Ninja Gaiden II

The Good
Ahh Team Ninja. Purveyors of bouncy boobs, ridiculously dressed women, and the worst clichés in all of gaming. After spending ample time with Ninja Gaiden II, I’ve come to realize that I should never have been surprised how badly Metroid: Other M turned out. But, before that…

There are a few, good things that can be said of Ninja Gaiden II. Graphically, of course, the game is quite impressive, even as an early Xbox 360 title. Granted, Ninja Gaiden Black was already pretty fancy on the original Xbox. Largely what we have here isn’t so much immense detail as it is high numbers and massive enemies, and ample blood splatter.

Like the previous title, it’s largely a hack-n-slash affair that can often be fun. Particularly when using a weapon that slices and dices enemies with little effort, like the giant sickle. For a while, the combat is actually pretty satisfying—arguably the most satisfying part of this game. Running through stages and chopping cookie-cutter enemies to bloody bits. Just be prepared to be mashing the X button a lot. Like, all the time. When an enemy is clearly crippled (missing a limb), that’s when you can do a finisher simply by approaching and pressing the Y button. Theoretically, this earns more yellow orbs (which act as currency) for upgrading Ryu.

All weapons are upgradable, which is nice. The life bar and magic (Ninpo) can be upgraded as well, though, to be frank, the upgrades to the life bar are usually insultingly small. Bosses are enormous, colorful, and impressive. Some are outstanding—at least in their looks.

The acrobatic moves typically work quite well. I was thankful that there was never really a moment in the game that forced ridiculous amounts of acrobatic nonsense or hefty platforming elements. The reason I’m glad this isn’t over-used? Because while they work fairly well, over large areas, the moves can be a chore to do well consistently. Such as wall running while, while jumping back and forth between opposing walls to maintain momentum. This occurred only about two times in the game, and thankfully they were for bonus collectable crap not requirements to get through the game.


The Bad
I consider myself pretty knowledgeable on video games. I’ve been at this hobby almost non-stop for 20 years. So you could, at any time, ask me to list video game clichés and I would happily hold a conversation with you on the subject (hey it’s fun). Now, thanks to Ninja Gaiden II, I don’t need to list off video game clichés. I can just point to this game. It has pretty much all of ‘em. In spades.

Ninjas fighting robots? Check.

Ninjas fighting outdoors in daylight? Check.

Unbelievable levels of violence? Check.

Women dressed illogically, or inappropriately? Check.

Undead creatures? Check.

Illogical boss battles? Check.

Red exploding barrels? Check.

Reused boss characters? Check.

Nonsensical plotline? Check.

Ninja characters fighting high-tech futuristic enemies with ancient, inappropriate weapons? Check.

Hammy acting and storytelling? Check.

Damsel-in-distress plotline? Check.

Ninjas running across the surface of water? Check.

Game features every possible environmental setting imaginable? Check.

I could go on like this. It’s pathetic. It’s sad. Man, had I finished this before I played Metroid: Other M, I probably wouldn’t have been surprised how badly that game turned out. I guess it’s just Team Ninja’s way to craft half-assed games riddled with time-worn gaming clichés. There really is no part of this game that isn’t this way.

It’s hard to pinpoint these issues, and listing them all would be just… exhausting. All those clichés are in fact in this game. The story is next to impossible to follow, and near as I can figure, it’s mostly about Ryu taking down… some demonic force that’s trying to take over the world or something or other. Eventually, I stopped caring. I gotta be honest, I didn’t care why anything was happening. For some reason, the evil force/nation/thing Ryu Hyabusa is fighting has an interest by the CIA (then again, what evil force isn’t the CIA interested in?) and occasionally a “partner” of sorts shows up routinely to add… little… to the story. Basically, she shows up in scripted cinematics to lend a hand to various situations. She’s, of course, dressed like a stripper—but one with no real self-respect. Huge boobs, all jiggle, patently absurd. No wonder Samus didn’t get any respect as a woman in Other M, having a mature view on women clearly isn’t part of the Team Ninja game design philosophy. Of course, I’m sure we could have all suspected that given the nature of the Dead or Alive games. Oh, by the way, the damsel in distress? As the only female protagonist in the game, I’m sure we all see where this is going… There are a couple moments where it would make sense to have her participate in the gameplay activities (such as a boss battle), mainly because she starts out shooting at the boss, then is mysteriously absent during the actual battle. Continuity much?

Anyway… I found the bulk of this game to be a mish-mash of stuff that did and didn’t work. The clichéd stuff ruins any possible respect this game could have. The gameplay, while occasionally fun during the hacking and slashing, winds down to often being dull and repetitive. Mash the X button over and over and over again. Occasionally mash Y. Most bosses are faced just mashing the Y button. Well, that’s only half of it. An unimaginable amount of the gameplay is based around blind luck. Hack, slash, hack, slash—sometimes you live. Hack, slash, hack, slash—sometimes you die. Believe it or not, there’s an Achievement in this game for continuing 100 times. As I learned, that’s 100 times in one sitting, possibly one level. Because I know I continued the game well more than that. At least 10 times per level, at least 10 per many of the bosses. So not only is the gameplay shallow and repetitive, it’s also insanely difficult.

I’m well aware that the Ninja Gaiden games have a penchant for challenging gameplay. The problem here is that it doesn’t feel like challenging gameplay as much as it is challenging on the patience of the player. The game simply throws around so many enemies and attacks and crap all at once so to overwhelm the player. And there are, what, two difficulties higher than the normal setting that I used? This game can actually be harder?? It’s already pretty brutal.

