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Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's dge |OT| I guess that's what it means to be a ninja

Pachinko

Member
I'm definitely getting a certain vibe from this reviews- it's a MUCH better game then the original version was but given that many of these critics hated the first versions(and rightly so from the sounds of things) none of them feel as though there's enough new here to warrant a repeat play through. Reading the actual review helps quite a bit since many of us are so accustomed to looking at the score and moving on when the score is just a number. Gamesradar calls a 2.5/5 "mediocre" that's not bad but not good enough to recommend perhaps unless you really want to play a new entry in the series.

It just seems to me that folks in the same boat that I'm in (that is , they skipped the 360/ps3 version) might get mileage out of Razors edge closer to the more positive IGN review. For those who played through NG3 already (you poor bastards) it's not worth splurging on for 60 bucks.

I'm thinking I'll still pick it up myself, I've got a pretty good idea what I'm in for.
 
Since when did people play Team Ninja games for the story?

Yeah, reviewers griping about the awful story is funny, considering the NES Ninja Gaiden games had far better stories than Ninja Gaiden 1/Black/Sigma, the most loved title in this series. Yes, I understand it needs to be mentioned, but the only thing I remember about the stories of the first 2 games is that they were awful. I'm sure 3 is even worse, but we're talking degrees of awful here.
 
Since when did people play Team Ninja games for the story?

The past NG games stories have been inoffensive and unobtrusive. This one is not only mind-numbingly fuckin' stupid, but it also means the actual gameplay goes in some questionable directions, not to spoil anything.
 

Chamber

love on your sleeve
Yeah, reviewers griping about the awful story is funny, considering the NES Ninja Gaiden games had far better stories than Ninja Gaiden 1/Black/Sigma, the most loved title in this series. Yes, I understand it needs to be mentioned, but the only thing I remember about the stories of the first 2 games is that they were awful. I'm sure 3 is even worse, but we're talking degrees of awful here.

Ninja Gaiden 3 goes out of it's way to tell you it's terrible story though. It's even implemented into the gameplay with that terrible cursed arm gimmick. It's definitely a complaint worth mentioning because it sucks that much.
 

?oe?oe

Member
Is there any review of this game by someone who hasn't played the original version? Some of these reviews sound quite whiny.
 

ultim8p00

Banned
Since when did people play Team Ninja games for the story?

Since Team Ninja decided that the story actually matters now so they must give you COOL EPIC SCRIPTED EVENTS and STORY CHANGING MECHANICS THAT TIE INTO THE GAMEPLAY or some shit and completely fail in a very fucking stupid way.

It's not so much that people play TN games for the story. The problem is that TN forgot that we don't give a shit about the story, and so decided to sacrifice the gamplay for AN IMMERSIVE, PERSONAL AND ENGROSSING STORY ABOUT A JAPANESE DARK HERO MAKING PROMISES TO LITTLE GIRLS AND BEING THEIR DADDY.
 
this news make it just easier to wait for a sigma version to fix things.....again.


The hype surrounding this game always seemed to have a weird faux-hype aura to me, as if it was being projected by people who hadn't touched Ninja Gaiden 3, had little experience with the franchise, and were only interested in the game because it's a Wii U launch title, Nintendo is publishing it, and "Team Ninja is fixing it". Pretty much everybody disappointed with Ninja Gaiden 3 has stated ad nauseum that Ninja Gaiden 3's fundamental problems were not the lack of gore, the absence of variety and levelling systems, ease of play, or anything like that. These were problems, but not the reason Ninja Gaiden 3 was considered a poor game. It's a poor game because the core mechanical design, encounter design, pacing, and game design is just plain shitty. For many people the possibility of a good Ninja Gaiden 3 could only exist if the entire game was remade as something different, because the issues with the vanilla release are that deeply rooted in the design.

Maybe they pulled it off, I don't know and I won't be finding out first hand because I'm not going to risk it, but I'm not in the least bit surprised to hear someone familiar with the franchise finds Razor's Edge to be just as much of a turd as the original NG3.

agreed.
 

Mdk7

Member
IGN review is frankly depressing: it's such a bad article...
You don't understand what improved so much from the original mess, they say there are new significant flaws (graphics are worse, occasional framerate problems and the need to purchase another controller for 50$!?!) and yet the score goes from a 3.0 to a 7.6?!?
That's a case of ridiculously bad writing, you get the clear impression the journalist WANTED the game to be good, despite its problems, just because it's a popular series that comes back on a brand new Nintendo console.

