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[sigmaZ]

Finished. Yeah... No... Yeah......... No. Maybe?
Look. The pixel art was gorgeous and the music was great.
Real arcadey vibes.
But I'm going to be real. The level and gameplay design left me lacking.
Can we stop saving the actual challenge and level design to side activities. I am so sick of this trend in game dev.
Incorporate into the actual level design as part of the main campaign.
And having the same gimmick throughout....

No....
The bosses had too much life (another modern trend perhaps?)
I also didn't like having a store. I was hoping for a style like the original where the power ups were in the stage, but no.
Also the dialogue was pretty bad (though the cinematic scenes were cool).
Overall, eh... I'd give it a 7.8/10 experience.

 

[Sushigod7]

Finished. Yeah... No... Yeah......... No. Maybe?
Look. The pixel art was gorgeous and the music was great.
Real arcadey vibes.
But I'm going to be real. The level and gameplay design left me lacking.
Can we stop saving the actual challenge and level design to side activities. I am so sick of this trend in game dev.
Incorporate into the actual level design as part of the main campaign.
And having the same gimmick throughout....
No....
The bosses had too much life (another modern trend perhaps?)
I also didn't like having a store. I was hoping for a style like the original where the power ups were in the stage, but no.
Also the dialogue was pretty bad (though the cinematic scenes were cool).
Overall, eh... I'd give it a 7.8/10 experience.

This is pretty much sums up my feelings on it. I'm almost done but it feels off. A few interesting bosses but its weird you can just speed run the levels, there is no reward for fighting enemies. The talismans really don't help a lot and there is not much variety in moves.

 

[Madonis]

 

[Punished Miku]

Beat the boss with the 3rd crystal last night. The one with the lightning and you have to hide behind the rock. Honestly thought it was really well done. Took me several tries to get used to the weird tell for the lightning. Then after several tries I was going through huge chunks of the fight without getting hit so the balancing is just right.

The levels so far are mostly unremarkable but some of the bosses are pretty well done. I think there is a fundamental problem with the hypercharge. Too many weird times where you're walking up to an armored enemy, then you just have to sit and wait and of course out of nowhere some random flying dude comes by with your hypercharge. It's just an odd system.

 

[mèx]

Just came up on my Steam feed, it's a contest from the dev in which you can win the Special Edition of the game.

• Select Stage 3-2 "A Perilous Descent"
• The entire run must be done in one shot (no cuts allowed)
• The use of talismans is authorized, except for Challenge Talismans
• Obtain an S-Rank by completing every challenge, getting every collectible, and meeting the score targets

 

[Guy_who_thinks_hes_cool]

sigh...

searches for wemod

 

[Punished Miku]

Game is growing on me more and more. Took a bit of time to get used to this type of 2D action game again. Loved pretty much every level in act 4.

 

[Punished Miku]

First run done. I'll hold off on a final score. Still need to do another run, secret Ops, etc. But that was a truly great final boss. Itll be an 8.5 or a 9 from me, not that it really matters that much. Final score will depend on my 2nd run. Took a while to really feel like I was getting the flow with this game but it did eventually click for me.

All about the dash strike, and umbrella block.

 

[Arsic]

Completed it today to get both endings finally. Also fired up hard mode for a bit.

Final thoughts:
-Overall it's a 6/10 for me for base game. I'm playing hard mode and immediately noticing the changes and scratching my head why I couldn't pick this from the jump. It may have made me enjoy it more…
-Good soundtrack
-Fun idea mixing two characters movesets into one but part of me still would've preferred a playthrough as Kenji only and vice versa
-The jump slash is a broken mechanic that derails much of the challenge and enjoyment the game could be
-I enjoyed the endings
-The speed of the game always felt off. Too fast?
-Visually has its moments but overall a step down to me from Blasphemous 1 or 2.

——

In the end:
-Cyber Shadow is a better ninja gaiden 2D game
-Shinobi demo felt like a much more impressive "modern" take on a classic ninja game
-The Messenger feels like a more standout ninja game with unique ideas all over

Game wasn't for me and I may try hard mode run later to see if it changes my mind.

 

[dcx4610]

Beat this the other day. I'll stick to my original thoughts. It's a good ninja game - It's not a good Ninja Gaiden game. I've been wanting a true 2D sequel to the NES series for decades and got excited when this was announced. It's fun but it doesn't feel like Ninja Gaiden at all and is closer to Strider and the Messenger. The pixel art is good and the music is pretty good but not as memorable as the NES games. Dare I say, I think found it pretty easy too. While I'm sure Hard mode is hard, I really didn't have much problem with the game and you can just jump over or and completely skip enemies. There's also frequent checkpoints and infinite respawns. The fact that I easily beat a Ninja Gaiden game tells me it's not a Ninja Gaiden game.

A few more nitpicks. While it was fun, the slash and bounce off things just made the game a little too easy and I really didn't like the super slash mechanic. That slowed down the gameplay if you didn't get it and just made you have to skip the shielded characters. Your side character also felt pretty worthless outside of the areas specifically for her. I rarely used her attacks. They just weren't needed for the most part.

Again, it's a fun game and definitely worth $20 but I'm still disappointed in it as a Ninja Gaiden sequel. I mean you don't even play as Ryu...

As the last comment said, Cyber Shadow is the better Ninja Gaiden 2D game and while I haven't played Shinobi yet, from the trailer I saw, I'm all in on that one.

 

[Katatonic]

Kept me engaged and wanting to play it over other games until the end. Worth the price/time imo.

I agree with a lot of the criticisms regarding gameplay decisions. Most seem to have enjoyed it though.

Definitely looking forward to their next game.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Keep seeing the same complaint and I agree whole heartedly, devs need to frickin stop locking Hard mode away until you've beat the game! Espscially when the game is on the easy side to begin with! Why do so many games still do this?

Someone also mentioned another trend that's ruining games: relegating any semblance of challenge to short, optional levels while keeping the main campaign too easy so any casual can easily get through it. This is all modern Nintendo games. Whatever happened to a great difficulty curve? I blame todays gamers too for this because they seem OK, even happy with this modern game design trend. It has become in vogue to be easy and ultra "accessible". These games are worse off for it every time. Mario Wonder could've been an all time great platformer if not for this.