It’s about time. After like 5,000 or so delays, Team Ninja finally lets Ninja Gaiden walk out the door. Ryu Hayabusa hasn’t seen his own adventure since Ninja Gaiden 3, and has since been a character in the Dead or Alive games. Ryu was pretty much overdue for his own adventure, and so Ninja Gaiden has been brought forth. The games for Xbox have been slightly disappointing these past couple of months, and so the release of Ninja Gaiden was a major hit for the Xbox, and rightfully so. It’s about time a good ninja game has come out, though some skill is pretty much a must. Team Ninja brought the hard on.

There is a sword. It’s a sword of great power. This sword has so much power that if it falls into the hands of evil, the world will be in chaos. The Black Dragon sword has been handed down through the generations, at the protection of the Hayabusa clan (mainly Ryu’s father). The trouble starts when Ryu returns from a training exercise in the mountains to find his village being burned to the ground. As he makes his way through the village, passing by dead ninjas, he eventually comes to a large demon with the form of a man, who is holding the Black Dragon sword. The rest of the story unfolds through a series of chapters, as Ryu, bent on revenge, chases after the Black Dragon sword. Story or not, the focus is hardcore ninja action.

First of all, Ninja Gaiden blows Tenchu out of the water. While Tenchu focuses on stealth, Gaiden throws that all out the door for the fast arcade action I’ve ever played. Ninja Gaiden’s difficulty lies in how well you learn all of the different moves, as most enemies will conform to your skill level. There are so many of them, as well as combos, that all pretty much have to be learned for later in the game. Even on normal, Gaiden can give any gamer a run for his (or her) money, and if hey think they’re really a stud, they can try unlocking Ninja Gaiden, Ninja Gaiden 2, or Ninja Gaiden 3 in their Super Nintendo forms by collecting golden scarab beetles, and receiving a certain rating on all 16 chapters. It may seem easy at first, but some quickly learn that their ninja skills aren’t exactly up to par. Trust me, getting Master Ninja status on all 16 chapters isn’t exactly a walk down easy street. Each chapter ranking is pretty much based on your time, as the number of kills doesn’t usually matter all that much. I’ve received one Master Ninja ranking, and that was on the first level (and I’m proud of it).

There’s also Xbox Live play. If you’ve completed the game, sometime in late April/early May you’ll be able to compete in the Master Ninja Tournament. It’s not a one on one death match or a group pounding with people from around the world as you would think though. Instead, you download levels, and you try to get the highest ranking you can get to beat out others around the world. What a good feeling it would be to be the best Ninja Gaiden player in the world. So anyway, that’s how that works. I wouldn’t really say it’s actually online play, but it should be fun to work on your Ninja Skills and continue to improve until you beat that one guy that’s right in front of you.

When it comes time to using your ninja skills, the control is very tight. The control response time is so responsive that you can switch attacks, as well as jumping, flawlessly. Gaiden gets very fast paced, especially when you’re fighting those fast little ninjas from the Spider Clan. Jumping, attacking, blocking, attacking, attacking, jumping, and blocking is pretty much what you’re doing to beat your enemies. Blocking is your best friend, and so using it in sync with your attacks will help you a lot. There are tons of attacks you can use, with a variety of ninja weapons. Your default weapon is of course a sword, but later in the game you’ll get more weapons. In fact, it’s not until Chapter 5 that you find your next weapon, which turned out to be my personal favorite, the nun chucks. You’ve also got some melee weapons like shurikens and a bow and arrow. Aside from your trusty weapons, you can also use ninja magic called Ninpo by finding the scrolls for that spell and equipping it. It can be useful, but there’s really no need when you’ve got such cool weapons to use (there’s even a wooden sword for practice).

As you kill your enemies, they’ll drop essence similar to the system used in Onimusha. There are 3 different types: yellow essence is use as currency to buy new weapon upgrades, armlets, and items, red essence refills your Ninpo, and blue essence refills your health. You can use a special attack by pressing and holding Y to collect nearby essence, and then let go to unleash a deadly attack on whoever is unlucky enough to be in the way. The only problem with this is that you usually won’t have much time to charge the attack up because most of the enemies in the game are pretty aggressive.

Ninja Gaiden also has some exploring elements and a few puzzles here and there, which are usually just find item here to unlock something over there. When you’re not fighting, you’re exploring, and to do that, you’ve got to use some sweet moves. This includes running along walls, wall flips, wall jumping, etc., to get to certain areas. Team Ninja did a good job of requiring certain skills to reach certain places, like the first hidden area where you find a cool throwing weapon, and even a silver X.

Now that Team Ninja has utilized the power of the Xbox with Dead or Alive 3, they could make Ninja Gaiden even better. The Xbox has some amazing power, and Ninja Gaiden looks gorgeous. From a constant frame rate, to massive environments, to the character details, Ninja Gaiden definitely does not disappoint. The character designs are very detailed, from Ryu’s bulging muscles, to Rachel’s bouncing physics (a future Dead or Alive girl for sure), and Ayane’s nimble body. The character animation is smooth and slick, so they’re not robotronic and it adds some bit of realism to the game. The cut-scenes remind me of the ones from The Twin Snakes in that they’re interesting to see and full of action, only Ninja Gaiden has some better looking ones. Nonetheless, Ninja Gaiden is a spectacular display of detail.

Schling! Shlinck! Sliiiiice The sound effects in Ninja Gaiden are top notch. The ching of swords clashing and the squishy sound of a weapon connecting with its target are all there. The voice acting isn’t all that great, but it gets across what we’re suppose to hear, so it’s not really that big of a deal.

Ninja Gaiden is a great action game. Leave stealth and bad gameplay to Tenchu, Ninja Gaiden has got what action gamers and Ninja Gaiden fans want. It’s fast paced, it’s very challenging, and it’s only for Xbox. The Master Ninja Tournament sounds very promising, and so I can’t wait for that to kick off late next month. Here’s hoping for Ninja Gaiden 2 (5 actually).

happy gaming


Recommended: Yes