SkylineRKR
Member
So yeah I played this on and off since I got the Series S last November, it was pulled from GP in a dick move, probably to boost Master Collection, but I bought it anyway. Kinda expensive digital only for such an old game but hey, its a timeless classic and the boost makes it feel like a bonafide PS4/X1 game. On S its 1440p/60/HDR. There are worse remasters being offered for full retail price.
So yeah the story is, I had an Xbox 360 from early 2006 onward and NG2 was actually one of the last games I played on it as the thing broke on me for the third time or so. I got it fixed and sold it before I could make some good progress. I bought a PS3 which was heavily discounted at the time. So I was thrilled when NGS2 was announced on PS3, since the 360 game was being published by MS I never saw this coming. I didn't really like NG2 on 360 to begin with. It lacked the polish Black and OG had, performance issues, locks, just a very sloppy game for Tecmo's standards at the time (though DoAX2 was a piece of shit imo, perhaps a bit of foreshadowing but I digress). There was however a decent game underneath. I loved the gore, the raw violence that didn't hold anything back. I was kind of gutted Sigma 2 cut corners here, and didn't stop at nerfing shuriken spam but removed like 70% of the enemies. So there was no perfect version of NG2 so to speak.
Until Phil Spencer boosted this shit for the Xbox One. The game has no slowdown anymore, no low ass near-SD resolution, no muted colors. The controls are perfect. Some fundamentals are still broken, the projectile spam is obscene in later levels and not fun on higher difficulties. Some (a lot of) bosses are trash. Some are there out to just troll you. The Armadillos. There is never a warning and never the need to block after beating an enemy to prevent an insta game over. Dashing away for an exploding enemy, sure. But not this shit. With explosive shuriken these guys are a joke, the rematch took me like 30 seconds in total on both. The same goes for the Zedonius rematch, he took me 10 tries. Until he slammed down and I combo'd him a few times, killing him within 20 seconds. For some reason Alexei took me numerous retries as well but is really weak to the claws and he falls in seconds against them. Its a bit weird. When you win its not like you accomplished something, its because the enemy didn't do a shitty airborne routine and didn't abuse grabs. The game does dick you with save point placements as well (there is none after Zedonius and if you just walk the lava, well, gg lol). And shops. After the second Volf encounter I had no heals and not enough money (should've restarted, hes easy, UT the shit out of the horses first), so I had to kind of cheese the annoying hallways with cyborgs, dragons and then those horses. The Scythe's UT is kind of broken though. Same shit happened against the climbing boss, who is really easy if you ascend quickly and I would have an easy time against the final boss if I had those 2 or 3 heals left or so. In general the game isn't hard on Normal. You can beat it with one weapon, using basic moves and not looking at the move list. But if you do, and use launchers, guillotine throw, combos that delimb, which means OT, which means essence, then you can get good at it.
There is a lot of bad stuff in the later half of the game, I hated the level with the swamp and the cave for example. I think Sigma 2 simply removed all bad shit there which is good. Early game I only hated the ghost fish boss, which was made far too easy in Sigma 2. In general I prefer to fight ninjas since you can launch them, and slice them into shabu-shabu.
Still, I think this is the best Ninja Gaiden game out there. Its just that I prefer the speed, gore and abilities of this game over the original which feels mundane in comparison but is still awesome. I kind of liked how they changed the levels, I don't mind a bit of searching but I felt NG1 had a bit too much of it. NG2 has streamlined this, but you still have to collect the odd key from a side hallway, blow up a wall, or beat the odd semi hidden encounter for an item. Sigma 2 went way overboard and removed any kind of keys I think.
If you have an Xbox One or higher, don't get Master Collection, get Black and 2. Do it.
So yeah the story is, I had an Xbox 360 from early 2006 onward and NG2 was actually one of the last games I played on it as the thing broke on me for the third time or so. I got it fixed and sold it before I could make some good progress. I bought a PS3 which was heavily discounted at the time. So I was thrilled when NGS2 was announced on PS3, since the 360 game was being published by MS I never saw this coming. I didn't really like NG2 on 360 to begin with. It lacked the polish Black and OG had, performance issues, locks, just a very sloppy game for Tecmo's standards at the time (though DoAX2 was a piece of shit imo, perhaps a bit of foreshadowing but I digress). There was however a decent game underneath. I loved the gore, the raw violence that didn't hold anything back. I was kind of gutted Sigma 2 cut corners here, and didn't stop at nerfing shuriken spam but removed like 70% of the enemies. So there was no perfect version of NG2 so to speak.
Until Phil Spencer boosted this shit for the Xbox One. The game has no slowdown anymore, no low ass near-SD resolution, no muted colors. The controls are perfect. Some fundamentals are still broken, the projectile spam is obscene in later levels and not fun on higher difficulties. Some (a lot of) bosses are trash. Some are there out to just troll you. The Armadillos. There is never a warning and never the need to block after beating an enemy to prevent an insta game over. Dashing away for an exploding enemy, sure. But not this shit. With explosive shuriken these guys are a joke, the rematch took me like 30 seconds in total on both. The same goes for the Zedonius rematch, he took me 10 tries. Until he slammed down and I combo'd him a few times, killing him within 20 seconds. For some reason Alexei took me numerous retries as well but is really weak to the claws and he falls in seconds against them. Its a bit weird. When you win its not like you accomplished something, its because the enemy didn't do a shitty airborne routine and didn't abuse grabs. The game does dick you with save point placements as well (there is none after Zedonius and if you just walk the lava, well, gg lol). And shops. After the second Volf encounter I had no heals and not enough money (should've restarted, hes easy, UT the shit out of the horses first), so I had to kind of cheese the annoying hallways with cyborgs, dragons and then those horses. The Scythe's UT is kind of broken though. Same shit happened against the climbing boss, who is really easy if you ascend quickly and I would have an easy time against the final boss if I had those 2 or 3 heals left or so. In general the game isn't hard on Normal. You can beat it with one weapon, using basic moves and not looking at the move list. But if you do, and use launchers, guillotine throw, combos that delimb, which means OT, which means essence, then you can get good at it.
There is a lot of bad stuff in the later half of the game, I hated the level with the swamp and the cave for example. I think Sigma 2 simply removed all bad shit there which is good. Early game I only hated the ghost fish boss, which was made far too easy in Sigma 2. In general I prefer to fight ninjas since you can launch them, and slice them into shabu-shabu.
Still, I think this is the best Ninja Gaiden game out there. Its just that I prefer the speed, gore and abilities of this game over the original which feels mundane in comparison but is still awesome. I kind of liked how they changed the levels, I don't mind a bit of searching but I felt NG1 had a bit too much of it. NG2 has streamlined this, but you still have to collect the odd key from a side hallway, blow up a wall, or beat the odd semi hidden encounter for an item. Sigma 2 went way overboard and removed any kind of keys I think.
If you have an Xbox One or higher, don't get Master Collection, get Black and 2. Do it.
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Still I find the first, miles better and more balanced in most of his aspects. Not sure where are all that platforming though. It's very minimal. Well I guess the final level (the volcano) isn't it exactly enjoyable but outside that, I hadn't any problems with the platforming in the whole game and I barely remember such part.
