These days, I’ve been desirous about status. Particularly, I’ve been desirous about how sure videogames turn out to be caricatures of themselves. Darkish Souls is maybe the prime instance. Right here we have now an motion RPG that warns potential gamers to “put together to die” in its definitive version, whose problem is so lionized by its group that “git gud” has turn out to be its timeless chorus. This forbidding facade meant it took me over half a decade to lastly sit down and play Darkish Souls, solely to find that it’s my supreme consolation recreation. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is a bit like that.
Usually thought-about the “Darkish Souls earlier than Darkish Souls,” Ninja Gaiden is a sequence that’s by some means handed me by. I’ve a distant reminiscence of Ninja Gaiden on my childhood good friend’s SNES, a set of purple pixels front-flipping throughout a CRT TV display. Much less distant, the early 2000s: low-rise denims; flip telephones; Group Ninja’s Ninja Gaiden. “This recreation is tough,” the web instructed me. The toughest videogame of all time. However problem for the sake of problem doesn’t curiosity me, and anyway, I didn’t have an Xbox. Now, 2025. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. I used to be prepared. I’d performed Darkish Souls, and I liked it. I may do that.
This… just isn’t what I anticipated. Ryu Hayabusa the Dragon Ninja flexes leatherbound glutes towards a neo-Tokyo backdrop of flying vehicles and cherry blossoms. A CIA agent in a backless minidress and thigh-high boots breasts boobily into the clutches of a demon ninja clan. A shirtless twunk in a leather-based catsuit flaps his butterfly wings and bestows a kiss on the Statue of Liberty’s copper-green cheek. This isn’t your dad’s Ninja Gaiden. That is camp. That is Stellar Blade on testosterone.
What Ninja Gaiden 2 Black isn’t is tough – a minimum of, not on regular mode, which is advisable for first-time gamers. There’s a tough mode and a really laborious mode above that, and it’s not lengthy earlier than I’m taking a tentative step up that problem slope. It’s not as a result of I’m a masochist, however relatively that standard mode is lacking a elementary side of the Ninja Gaiden expertise, like biting right into a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and tasting solely chocolate. Has the proliferation of tough-as-nails soulslikes over the past decade been coaching me for this like I’m some type of motion recreation super-soldier? Most likely not. However I do change to laborious mode anyway, and have a a lot better time getting my shit rocked.
There’s a simplicity to Ninja Gaiden 2 Black that’s sorely lacking in our trendy panorama of soulslikes and motion RPGs. It’s a uncommon deal with to hack and slash by waves of enemies with out managing a stamina bar or juggling incremental bonuses in construct menus. Fight is a diegetic affair that calls for the participant learn and reply to enemies as an alternative of counting on ever-inflating harm numbers. It’s a purity analogous to the most effective preventing video games. Essentially, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black boils right down to an countless procession of enemies, however they aren’t the problem right here. The true problem lies in mastering this fight system; the reward is the palpable sense of that mastery.
Oh, and what a reward it’s. Limbs fly; blood spurts from flesh stumps, drenching flooring, partitions, leather-based, and muscle in arcade-style crimson. It’s ultraviolent to a cartoonish excessive, an explosion of visible stimulus that dispenses dopamine proportionate to the hit counter within the top-left nook of the display. Skirmishes are peppered with cinematic transitions that make a spectacle of flashy combos and finishers, letting you marinate within the energy fantasy of performing them efficiently whereas watching your enemies vanish in a burst of gore.
It additionally helps that Ninja Gaiden 2 Black has a unbelievable arsenal that simply feels good. Wolverine claws? Test. Scythe? Test. A Large Fucking Sword? Test. There’s even a gun! Amongst all these decisions, the Lunar Workers takes the crown as one in every of my favourite weapons in a videogame. Its ostentatious moveset makes me really feel like a baton twirler highly effective sufficient to rival Heather Burns herself (and if anybody may mild their batons on fireplace and do an attractive dance, it’d be Ryu Hayabusa). I shortly attain its improve restrict, nevertheless it’s a testomony to Ninja Gaiden 2 Black’s weapon selection that I don’t use it as a crutch.
As a substitute, every weapon’s distinct moveset affords a brand new method to answer encounters. There’s no laundry listing of combos à la Satan Could Cry or Bayonetta. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black’s problem doesn’t lie in enter memorization as it’s sample recognition, and that is the place my fellow soulslike enjoyers will hit their stride. Certain, you may button-mash your method by each enemy and in all probability not die in regular mode, however doing so can be a brute-force measure that may be detrimental to the expertise.
Nonetheless, I can see why the cadence of fight could confuse or frustrate gamers who’re used to a particular type of motion recreation virtually indistinguishable from Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. The frenetic vitality of a traditional hack-and-slash collides with the cautious deliberation of contemporary soulslikes to type a fight system distinct from both. Regardless, Ryu’s calculated stillness adopted by a devastating burst of pace is as gratifying thematically as it’s mechanically; if somebody requested me to explain how a Dragon Ninja would struggle, this is able to be it.
The digital camera is, effectively. It’s not good, is it? I’m no stranger to a foul digital camera. The Final Guardian; Sonic Journey; Darkish Souls; you identify it, I’ve in all probability wrestled its digital camera, however Ninja Gaiden is in a league of its personal. The digital camera is just too far or too shut, invariably will get caught up in a throng of enemies, and turns at a snail’s tempo. Ultimately, I let go of the fitting analog stick altogether in a wild-eyed “Jesus, take the wheel!” second, and what have you learnt – it’s truly higher. I let the digital camera transfer the place it likes, sometimes counting on its soft-lock focusing on system to reorient and have a touch higher time total.
It’s time to handle the demon ninjas within the room. Look, for those who put a gun to my head and requested me to clarify the narrative intricacies of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, I’d beg you to drag the set off simply to place me out of my distress. I’m conscious that I’m tuning right into a sequel so I can’t precisely maintain my ignorance towards it. As a substitute, I wish to reward it for the convenience with which you’ll be able to put all that extraneous guff about Vigoor and Archfiends out of sight and out of thoughts. It’s there in order for you it – however for those who’d relatively skip previous each incidental line of dialogue and scrap of taste textual content to deal with slicing demons to demise, you completely can.
This narrative strategy is within the spirit of the sequence’ arcade beat-em-up roots and informs Ninja Gaiden 2 Black’s total construction. Chapters are synonymous with arcade phases, and whereas it’s nowhere close to as brief because the Ninja Gaiden tailormade for cupboards that cost by the session, it’s nonetheless technically potential to clear it in a single sitting. This may inevitably pique the curiosity of speedrunners, however this construction additionally makes it simple to apportion into half-hour classes that maintain any frustrations to a low simmer.
A thirtieth birthday is a time of self-reflection, and Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is the prime alternative to expertise Group Ninja’s mid-2000s reboot in all its glory (and infamy) earlier than we see the fashionable strides of Ninja Gaiden 4 later this 12 months. It’s a return to an earlier type of action-adventure recreation design that has since been outmoded by the FromSoftware or Sony blueprint. The restrictions of that design would possibly rip these rose-tinted glasses proper off, nevertheless it affords a particular model of consolation distinctive to earlier console generations. Plus, there’s actually no different videogame that features a ninja bursting by a cathedral’s rose window to cease a pack of werewolves from staging a hostile takeover of Venice. I’ve been at drag reveals with much less camp.
