NINJA GAIDEN 2 Black

It's hard to enjoy this as an action game when the game keeps trying to distract me from the action with things like obnoxious platforming and a lineup of the worst bosses I have ever experienced (and this game has a lot of bosses). Powering through that, you get to enjoy combat with the regular enemies which IS extremely fun but even this has issues. The camera is awful as it often doesn't point in the direction you face the which leads you to lose track of enemies and be unaware of what is in the direction you face unless you constantly recentre it. Large enemies and explosions can obscure the camera too so in a split second I could be unaware of what's going on and that would basically mean game over. I do love the intensity of the game and how relentless the enemies are as we just don't see that in games these days, but there's just too much holding the game back for me to honestly recommend it. However I will still keep playing it to beat it on master ninja (the highest difficulty mode). So yeah er, if you have the tolerance to get through the issues there's an excellent action game in here but, yeah.

7.5/10

Ooft this aged poorly. Combat mechanics are very good. Game is at its best when you're engaging basic enemies and styling on them with combos. You get into nice flow states and it's basically the core reason why this game has a fairly fanatical following. But booooooooooooooooy I do remember why I kinda hated it in the 360 days, and that was because of essentially everything else. Some caveats: love the muscular dudes and busty girls. This game oozes B movie awesome cool stuff and is unashamedly promoting it. Upskirts, giant cleavages, rippling abs, jiggles, crazy stupid set pieces and giant airplanes. It has that in spades and that's kinda why Itagaki was so loved. I do miss having games that appeal to our nature as humans. Sexy stuff sells because sexy stuff is a good. Apart from this and the combat though, the platforming is mostly rubbish - it's a cacophony of annoying situations with a schizophrenic camera. The camera is an artifact of the times but this one is particularly egregious in its design. The story is an absolute acid trip of completely insane nonsense. You can enjoy it for its stupidity, but it is otherwise a meaningless slop fest which takes you to action set …

Revisiting [i]Ninja Gaiden 2 Black[/i] back-to-back with its runtier sibling has certainly been a revelation, particularly in terms of how much has—and hasn't—changed in Team Ninja's design philosophy between the two titles. Compared to [i]Razor's Edge[/i], [i]2 Black[/i] definitely comes off as the more focused of the two in terms of actual gameplay. Encounters are tightly spaced, with levels constructed almost entirely around the principle of shepherding you from one group of enemies to the next with minimal scripted distractions along the way, relying on player-initiated spectacle to sell the experience rather than peppering it with a myriad of QTE sequences. The enemies themselves also rarely fall into [i]Razor's Edge[/i]'s habit of being so dodge/block-happy that fighting them becomes a chore. Instead, engagements are direct and lethal, with both you and your enemies capable of ending each other in just a few hits, bringing the rhythm back to the high-stakes back-and-forth that feels more natural to the series' combat language. The narrative takes a similarly brutalist approach. The game's overarching plot is paper-thin, existing mostly to justify the globe-trotting scenery …

You play as a ninja killing ♥♥♥♥ with an expanding arsenal of weapons. Mastering the games unique combat system with a moderate amount of boob-age sprinkled in for good measure. I'm finding the bosses to be much easier than a lot of the common enemy encounters but honestly I prefer it that way in this case. Haven't quite finished yet, but this game is pretty peak (besides the UE5 flaws) 10/10.

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