Let me give you some examples of how insane this game can be. One stage opens with several enemies armed with infinite-capacity rocket launchers that fire off batteries of about 10 rockets—with pinpoint accuracy—from a city block away. Cliché exploding barrels reside near some of these guys, but good luck getting an arrow to find these marks before a dozen rockets hit you in the face. It was at this point that I stopped and stared at the screen and muttered aloud “this crap isn’t even fun.” At one point (at least), there were three of these guys in the area at once which created an uninterrupted volley of constant rocket attacks and explosions bouncing off my ass. I did eventually get through this, but I couldn’t tell if I used skills or just got plain lucky. It’s not uncommon in this game for a regular run-of-the-mill enemy to drive down Ryu’s health bar almost completely with a single combo attack.

Boss encounters are among the worst I’ve seen this side of the Conan game. Whereas in that title, the bosses were overly complicated, over-long, bogged down with quicktime events, and generally breaking standard gameplay rules (beginning attacks in the middle of a combo, attacking through blocking), this one is all about bosses the size of skyscrapers moving as fast as mosquitos. I was literally killed by several bosses in less time than the game took to load the stage. Most of them were fought the exact same way: Constant dodging, mashing the Y button, and in the end, I usually had used up all my health regenerative items. Since that’s how most bosses are fought, imagine the confusion when I faced one that required me to tap the B button to fire arrows (aimed automatically, not manually) to the boss’s miniscule weak spot. Yeah, I broke down and referenced an online guide for that. How anyone figured that out on their own is beyond me.

This game uses the old “reuse the bosses” technique several times. One is fought, I kid you not, four times. I’ll hand it to Team Ninja, they came up with some massive, unique, and often creative boss designs. So why they still felt the need to reuse roughly half of them is beyond me. Two of the bosses have two Achievements each attributed to defeating them. The final stage is little more than a protracted series of near endless boss battles. I normally love boss battles. I hated almost all of these. Here’s the other reason I didn’t think of the auto-aim shot with the bow against one of the bosses: Most are not fought in such manners. As I said, dodge, mash Y, heal, heal, heal. One gigantic turtle-like boss (shoots lava, of course) was attacked mostly by me swinging the sickle at one of its hind feet. So… anywhere was vulnerable. Either every boss should be button-mashed, or every boss should require some tact. Making most of them button-mash battles and a couple requiring tact and weak spots? Ugh.

Boss battles and combat take another dark turn with the often cumbersome camera. I spent ample time thumbing the right stick attempting right the camera at key moments in the game. And while Ryu may control fairly smoothly on land, he's an absolute nightmare to control in water. Sure, you can run across the top of it like some Ninja-Jesus, but that doesn't always control all that well either. Regular swimming underwater is nightmarish, and it took me forever before I realized I could invert some of the controls so swimming felt somewhat more "natural." Underwater combat is just a headache. By the way--there is a boss battle done while having to fight this crappy underwater control.

While there are several weapons, and all are upgradeable, they’re also largely interchangeable. I felt as though the sickle was the best overall weapon, and I used it for practically everything once I picked it up. But here’s the thing: There are Achievements for completing the game—start to finish apparently—using only one weapon the entire time. This means all the weapons are, essentially, the same thing. Why have different weapons if there’s no real variety to their use? But yeah, if you read that carefully—this game pretty much demands that you play through it at least six times to pick up all the Achievements. Who the hell has the time or patience to play this game that much?

The Bottom Line
So, Team Ninja… I think they embody all the things this industry is desperately trying to out-grow. I mean, let’s face it. The heavy-handed nonsensical anime storylines are fine for kids. But like many gamers, I’m an adult and I’ve grown up. I want stories I can follow, with an element of believability, and characters with more dimensions than one. I have nothing against Ninjas. Ninjas are awesome. I have at least three games on the DS either pertaining to ninjas or with “ninja” in the title. But the video game industry has been growing steadily for over 30 years. We shouldn’t still be clinging to the clichés that were born in the 80’s. It’s shameful enough to see how they dressed the female protagonist, but for her to also be written as shallow as she is, that’s just unfortunate.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sexy women in all facets of life. The problem is that, here, that’s all they are. Women can dress sexy without looking like illogical strippers. And women can be sexy when they talk and through their behavior. Is it really that hard to write that into a character in a video game? Granted, it must be for Team Ninja, since they did the same half-assed crap in Metroid: Other M, where they took a once-strong female protagonist and whittled her down to a defenseless little girl almost entirely dependent on strong male stereotypes for everything.

I guess, in the end, the things I’m most disappointed with in Ninja Gaiden II are how overall shallow and unevolved it is coupled with some insane gameplay that often isn’t even fun. The rocket barrage guys were one thing. Giant robots that cruise in and attack with endless machine gunning, unending crowds of cookie-cutter enemies that barely allow for a second to get back on your feet. There are times this game seems intent on testing the patience of the player rather than delivering a quality game experience. Frustrating boss encounters, nonsense story, time-worn clichés throughout. Lengthy and occasionally awkward loading times.

I played through this game, and when it was over, I was relieved because my goal was to finish the game, get at least half of the 70 Achievements (got 36), and to put it back on my shelf so I could move on. I didn’t feel like I had fun with it. I was frustrated, annoyed, and constantly rolling my eyes. While it’s a generally solid game, it’s still about fifteen years past its expiration date.