Valhalla is using thq's money to make a bunch of tech demos and keep people employed but in the end they are hoping microsoft will pick it up at a nextbox launch title. In some ways, sadly, I think your theory will come to pass.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Putting aside that I hate the "beat the game and play it again on the harder unlocked difficulty" advice, most of the game's problems have nothing to do with the how easy the combat is. No matter how many hits the bad guys take, no matter how fast you die, it's gonna be the same hour upon of hour of repetitive enemies, with the same shallow Dynasty Warriors combat, the same dumbed down UT/Ninpo/Projectile systems, the same boring QTEs, the same depth and exploration of the level design sapped away, etc. Just now its more frustrating because instead of mashing square for 2 minutes against a shitty boss, you're doing it for five.

 

[SapientWolf]

I don't think it's actually going to come out. At least not as a current gen title. Valhalla is using thq's money to make a bunch of tech demos and keep people employed but in the end they are hoping microsoft will pick it up at a nextbox launch title. In some ways, sadly, I think your theory will come to pass.

I'd bet money that DT will be given a prominent spot during THQ's E3 showing this year. The game has been playable for well over a year. The beta is planned for this year.

 

[MjFrancis]

I beat the game and have been enjoying a few of the trials with some randoms online. There's a little more meat in those than in 90% of the campaign. I couldn't find a single versus match, though. Most people are probably trying to just beat the SP at this point, though, so maybe this weekend it will be more populated. That is, more populated than having no one at all.

Also, my Ryu statue has a broken Dragon Sword. When I pay that kind of money for a CE I expect shit not to be broken the first time I open it up. I'll have to figure some sort of way to bitch about it to Gamestop and recoup the losses. Or something.

 

[yankeehater]

So I have played through the first 2 days. I have been pleasantly surprised so far. I am loving the new slide mechanic. If you hold block and move the left stick Ryu will slide in that direction. If you slide into a blocking enemy it will break that enemies guard. It makes the combat feels really fast and hectic since there are enemies in ever encounter that you have to slide into to break their guard and then launch into a combo while they are staggered. Izuna dropping enemies is just as much fun as it was before. I am really liking some of the new enemies especially the 8bit wizards. If they do a sigma version of this game and add items, weapons, and a shop it could be a really good game. I was really unsure of buying this game but I am glad I did. It is not a good NG game, but it is a fun action game if that makes sense. I read in the IGN review that the guy said you can just button mash through the game but I am playing on hard and that is not the case so far. I have also played a few hours of the mp and I love it. It is so much fun. It is 3 on 3 and it works so well. At the start of every round they give you a contract, it will be something like use steel on bone on an enemie, or kill an enemy with ninpo. As you get kills and complete contracts you earn xp and as you level up you unlock new moves like the izuna drop or better ninpo. I really had no idea what to expect from the mp but I highly recommend that anyone who bought the game try it out.

 

[george_us]

Itagaki had a falling out with Tecmo during NG2. I wonder what Hayashi's excuse for this game will be?

Even NG2 was an amazing game with a few balance issues. This game just sounds wretched from top to bottom. Can't wait to play this when it hits $10.

 

[DarknessTear]

My friend got the Collectors Edition for PS3 but there's no online pass and the DoA5 code doesn't work. Wtf?

 

[Loudninja]

So I have played through the first 2 days. I have been pleasantly surprised so far. I am loving the new slide mechanic. If you hold block and move the left stick Ryu will slide in that direction. If you slide into a blocking enemy it will break that enemies guard. It makes the combat feels really fast and hectic since there are enemies in ever encounter that you have to slide into to break their guard and then launch into a combo while they are staggered. Izuna dropping enemies is just as much fun as it was before. I am really liking some of the new enemies especially the 8bit wizards. If they do a sigma version of this game and add items, weapons, and a shop it could be a really good game. I was really unsure of buying this game but I am glad I did. It is not a good NG game, but it is a fun action game if that makes sense. I read in the IGN review that the guy said you can just button mash through the game but I am playing on hard and that is not the case so far. I have also played a few hours of the mp and I love it. It is so much fun. It is 3 on 3 and it works so well. At the start of every round they give you a contract, it will be something like use steel on bone on an enemie, or kill an enemy with ninpo. As you get kills and complete contracts you earn xp and as you level up you unlock new moves like the izuna drop or better ninpo. I really had no idea what to expect from the mp but I highly recommend that anyone who bought the game try it out.

You tired the co-op yet?No one has talk about that yet.

 

[Tain]

Putting aside that I hate the "beat the game and play it again on the harder unlocked difficulty" advice, most of the game's problems have nothing to do with the how easy the combat is. No matter how many hits the bad guys take, no matter how fast you die, it's gonna be the same hour upon of hour of repetitive enemies, with the same shallow Dynasty Warriors combat, the same dumbed down UT/Ninpo/Projectile systems, the same boring QTEs, the same depth and exploration of the level design sapped away, etc. Just now its more frustrating because instead of mashing square for 2 minutes against a shitty boss, you're doing it for five.

Do you know for sure that everything has more HP on the harder difficulty levels, or are you just assuming? Enemies don't seem to have more HP on Hard than on Normal, and the bosses seem to have reasonable amounts of health. The combat has more depth going from Normal to Hard by adding variety to enemy behavior (restoring stripped down behavior, I'd say), so I'd hope that the remaining difficulties continue that trend.

 

[Veelk]

Putting aside that I hate the "beat the game and play it again on the harder unlocked difficulty" advice, most of the game's problems have nothing to do with the how easy the combat is. No matter how many hits the bad guys take, no matter how fast you die, it's gonna be the same hour upon of hour of repetitive enemies, with the same shallow Dynasty Warriors combat, the same dumbed down UT/Ninpo/Projectile systems, the same boring QTEs, the same depth and exploration of the level design sapped away, etc. Just now its more frustrating because instead of mashing square for 2 minutes against a shitty boss, you're doing it for five.

One thing I really loved about NGB and NG2 is that when you upgrade to a higher difficulty, they upgraded the enemies themselves, their placement, and even gave them new moves. I still consider it lazy when a developer does nothing on higher difficulties except lower your health and raise the enemies when NGB played like a new game every time you beat a difficulty.

Is it too much to hope for that they did this in NG3??

 

[ViewtifulJC]

One thing I really loved about NGB and NG2 is that when you upgrade to a higher difficulty, they upgraded the enemies themselves, their placement, and even gave them new moves. I still consider it lazy when a developer does nothing on higher difficulties except lower your health and raise the enemies when NGB played like a new game every time you beat a difficulty.

Is it too much to hope for that they did this in NG3??

I know exactly what you mean(that keeps me from playing most hard modes), and to be fair some of the enemy placements have been upgraded. It's still not very fun to fight them, it's still an incredibly flawed, shallow action game, but yes, the new enemies/placement/moves are in-tact. I started a new game on Normal to verify that, haven't checked the health. Feels like I'm hitting dudes forever.

 

[bob page]

5/10 from Destructoid (by you know who):

http://www.destructoid.com/review-ninja-gaiden-3-224210.phtml

 

[yankeehater]

You tired the co-op yet?No one has talk about that yet.

It isnt up for me yet.