I don't like Ninja Theory! Come find out why!

I own a PS4, and I've been eagerly waiting for a Character Action game to be announced for the platform (Yeah, yeah, Legend of Korra, I know and I'm excited, but I was thinking more AAA). Low and behold, one is announced at Gamescom. Hellblade. Okay, aside from being a terrible name, it could be fine. Then I see it's coming from the Ninja Theory boys down in England. Oh well.

Then they show up at the Giant Bomb panel, and everyone cheers when they talk about the games they've put out. That floored me. How could people cheer when they say the words "Heavenly Sword"?????? That's when I realized that I might be the minority here. Well, I want to take a look at their past games and share my thoughts on them, so at least people can understand me when I say that Ninja Theory should stop making Character Action games.

Heavenly Sword

Okay, let's start with their Playstation 3 debut, Heavenly Sword. This game's story and world revolves around this thing called the Heavenly Sword. A heavenly guy beat some Demon Warlord and left the sword in the mortal world, resulting in humanity warring over it's power. Yeah, I bet you forgot that, I had to look this up because of how forgettable it is.

The game's protagonist is a red-head named Nariko. Her design isn't the worst thing ever, but there is nothing really interesting about it aside from the hair. Just like the plot, she is pretty forgettable.

Forgettable is a common word with this game. Level design didn't do anything to grab you. Something that I'll admit Ninja Theory has learned how to do. Unfortunately, this game wasn't too good at it.

The gameplay here is pretty basic. You use the Heavenly Sword (I haven't mentioned that this is a dumb ass name for a sword yet, but it is) in 3 different stances. Speed, range, and power. This doesn't really add too much variety, and honestly, the combat is JUST God of War. It's uninspired. It isn't awful by any means, and it works, but it doesn't do anything to stand out. It also uses QTE's too much.

Oh, and you could steer projectiles with the sixaxis controller. It's just as dumb as it sounds.

Heavenly Sword wasn't even bad. It was forgettable, and that is arguably worse. Also, didn't run at 60fps. BOO!!!

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

"Hold on, let me scan this blog before we read more of it"

Okay, this game is a weird one. Some people really seem to like it, and I remember people calling it the best game in 2010, but was it really that good? NO, at least in my opinion. This game is a re-imagining of Journey to the West, a novel written by Wu Cheng'en. The big difference being that Enslaved is set in a post-apocalyptic future. I have to admit that the premise is kick ass. Was the execution done well? Eh... I'm gonna get the rough shit out of the way first. The combat in this game is SO BAD!!!!!! Holy shit!!! You have stupid enemies that will block, attack, or sit there and eat your attacks. Your attacks consist of an overpowered stungun, a crappy laser, and your staff. Staff combos are non existent, because just mashing heavy attack and countering when enemies glow red will beat this game. Not to mention the "bosses". One being a dog that you can shoot with your stungun, hit with heavy attacks, and repeat. There is really nothing here, and it sucks.

Kiiiiiiindaaaaa...

People really like the story of this game. Specifically the relationship between Monkey and Trip. I found it thin. Their relationship grows a little too fast for my taste, probably because of how short the game is. Not to mention that Trip isn't likable for the majority of the game. Monkey is the one that compromises and helps Trip on her revenge mission without hesitation, even though he is the "Criminal slave being forced to protect against his will" while Trip is selfish and doesn't even ask monkey to help seek revenge. She just demands it. Boo. I hate you, Trip.

Character designs aren't great either, and Trip is JUST Nariko...

The artistic design is fucking gorgeous in this game!!! The simple climbing in the game presents you with beautiful vistas that made me stop and just look for a while. The mixture of color was nice to look at. Ninja Theory killed it in terms of aesthetic design.

Enslaved is a good game to look at... Not to play...

Didn't run at 60fps. BOO! Even the PC version had a FPS lock. DOUBLE BOO!!!!

DmC: Devil May Cry (What a dumb name!!!!!)

Okay! Here we go! This is the controversial one! Time to defend my distaste for this game!

Before you attack, I just wanna say that Old Dante was shit, and Reboot Dante isn't any better. They're both dumb and I didn't care about the change. That is the least of my issues with DmC.

I'll change it up and start with the positive. Level design and platforming are great in this game. It was fun to traverse these impossibly cool areas as they crumbled and formed around me. Thumbs up!

Okay, the positive stuff went by fairly quickly... onto the mechanics of DmC... They are too simple. Devil Trigger is dumbed down! Stances are gone! Lock-On is GONE! Almost all advanced tactics are gone! (No DRI's, No Enemy Hopper Jump Cancels, No Royal Guard!!!!!!!). SSS ranks are handed out like free candy! Colored enemies are maybe the WORST thing in the game. Why would you intentionally prevent the player from being creative with his combos in a Devil May Cry game? UGH!

Enemy design is TERRIBLE!!!! Only one of them are fun to fight, being that teleporting samurai guy, and the rest are just boring or bad.

Bosses are bad. Yeah, I said it. That stupid News Station boss that everyone talks about LOOKS cool, but it is literally jumping through squares, pressing a button, and doing as much damage as possible in the bosses recovery time. That is bad design. Even the fight with Vergil is much worse than the fights with Vergil throughout DMC3.

DmC is cool to look at and jump around in, but it is too braindead easy for me to feel satisfied playing it. It felt balanced with reviewers in mind, requiring little to no effort to do "Cool shit".

Ran at 60fps on PC, not console. Half-Boo.

In Conclusion?

This really looks like a lot of bitching, but I'm not excited for Hellblade because Ninja theory has a bad track record. I just want Sony to hire Platinum to make something for PS4, because I'm not looking forward to my inevitable purchase of the Xbox One for Scalebound, the only game I'm interested in on that system. I already did it with the WiiU, and now I'm going to do it again. I'd like a good AAA Character Action game on the system I already bought, and I don't have any high hopes for GenericBlade...

/rant i guess?

I didn't do Kung Fu Chaos because no one knows that that is...

I know what that is, a harmless party brawler for the Xbox that's moderately fun with friends.

And you do know God of War ran at 30 frames per second right? That's because it wasnt that deep. It's a button masher, much like Ninja Theory's games. If you wanted a character action game maby you should have bought a Wii U or even an Xbox One.

EDIT: I'm not saying there's anything wrong with button mashers, No More Heroes is a button masher as is Killer is Dead but if a game has enough style it can still be fun even if it isnt deep. DmC had a lot of problems, mainly that it shouldnt have been a Devil May Cry game but it definitely nailed the tone it was after, whether or not you liked it doesnt mean other people cant and the tone can have a heavy impact on how much someone enjoys a game.

I do have a WiiU. I am going to buy an Xbox One when ScaleBound drops.

I hate God of War.

60 fps is a bottom line judgement for you, eh?

I respectfully disagree with your assessment on Ninja Theory. They've been getting progressively better with each game, and an announcement from them elicits excitement because of that.

Heavenly Sword, I finished the game twice when it first came out. Somehow, I still remember a TON of stuff that happens. The combat had potential to be interesting, but they didn't really give you incentive to branch out too much. At the time, the performance capture was truly impressive and the cutscenes made an impression on me. Been a while, but I'll be checking out the movie sometime this week to revisit that universe.

Enslaved, I bumped it to hard and found the combat to be very satisfying. I approached things tactically, found the cinematic touches to be neat, and I remember having a variety of useful tools at my disposal. I liked the characters, I found the story to be engrossing, and it had the Andy Serkis performance magic that continued to impress. Beautiful art, as well. I thoroughly enjoyed Enslaved.

DMC. I'm a huge fan of the original series. 3 is one of the best character action games ever made, and I beat 4 six times. This new one disappointed me because I disliked the combat's reliance on having enemies that are immune to certain weapons. It did make you use most of your arsenal, which I tend to avoid in these games when I find a weapons that works. With that being said, I disagreed with Brad's 5 stars but definitely think it's worthy of 4 because of its creative design. The levels, the enemies, the easy transition between weaponry. Story stuff was ok, but it had a legacy to follow and I couldn't enjoy it like NT's previous work with that frame of reference. I can probably say the same for the combat, as well.

IN CONCLUSION. As soon as I saw Hellblade being developed by Ninja Theory, it became one of my most anticipated games. You mention Platinum, which is absolutely one of my favorite developers around today. In character action, Platinum always nails the gameplay and has a fun presentation. While Ninja Theory has fun gameplay but excels in presentation.

Did you know that Vanquish was 30fps? 60fps is nice but it isn't required if the devs know how to effectively communicate a sense of speed.

@csl316: What if Platinum and Ninja Theory collaborated?

@csl316: @corruptedevil: 60 FPS isn't a bottomline judgement, or required, it just really bums me out. I just added those "Boos" at the end of each game's assessment because they're a small feature that really would have made each game feel better. It's ideal, and I would kill for a PC port of Vanquish at 60fps by the way.

@aegon: Game of the generation, don't put these ideas in my head.

@aegon: That almost sounds as impossible as Platinum making a Metal Gear game.

Oh wait...

I've enjoyed every one of the games released by Ninja Theory. So... I disagree I guess.

I don't like DmC, wasn't impressed by the Heavenly Sword demo and haven't cared enough to play my copy of Enslaved yet, but I want to see more of Hellblade.

I always thought Ninja Theory was underrated.

I liked DmC just fine. Devil May Cry 3 it is not, but that's like complaining every 2D platformer isn't Super Mario World. (Also I think DMC3 is the only game in the original series that remotely holds up without serious caveats). Of course, it sold poorly enough that we won't have any Devil May Cry game for a while, so I hope you like "Ubisoft presents Le Devil Mey Crie, developed by all 30 of their studios" in 5 years (also in this post apocalyptic scenario, Ubisoft bought Capcom).

All I remember about Heavenly Sword is that conversation on 1UP Yours where Shane Bettenhausen was trying to defend giving that game a 9 (because of course he did) and John Davison was having none of it. Also that it's like 4 hours and, being an early PS3 exclusive, it has bad sixaxis stuff in it. All I remember about Enslaved was it getting a bunch of 8s in reviews and no one buying it.

I'm not much of a Ninja Theory fan either. I agree that all their games are wanting in the gameplay department, and are generally only lauded for successes in other, less important (to me, anyway), areas.

Although you don't care for her, I thought Nariko was a decent character, and that part at the end when you're wrecking loads of dudes is pretty alright.

Enslaved has some excellent performance capture, but Uncharted 2: Among Thieves had already set the bar higher when this game first released. World design is pretty, I guess.

I wasn't too thrilled when DMC brought back Heavenly Sword's on-the-fly stance/weapon changes. I feel that alternating between the R2/L2 buttons throws off the balance of the controller in my hands and makes it difficult for me to pull off combos that I never would have had issues with in previous Devil May Cry games. Some of the levels looked cool, I guess, but I couldn't even bring myself to finish this game and see them all.

So the only consistently good element to their games is that they look good... except they kind of don't. All their games have this hideous grimy grain filter that just makes them look unfinished. They look the way games look in crummy GameStop machinima commercials.

When people throw FPS into their arguments it's extremely hard to take seriously

I can understand it in terms of multiplayer shooters and to a lesser extent racing games, but everything else seems superfluous.

That being said, I'm one of the few vocal fans of Dead Rising 3's PC port, because it has a rock solid, unflinching 30fps lock. Nothing worse than an unstable framerate in an action game.

Agree. They have a ways to go. There is hope though. Let's see what they come up with.

