Ninja: Dark Of The Gaiden
What if Michael Bay married Ninja Gaiden?
Published: April 20, 2012
The scene:
Modern day London, terrorists everywhere. A giant robotic dog spews fire all over unsuspecting onlookers. You've come to fight them, shaking off multiple rocket launch blasts to the face. Hundreds of armed soldiers spray bullets at you as you run between their tanks. After finally stopping the giant robot, you head into the jungle to fight guerilla soldiers hell bent on world domination.
Sounds like a Jerry Bruckheimer film, right? I agree! You know what it doesn't sound like… anything to do with NINJAS. Alas, this is the setup for the first few levels of Ninja Gaiden 3, the latest iteration in the franchise from the remnants of Team Ninja. Those coming in looking for some stealthy intrigue and intense swordplay just turn the fuck around.
To me, the bet Ninja Gaiden games will always be those on the NES. Back then they knew how to make some sweet side-scrolling joystick-jumping ninja action. I put a good amount of time in the reboot of the first game on my Xbox, but I skipped over the sequel and all the "remixes" of the newer games. In fact, I said "I don't want this damn game" when we were sitting around the office talking about who would review 3. Yet, I still found it on my desk the next day… bastards!
In the past, Ninja Gaiden games have focused on playing defensively, looking for openings to strike and carefully studying the patterns of your opponent's attacks to spot the weaknesses. There were interesting settings steeped in mythology and some really great atmosphere. Above all, there was deep and challenging gameplay. Throw all that out the window with Ninja Gaiden 3!
Before you play NG3 (if in fact you still want to play it after this review), make absolutely certain the Square and Triangle buttons on your controller are in top working condition. Because you will be pressing them. A lot. Like nonstop. Combat in NG3 is all about mashing those two buttons as much as possible, and occasionally pressing them in the proper order to do a "combo". There is no finesse whatsoever required, and in fact finesse will probably do you more harm than good in this game. There is no reason to take a measured approach and study the situation, because every situation is "attack as much as possible as fast as possible until everything on the screen is dead".
I MIGHT be able to look past the boring, repetitive action if the setups for these fights were interesting, but sadly they aren't compelling at all. The entire game is a series of killboxes where dozens upon dozens of enemies pour into an area, each of whom can miraculously take 10 or more hits before dying, then you move to the next area and do it over and over and over again. Eventually you'll reach a boss fight, something of a hallmark for this series. As you might expect, they don't do these justice this time around either. Once again, the challenge is gone and the boss fights boil down to an endurance match that tests how long you can mash buttons. I remember agonizing over that bastard on the horse in the first game, but this time around I breezed through these chumps with my only worry beingif my controller would run out of batteries.
Modern day London, terrorists everywhere. A giant robotic dog spews fire all over unsuspecting onlookers. You've come to fight them, shaking off multiple rocket launch blasts to the face. Hundreds of armed soldiers spray bullets at you as you run between their tanks. After finally stopping the giant robot, you head into the jungle to fight guerilla soldiers hell bent on world domination.
Sounds like a Jerry Bruckheimer film, right? I agree! You know what it doesn't sound like… anything to do with NINJAS. Alas, this is the setup for the first few levels of Ninja Gaiden 3, the latest iteration in the franchise from the remnants of Team Ninja. Those coming in looking for some stealthy intrigue and intense swordplay just turn the fuck around.
To me, the bet Ninja Gaiden games will always be those on the NES. Back then they knew how to make some sweet side-scrolling joystick-jumping ninja action. I put a good amount of time in the reboot of the first game on my Xbox, but I skipped over the sequel and all the "remixes" of the newer games. In fact, I said "I don't want this damn game" when we were sitting around the office talking about who would review 3. Yet, I still found it on my desk the next day… bastards!
In the past, Ninja Gaiden games have focused on playing defensively, looking for openings to strike and carefully studying the patterns of your opponent's attacks to spot the weaknesses. There were interesting settings steeped in mythology and some really great atmosphere. Above all, there was deep and challenging gameplay. Throw all that out the window with Ninja Gaiden 3!
Before you play NG3 (if in fact you still want to play it after this review), make absolutely certain the Square and Triangle buttons on your controller are in top working condition. Because you will be pressing them. A lot. Like nonstop. Combat in NG3 is all about mashing those two buttons as much as possible, and occasionally pressing them in the proper order to do a "combo". There is no finesse whatsoever required, and in fact finesse will probably do you more harm than good in this game. There is no reason to take a measured approach and study the situation, because every situation is "attack as much as possible as fast as possible until everything on the screen is dead".
I MIGHT be able to look past the boring, repetitive action if the setups for these fights were interesting, but sadly they aren't compelling at all. The entire game is a series of killboxes where dozens upon dozens of enemies pour into an area, each of whom can miraculously take 10 or more hits before dying, then you move to the next area and do it over and over and over again. Eventually you'll reach a boss fight, something of a hallmark for this series. As you might expect, they don't do these justice this time around either. Once again, the challenge is gone and the boss fights boil down to an endurance match that tests how long you can mash buttons. I remember agonizing over that bastard on the horse in the first game, but this time around I breezed through these chumps with my only worry beingif my controller would run out of batteries.
