Ninja Gaiden II: More Ninpo, Please
Over at my friend, Marcus’ house, on a break from playing Madden 09, Ninja Gaiden II was loaded into the ol’ Xbox 360. He played a bit, we all ooh’d and aah’d over the graphics and the fountains of blood, and then he turned to me, and offered the controller.
Like an idiot savant (the words are my friends, not mine), I quickly picked up my sword and started hacking away at anything that came at me. And many, many things come at you during the course of Ninja Gaiden II. I quickly and rather fantastically made it through the first chapter, easily defeating the bad ass monster at the end of the chapter. In that aspect, Ninja Gaiden II is that common format of killing lots of things, find you way through a maze-like setting, and then kill something big and bad before moving onto the next chapter. Yawn.
I have yet to play the original Ninja Gaiden. I will correct that situation, but not today. Instead, let’s talk about Ninja Gaiden II. Reading a quick little blurb about NGII in my latest Game Informer magazine (that I got with my membership at GameSpot that the Nerd behind the counter talked me into — I just wanted to get out of the damn store, so I agreed quickly to whatever he wanted), it said that Ninja Gaiden was notoriously difficult to play, but the NG II was developed to make it a bit easier. I cannot add my opinion on that yet. NG II is pretty easy.
Ninja Gaiden II has some sort of larger storyline involving a statue that looks more like a skull of something pre-historic, and there is a girl involved, but I am only in Chapter Three right now, and I am not paying attention to the cinematics and the story built therein.
The controls are quite simplistic, if you ask me and you always do. You can jump, throw a projectile, quick attack or power attack. There are other secret ninja moves that require a combination of buttons, like the mighty Ninpo you can inflict on your enemies with the Y and B combo. You can also block attacks with the left trigger. The right trigger aligns the camera behind your Ninja’s back.
You have lots of weapons to choose from, like the wolverine claws in the image above, even though I seem to always go back to my trusty sword.
All in all, I like playing the game, and I am going to try and finish playing it this coming weekend. I’ll let you know how it goes…
Ninja Gaiden II, Ninja Gaiden, Madden 09, Xbox 360, ninja, games, video games, graphics, Game Informer
