Seraphinianus
Banned
Title: Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus
System: Vita
Price: Full
Concept: Port a port, do a lazy job, thus making it the worst version of the game yet, charge full price. Show a complete lack of understanding of what made NG and Black compelling. But who gives a fuck, WE SHIPPED AT LAUNCH YAYYYYYYY
Features:
--unstable 30 FPS - usually smooth, but goes unstable on harder difficulties with more enemies on screen and when there are explosions. Also, you will need some time to adjust if you've played the others extensively.
--Mixed bag of PS3 visuals and Xbox visuals - I recommend turning down the gamma a bit and bumping the contrast a bit to save your eyes. It also takes away the hazy look of the game.
--The worst bow controls you've ever seen -- both the analogs and gyro controls are options for aiming. You can shoot by tapping the screen or pressing a button. BUT YOU CAN'T TURN OFF GYRO AIMING AT ALL. It's super sensitive, so it pretty much craps on any hope of just using analogs-- when you move the analog, you move the Vita, thus you throw off your aim. Did nobody notice this? Was this game ported by robots? It's a huge disregard for the player. Have fun with the Comm Tower in Chapter 10. Or just fire up the Comm Tower trial with no enemies and see how it's still a huge pain in the butt-- then imagine that with enemies firing rockets at you and other enemies trying to kill you on the ground. That's just for starters, there are lots of moments where the bow is necessary or at least, the very best option (helicopters, tanks.) P.S. his auto aim is terrible if you choose to stay in third person view. It won't hit anything that isn't stationary.
--Broken scoring system -- the karma system was amazing in Black. At the time, it was a modern game with an old-school scoring system that was almost airtight. Each fight is timed and gives you a bonus if you beat the enemies quickly buuuuuuttttt-----
--"Enchancements" - oh, a new accessory added! New content! You get these automatically for beating chapters. They have an increase in defense/offense, with a negative impact on the other. One of them "Greatly Increases" attack and with a small decrease to health/defense. Combine it with Sun Armlet and voila! You've broken the game, if you have average blocking skills. All normal enemies go down in one or two hits, bosses in about 10 hits. Thus, you get the karma time bonus on every fight and all challenge is pretty much gone. Admittedly, MNM might still be a slight pain, but nowhere near a regular MNM run.
So, what do they do? Make it so you can't upload your karma score for using these cheap items? No. Instead they...
--Removed the leaderboards from the game completely.
--Even easier than before -- blue health orbs drop every 2nd or 3rd enemy, even on Hard. I was chaining UTs forever before i just got bored to tears and fed up with this port. Enemies seem to drop more yellow essence (money) too, so you can max out your money very quickly.
--PS3 tech problems still present - loading screens popping up during fights in Tairon, if you cross the magic invisible "loading line." Loading screens for treasure chests. These problems were not in the Xbox version.
On the plus side:
--It's portable Ninja Gaiden.
--It's still a big game with lots of unlockables and the combat is still smooth.
--You can lower your standards and enjoy it, but judged against the rest of the NG ports/remakes/etc, it's easily the worst.
--You can limit yourself to the original content (no enhancements) and play that way for "legit" score attack. Annoying though, since Itagaki made the game to be air tight on its own. And there are no leaderboards anyway.
Overall: Ninja Gaiden 1 was awesome, Ninja Gaiden Black is one of my top games of all time. Sigma was a back step, Sigma Plus is a further back step. But these are back steps from my favorite game of all time, so I'd call it merely a pretty good game, though the worst in the series of NG1 with a bunch of WTF decisions thrown in.
Screenshots:
System: Vita
Price: Full
Concept: Port a port, do a lazy job, thus making it the worst version of the game yet, charge full price. Show a complete lack of understanding of what made NG and Black compelling. But who gives a fuck, WE SHIPPED AT LAUNCH YAYYYYYYY
Features:
--unstable 30 FPS - usually smooth, but goes unstable on harder difficulties with more enemies on screen and when there are explosions. Also, you will need some time to adjust if you've played the others extensively.
--Mixed bag of PS3 visuals and Xbox visuals - I recommend turning down the gamma a bit and bumping the contrast a bit to save your eyes. It also takes away the hazy look of the game.
--The worst bow controls you've ever seen -- both the analogs and gyro controls are options for aiming. You can shoot by tapping the screen or pressing a button. BUT YOU CAN'T TURN OFF GYRO AIMING AT ALL. It's super sensitive, so it pretty much craps on any hope of just using analogs-- when you move the analog, you move the Vita, thus you throw off your aim. Did nobody notice this? Was this game ported by robots? It's a huge disregard for the player. Have fun with the Comm Tower in Chapter 10. Or just fire up the Comm Tower trial with no enemies and see how it's still a huge pain in the butt-- then imagine that with enemies firing rockets at you and other enemies trying to kill you on the ground. That's just for starters, there are lots of moments where the bow is necessary or at least, the very best option (helicopters, tanks.) P.S. his auto aim is terrible if you choose to stay in third person view. It won't hit anything that isn't stationary.
--Broken scoring system -- the karma system was amazing in Black. At the time, it was a modern game with an old-school scoring system that was almost airtight. Each fight is timed and gives you a bonus if you beat the enemies quickly buuuuuuttttt-----
--"Enchancements" - oh, a new accessory added! New content! You get these automatically for beating chapters. They have an increase in defense/offense, with a negative impact on the other. One of them "Greatly Increases" attack and with a small decrease to health/defense. Combine it with Sun Armlet and voila! You've broken the game, if you have average blocking skills. All normal enemies go down in one or two hits, bosses in about 10 hits. Thus, you get the karma time bonus on every fight and all challenge is pretty much gone. Admittedly, MNM might still be a slight pain, but nowhere near a regular MNM run.
So, what do they do? Make it so you can't upload your karma score for using these cheap items? No. Instead they...
--Removed the leaderboards from the game completely.
--Even easier than before -- blue health orbs drop every 2nd or 3rd enemy, even on Hard. I was chaining UTs forever before i just got bored to tears and fed up with this port. Enemies seem to drop more yellow essence (money) too, so you can max out your money very quickly.
--PS3 tech problems still present - loading screens popping up during fights in Tairon, if you cross the magic invisible "loading line." Loading screens for treasure chests. These problems were not in the Xbox version.
On the plus side:
--It's portable Ninja Gaiden.
--It's still a big game with lots of unlockables and the combat is still smooth.
--You can lower your standards and enjoy it, but judged against the rest of the NG ports/remakes/etc, it's easily the worst.
--You can limit yourself to the original content (no enhancements) and play that way for "legit" score attack. Annoying though, since Itagaki made the game to be air tight on its own. And there are no leaderboards anyway.
Overall: Ninja Gaiden 1 was awesome, Ninja Gaiden Black is one of my top games of all time. Sigma was a back step, Sigma Plus is a further back step. But these are back steps from my favorite game of all time, so I'd call it merely a pretty good game, though the worst in the series of NG1 with a bunch of WTF decisions thrown in.
Screenshots:
