There's a phrase I'm very fond of using, it goes like "Ahh, Team Ninja" and sametime "Ugh, Team Ninja". Of course, the greatest assets were the absolute engaging combat system and visuals after Dead and Alive series. But let's not get too ahead of ourselves.
Yeah (wink), you know what visuals I mean. Now, remade using UE5, it looks not only spectacular, but plays like that as well. Something about it captures the absolute hardcore Bushido masculinity with serious 90s anime cheese. Ninja Gaiden II first came out in 2008, one of the good eras of early Xbox 360 games. PlatinumGames even backed the project up, easy to see why.
Now for the negatives, oh I wish the Japanese devs would keep their act together when optimizing games. Team Ninja, Omega Force. When it comes to the PC ports, they just run terribly. And dear god, help those with budget PCs without Nvidia GPUs.
I did a great disservice to myself, I remember playing the original Gaiden II on my Xbox 360, and it was a really hard game. Hence, why I picked normal difficulty. Suffice it to say, this is challenging, but not enough to fulfill my bloodthirst.
Controls feel more fluid, it is by design a bit stringent, which is why balanced engagement is important. Enemies are relentless and will punish you if you're clueless, even with QTE killmoves you have to escape from, but because I played so many hack'n'slash, by instinct I was easily getting the hang of it. Especially in how you block, dodge, jump, and combine two of the main attack inputs.
You have a big selection of attack moves, special attacks, you can even throw Shurikens, but none of that is made noticed until progressing through the story, and you have so many options and flexible way to approach combat. Works wonder in its linear, on-the-rails design.
So basically button smashing kind of helps discover them, it's important not to get carried away with attacks, I mean PlatinumGames have taught me that so well. But as tricky as the camera got, I was still able to keep somewhat track of where my guy is. Probably a color gradient thing. Blocking is important, it's also a dodge button with analog directions.
Basic and special attacks do a lot, your basic suppresses enemies with sustainable damage, long as you have room, specials are risky but important to master. They will hard slash, send enemies flying, dash attacks, etc. They also do kill moves, enemies can be decapitated, but they don't easily die. You have that to worry about as well. Yet putting them at that state leaves me to take out the other guys. It also helps to switch between different weapons for better effect.
Health can recover if you collect orbs finishing enemies, opening boxes, using healing items to well, replenishing chi to finding and using a dragon statue to save. There's an ability where you aim and launch fireballs at enemies, provided you have enough to use.
Even greater feet, is the platforming, you can wall run, bounce upwards in somersaults towards higher levels, and these midair launch attacks that straight-up looks like a hard edge anime that doesn't make sense in reality, yet looks and feels really cool to do so. The weapons, like the stick, if you hold special attack long enough, unleashes barrages of damages onto multiple foes. You can increase your max health by scavenging for chests and finding these blue crystals.
The era where games used to ooze in absolute attitude and grit, were also times games had smaller flaws. Most of those issues are gone here. I understand why Team Ninja is so good at making action hack'n'slash. Every moment is so engaging, heart pounding action.
Having to do with the fact that the levels are smaller, well-contained with enough details, puzzle, platforming, and set piece to go around. Level design is really superb here, including aesthetics. A stark contrast to the bland open world designs super spread out, where the work comes to looking for stuff to do. The very thing PlatinumGames have been trying to contest for years, even.
Allowing game developers to develop so many well curated sections for any players to try. A simple principle that has been present in older games and ones from the 7th generation consoles. Very few games nowadays, most of them indie, only now accomplishes this. Ok, sure, the way sections are divided, leaves less room to do many other things.
It doesn't have these extra modernizations that current games have, but if the fun part is constantly present, why is that much a bother? Ow wait, speaking of, don't care about the story? Be there for the crazy cutscenes, tough boss fights, and beautiful Femme Fatales.
Fighting well enough earns you points to buy items to use, and upgrading the unlocked weapons. Including the archer bow. I love switching between the sword, staff, fangs, etc. You'd think it ends there? There's over a dozen more to unlock.
I gave it high praise, I just played it for over 2hrs, and yet so much fun in that time. I know I'm just warming up. But, I wish I could say that's all there is to it. If you own a high-end Nvidia GPU, you're in a good spot. Anything else, it runs like a joke. This is a UE5 title, I'm talking shader compilation stutters, turning on ray-tracing slows it to a crawl, and piss-poor frame generation implementation.
Understand, how many have played this as an exclusive, and now will play in every platform as well as PCs. I'm also speaking for PlatinumGames, this is not right at all.