And BTW i've tried the game, so i know how bad it (still) is.
 
IGN review is frankly depressing: it's such a bad article...
You don't understand what improved so much from the original mess, they say there are new significant flaws (graphics are worse, occasional framerate problems and the need to purchase another controller for 50$!?!) and yet the score goes from a 3.0 to a 7.6?!?
That's a case of ridiculously bad writing, you get the clear impression the journalist WANTED the game to be good, despite its problems, just because it's a popular series that comes back on a brand new Nintendo console.

And BTW i've tried the game, so i know how bad it (still) is.

The worst part of the graphics claim is he said the graphics are "arguably worse".

Well, are they or aren't they???
 
I said it once and I will say it again, the only good NG was NG Black, after that they have all been mediocre so I don't understand why this one has been picked as the game that ended it all. Ninja Gaiden 2 was the one to earn that title first.



Well, NG: Black was the most balanced, polished and had the most diversity, but gameplay-wise, NG2 is king and unprecedented for the slash-em-up genre imo. If NG2 was polished more, it could of been the best action game of all time. Don't forget NG2 was rushed.

So much for NG3:RE being worst than NG3 lol. I wasn't expecting good ratings, but it definitely sounds like an improvement over it's previous installment. IGN actually gave it a good score, so maybe it's admirable, the new reviewer likes NG3 better than previous reviewer or they felt bad about giving NG3 such a ludicrous score. Also, who cares about the story?!! I play action games for action first. Stories are a bonus imo.
 
It's strange that they had the perfect action game in Black and only had to add new enemies/environments for the sequels but somehow still managed to fuck it up royally.
 

Effect

Member
Is NG3 story badly told? Bad pacing, transitions between story elements, and bad dialogue and localization? Over the top with giant robots and magic showing up? In what way is it actually bad?
 

Eusis

Member
Is NG3 story badly told? Bad pacing, transitions between story elements and dialogue? Just over the top with giant robots and magic showing up? In what way is it actually bad?
That they try to take it seriously, is the impression I get. And focusing more on silly (for this series) sentimental stuff like Ryu being a surrogate father, seems to me the best approach would've been something similar to the NES games: a fun crazy story with some twists thrown about.
 

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
Is NG3 story badly told? Bad pacing, transitions between story elements and dialogue? Just over the top with giant robots and magic showing up? In what way is it actually bad?

Its nonsense and overly dramatic.
 
That they try to take it seriously, is the impression I get. And focusing more on silly (for this series) sentimental stuff like Ryu being a surrogate father, seems to me the best approach would've been something similar to the NES games: a fun crazy story with some twists thrown about.

The worst part about NG3's shitty story is, the guy who made NES NG3's storyline made this one so we know it could have been made exactly as you said, a fun crazy story with plot twists. But no. We get this cursed arm bullshit and the Irene knockoff trying to stick a family onto Ryu.
 

GrayFoxPL

Member
Is NG3 story badly told? Bad pacing, transitions between story elements, and bad dialogue and localization? Over the top with giant robots and magic showing up? In what way is it actually bad?

I liked the story. It wasn't amazing but something on a level of action anime it was entertaining. I particularly liked the child-Ryu connection.
 

Effect

Member
So what I'm getting here is that there is nothing wrong structurally with the story and how it's told. It's an issue of people like liking the story topics and decisions made during it?
 

Noi

Member
Is NG3 story badly told? Bad pacing, transitions between story elements, and bad dialogue and localization? Over the top with giant robots and magic showing up? In what way is it actually bad?

The problem with the story is that Team Ninja Dog think that the story is so good, it should be allowed to affect NG3's gameplay. This leads to fighting the same boss a good 3-4 times, the terrible cursed arm segments and "justification" for some of the worst enemies in the series.
 
Ninja Gaiden 3's story is atrocious for several reasons. Here's why (Warning Spoilers!):

1)They supposedly wanted to focus on Ryu's so called "killing" of thousands of people. Okay, perfectly fine direction to go in. Here's the problem: RYU HIMSELF NEVER EVER REFLECTS ON THAT! Everyone around him keeps taunting him or pointing out how many people he's killed, and Ryu just outright doesn't even acknowledge it or even shrug his shoulders to indicate he doesn't care. We literally have no idea how he feels about it personally.