@metalgearsunny: I believe that FPS is a very important aspect in racing games, fighting games, and character action. I'm sorry that you cannot take my opinion seriously because of me mentioning the frame rates at the end of each of the games I talked about.

I don't think you're in the minority in hating Ninja Theory, I just think because the Giant Bomb guys like their games a lot of their fans try them out, and because they're not the type of people who would play a game like DMC3 or Bayonetta they don't notice how shallow Ninja Theory's stuff is in comparison. You don't have to venture far outside of this site to find people who not only don't like Ninja Theory, but can articulate exactly why they don't.

All that being said I think it's weird to lump Enslaved in with Heavenly Sword and DmC: DMC, because it's not at all trying to be character action. It's a story based spectacle game with gameplay that doesn't require much from the player, like Uncharted.

I can certainly understand Heavenly Sword and Enslaved leaving a bit of a bad taste in your mouth, but I feel like DmC was a pretty dramatic step forward in terms of gameplay. If you view it through the lens of previous entries in the DMC franchise, I suppose I can understand some of the complaints about a certain lack of depth. However, I think if you can judge it outside of that context, the gameplay in DmC is pretty solid and fun - certainly not so demonstrably worse than Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising that I would deride another Ninja Theory game purely because it isn't a Platinum game.

@TechnoSyndrome: You can be fans of games like Bayonetta and DMC3 whilst still enjoying more shallow games from that genre. It's pretty close minded to think that everyone who likes Ninja Theory's games just dont know any better.

@chaser324: Exactly, Capcom doesnt make these kinds of games anymore and Team Ninja are struggling aswell, if anything you (OP) should be happy that another company besides Platinum are trying their best to keep the character action genre relevant, even if it doesnt meet your expectations.

DmC wasnt great but it's a much better game than say, Golden Axe: Beast Rider or Dante's Inferno. And on a mechanical level they're much better than Suda 51's recent attempts in the genre.

No More Heroes 2 was fantastic mechanically (well the boss fights were anyway).

Suda51's games never really attempt the combat complexity of Devil May Cry, so it seems a bit odd to try to lump them together. Action games of this sort come in different flavors with different levels of technicality.

In regards to Enslaved, this needs to be posted.

I know, the whole point of my post was me demonstrating the lack of games with that kind of complexity.

If anything, this thread got me to watch the Heavenly Sword movie. Surprisingly, I liked it a great deal! And now I wanna replay the game and see more. Their marketing strategy worked.

And wait... some people think Ninja Theory games have fans because they're unaware of the simplicity of the combat? I like their stuff and God of War, but I also love old Devil May Cry, Revengeance, Bayonetta, The Wonderful 101, all on their hardest difficulties.

Each of these games have their own approach, which means the genre has room for all sorts of different styles. I choose to enjoy them all for different reasons. Just like one day I can listen to baroque and technical metal, the next I have ambient electronica and my Aaliyah greatest hits CD. Everything has its own merits.

@csl316: Heavenly Sword movie??? Is it some direct-to-DVD movie than Sony had no faith in for theatrical release? I never heard anything about it.

Yeah, basically. They're experimenting with using game assets and turning them into movies. Ratchet and Clank is in a similar situation.

It's budget CG movie-making, and although it didn't look like Frozen, it was neat to see and enjoyable. That's if you liked the original game, which you didn't so don't bother researching further.

Ninja Theory are amazingly talented and I have no idea what you are talking about.

I didn't play heavenly sword, but odyssey to the west and DMC are amazing games IMO.

It seems like they don't make games you like fair enough I guess, but your half rants about the games being designed poorly are about as weak as pointing out that they aren't running at 60fps (which is basically every game at the time of release for these games anyway. No one started crying about the 60fps stuff until the last few years.)

Character action fans (well, Japanese character action) are pretty used to games running at 60. All the previous DMC games, Bayonetta, and Metal Gear Rising all run at 60. I'd definitely agree he doesn't do a good job arguing his point though.

