NG2 - What' s the big deal?

Ok so I just finished Ninja Gaiden 2. After reading comments in the previous thread about it, it came across like it was fundamentally flawed or something. After completing it on Warrior, I have no idea what people are complaining about.

Framerate issues? Yes, but I only noticed it for a couple of seconds at most. The only extended period of extreme slowdown was the long staircase in chapter 10, but you' re only being attacked by first level enemies who do negligible damage. But I agree that this kind of a problem is quite unacceptable in a game like NG2.

Camera? Exactly the same as NG1. It can be a little unwieldly at times but I' ve never died or become frustrated as a result of it. It' s adequate for all intents and purposes. Though if you' ve never played NG1 then I can understand that it takes a while to learn.

Difficulty? People say that on warrior it' s harder than NG1 (normal). I disagree. Most bosses can be taken down with little strategy. Some were harder than others but none of them were ' cheap' (ok so maybe the exploding boss but once you know about it, it' s easy to avoid). Even when you die on a boss, you just restart at the beginning of the fight, rather than going back to the last save point and potentially having to fight through half the level again like NG1. Rocket launcher enemies are all show and nothing else. I have no idea why some people are challenged by them. Once you get close to them it' s over.

NG2 is also easier than NG1 because it' s more user friendly. There are many more save points and Murumasa stores. They' re always conveniently placed just before difficult/boss areas. In NG1 these features are few and far between, meaning items had to be used more sparingly. In NG2 you can' t fall off cliffs and die when platforming. There are no bottomless pits of death that force you to keep repeating the same area over and over. Money is more plentiful in NG2. I had about 200k at chapter 9 because I had already bought everything I could. From then on I was able to consistently purchase all the heals I could ever want.

The rest of the stuff is fantastic.

Overall I found NG1 far more difficult than NG2. I can' t actually recall a time where I was frustrated in NG2 whereas in NG1 I could barely restrain myself from throwing the controller across the room sometimes.

It was a kickass ride that was bloody and surprisingly good looking in some chapters. Is NG2 as groundbreaking as NG1 at it' s time? No. But when comparing them directly: NG2 > NG1.

Ok now beat it on Mentor.

I don' t recall anyone on Kikizo complaining about it, but I know pretty much every site gave it bad reviews for expected reasons like bad camera.

I' ve only played the first level, and from what I' ve seen the camera certainly is a lot looser than the first one and was a bit more of a pain in-doors, but it still is manageable.

Cameras are for nubs. I beat it on blindfolded on master.

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."

It' s not that the camera is any different, it' s that it appears to get caught behind shit more. I' d be kicking ass and the camera would flick behind a wall and i wouldn' t be able to see shit for like 20 seconds and had to fight blind.

As for the framerate... nobody can convince me that it' s acceptable. It' s fine for half of the game, but it drops all the time during combat. People saying that it only happens occasionally are either full of shit, just plain lucky or aren' t playing it right. It mostly happens during massive UT' s against large groups of enemies.

It could have done with another couple of months for optimization too. I' ve flying swallow' d into water and the animation has locked up more than once forcing me to reboot.

The bosses aren' t hard, but they' re cheap and not fun to fight. The rest of the enemies are fine, but the bosses blow.

The art direction is kickass though and the level design is much improved over the original, ...and the weapons are badass. But it' s clear that the game was rushed to retail due to Itagaki' s impending departure.

The game is badass, but it' s not as good as it could have been.

Actually the framerate thing is kind of weird.
I had huuuuge framerate issues in chapter 1 at the end in the 2nd skyscraper,and saved and watched a movie in inja gaiden cinema,and after that I played again,and the loading was gone,and it was in 60 framerate nonstop,it feelt like fast forwarding lol.
Must have been some cache issue or something,I dont know.

My real complaint with the game is that it always freeze after I go through the leaderboards,and it hangs frequently...

Even if you break 2 legs from a crab it still runs!
What you gotta do is find its weak spot and do massive damage at it.

The brief loads during combat are annoying too. None of it is game breaking, and it' s just as well that it' s so badass because most other games would get trashed o end if they were this flawed.

I' ve played a couple of chapters in Mentor now and I have to say I can see the framerate issue much more now. Now that they' ve packed the areas with more enemies (and more particle effects), it seems like the engine just chokes. It sucks. Mentor doesn' t seem as fun as warrior because in order to survive, you have to cheap out enemies rather than defeat them with skillful combos. I' ve found that the most effective way to clear out those Ninja Tac Squads is to play hop-jump with them (literally using X+A, X+A, X+A until they meet a wall or their head falls off). It pretty much makes you invulnerable to most of their attacks. Gets boring though.

As for bosses, I' ve never looked forward to fighting them in any Ninja Gaiden game. Still don' t know what you mean by ' cheap' . When you fight Alma for the first time in NG1 it could be considered cheap, but like her, once you figure out a general strategy they usually aren' t overly hard.

That part you mentioned about the game locking up is surprising Nitro. I have not experienced anything like that, but I want to test it out. I' ll see what happens if I flying swallow into water a few times.

When i say cheap, i mean the unescapable grabs where you end up taking a shitload of damage, and the fact that they spam the same attacks over and over.

When i fought Zedonius X2, he kept kicking me into the lava which meant i' d almost certainly die every time. So obviously, you have to avoid going near the edge so as not top be knocked off, but when i did that he just spawned the stupid centipede/scorpion things or hit me with a ton of fireballs. I managed to kill him without taking any damage on what must have been my 10th or 11th attempt, but i didn' t feel like it was because i' d figured it out, ...i felt like i' d just gotten lucky.

The 2 x dragon boss fight pissed me off too. The bow controls may be much improved but the game isn' t a shooter and you can' t move while firing like you can in GoW2.

I also miss the Unlaboured Flawlessness. I much prefer the weapon set over those in Black/Sigma, but i would have still have liked to have had the UF and Kitetsu.

I hope Temco put out some DLC on top of the fuck awesome alternate costumes - which while pricey, are seriously kickass! I want another mission mode.

Yeah, I' d definitely like a level select option as an update. It' s odd because if you go back to the earlier demonstrations of NG2, they have a proper level selection screen. But it' s suddenly absent from the full game. Missions would be good too.

Mission Mode inbound...

Mission mode sounds cheap/bad.

Even if you break 2 legs from a crab it still runs!
What you gotta do is find its weak spot and do massive damage at it.

It sounds exactly like the missions modes in Black and Sigma... and they were awesome.