Take for example in the first mission where the guy you were about to kill begs for his life. You walk slowly as he backs up telling you he has a family and should've never signed up for this. Ryu kills him anyway. Throughout this whole process, we never hear Ryu's thoughts at all. Not even a "Should I have done that?" Hell, not even Mizuki calls him out on it. As soon you kill him, she starts giving you directions to the next area, while it's heavily implied that she can directly see what Ryu does during his missions.

2) The events of the last game have no consequence apparently. Yup it's only been a year after the world was INVADED BY DEMONS and everyone seems to act like nothing bad happened apparently and the world economy stabilized in that time as well, too.

3)Ryu's relationship with Canna. First off, let's get this out of the way: Why in gods name would you offer a BLOODY CURSED ARM to shake hands with an eight year old girl? Like, really, Ryu? Come the fuck on son.

This game takes place within eight days, yes? On Day 2 or 3 (can't exactly remember), Canna out of nowhere asks Ryu to protect Mizuki aka her surrogate mom. Okay, fine decent, any girl would ask that if she loved her mom. Then the VERY NEXT day she asks him to be her daddy? Are you shitting me, Team Ninja? Do any of you have any idea how the thought process for eight year old girl's work? And why would Ryu feel this close attachment to this girl, so quickly, seemingly out of nowhere?

4)The Regent of the Mask: For someone who was heavily advertised, he such a letdown. No explanation (even a small handwave) how his powers work, how he was trained to such an extent that he can keep up with Ryu on even grounds, why he had to let himself get stabbed to free Ryu of his curse, etc etc.

5) How in the hell is the Dragon Sword able to be fused to his arm in the first place? This is a weapon of legendary status and yet these guys who are alchemists somehow have the ability to turn the most powerful weapon in the world against its wielder? I call heavy bullshit on that.

6)Ryu get's Jinranmaru...but decides to use the Blade of the Archfiend for....some reason. Like really? What was the point of that?

There's probably more I'm missing but these stick out the worse to me.
 

benzy

Member
So what I'm getting here is that there is nothing wrong structurally with the story and how it's told. It's an issue of people like liking the story topics and decisions made during it?

Everything about the story is wrong, story-wise, plot-wise, character-wise, structurally, and it contains a shit ton of contradictions. Just watch the cutscenes on youtube. The story in NG1 and NG2 make a hell a lot more sense, and even those were already pretty convoluted
 

Ninja Dom

Member
Thanks. Just wanted to know more of the details instead of just having to go on "the story is bad".

Wouldn't say the story is baaaaaad. But it doesn't fit into the one week timeframe that the game takes place in. And that includes Ryu travelling around the world killing everyone in exotic locations.
 

danmaku

Member
The most stupid thing about the story is all the bullshit about Ryu being a murderer. It could make sense in a open world game, where you have the chance to be stealthy or kill everyone, but here you have no choice. The whole game is about killing people and you want me to feel bad about it? and to add insult to injury, NG3 has the highest body count in the series! it's not even like Manhunt, a game where killing is meant to be disturbing, not cool. Here, all the graphics are designed to make you look like a fast, lethal ninja, while the story goes in the opposite direction. It's like the game was designed by a schizo, or by people who simply didn't give a damn.
 

Veelk

Banned
Wouldn't say the story is baaaaaad. But it doesn't fit into the one week timeframe that the game takes place in. And that includes Ryu travelling around the world killing everyone in exotic locations.

The story IS baaaaaad. In fact, it is aaaaaaaawful, and not just because the timeframe is bad.

To be honest, I wish I could add to TacticalFox's list, because I know there are far more problems than what he listed, but it's very forgettable on top of everything else. I only remember the general outline of it, very few details. I do remember this though: Laughably unbelievable character relationships, no indication of feelings from the main character, no noticable character arc (the ending line
"Your not a monster....but your no hero. I guess your just a ninja, heh heh heh"
seriously made me scream "FUCK YOU" at my TV), in addition to AWFUL animation and voice acting.

Seriously, Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 were so much better written than this.
 
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