@rowr: I'll accept the criticism of my ability to back up opinions, but honestly, saying "I didn't play heavenly sword, but odyssey to the west and DMC are amazing games IMO." isn't the strongest argument either. I have no idea why you like those games, and I feel like if you are going to call my criticism of the mechanics in these games weak, then maybe you should make a strong argument for them.

I stated good and bad things about these games (Save for Heavenly Sword) and gave basic rundowns on most of the points. I also don't get why pointing out they don't run at 60 fps is a bad thing? Other games in the genre (and other genres as well, look at racing and fighting games) before these games hit the 60fps and the "crying" about it has also been around for more than the last few years. It just has gotten bigger recently.

I really, really enjoyed my time with Enslaved. Haven't played either of the others.

Heavenly Sword is fine. Enslaved is absolutely fantastic from a narrative standpoint, some of the gameplay can be a little wonky but it's still a great game. And DmC is pretty much a perfect character action game.

There, debate settled! Everyone can go home now.

I really enjoyed DMC but man, Enslaved was a hot mess for me, I had multiple technical issues and frequent crashing that kept me from finishing the game.

Okay let's go home.

I can't stand the character action label. Seems like a way to excuse weaknesses and make some things appear more important than they are. I'm pretty sure I didn't see it used until I came to Giantbomb.

I thought the only real problem with DmC was that it was a Devil May Cry game. It didn't advance any of the gameplay elements of the originals but instead built them from the ground up. I also think I remember reading that people from Capcom built the combat so I wouldn't put all the blame on Ninja Theory for that one. Also the original Devil May Cry games had a cliffhanger at the end of their story and it looks like that'll never be resolved for people that care about that thing or people like me who liked the original Dante. It was a good game though.

Didn't play Heavenly Sword but will probably do it for curiosity's sake.

Enslaved had a decent story, decent gameplay, and an insane ending.

@technosyndrome Overall the crew doesn't really care all that much about these guys. I don't think any of them have fond memories about Heavenly Sword. Vinny and maybe Brad are the only ones that talked positively about Enslaved. DmC is the only game most of the crew liked and I think that's because no one working at Giant Bomb gave a shit about the original games. The crew thinks Ninja Theory is interesting. I'm not sure if they see it as a mark of quality.

What would you label a game like Bayonetta then? Just Action? Brawler?

I find the term perfectly suitable.

Ninja Theory's games have gotten better with each release...Enslaved improved everything outside of gameplay, DmC then improved said gameplay issues. That's why I'm looking forward to Hellblade; fair enough if their games just aren't for you though.

"I don't like a studio that is progressively getting better with each release and is taking creative risks with every game they make!"

People saying Enslaved was the best game of 2010 are crazy (I don't think there are many). It's a solid 3/5, I liked it, enjoyed the characters of Monkey, Trip and Pigsy but I'm not going to go ga-ga over it. I was also glad I had played it on hard (a rarity for me), I felt like I got a lot more out of the (extremely basic, but enjoyable) combat that way than I would have otherwise.

I really didn't like Heavenly Sword. I loved DmC, the combat is a load of fun - but I also never got super duper deep into the combat of say DMC3, and if that's your standard, that this kind of game absolutely must live up to, then I can totally understand not liking it. I enjoyed DmC's silly story and characters, and loved its visuals. A legitimately great game in my book, I'd be super pleased to see another. In an ideal world Devil May Cry would be successful enough that Capcom would be working on their own mainline entry and having Ninja Theory make a sequel to DmC, I feel.

I like that Ninja Theory exist and are doing their thing, it's not like we get many of these kinds of games (it was pretty damn awesome that we basically got three great entries into the genre last year with DmC, Revengeance and W101 :D) and they seem to have gone from strength-to-strength with each title. It'll be interesting to see how Hellblade turns out without Capcom's guidance.

I would call it third-person action or just action. Or hack and slash for practicality, before I was reminded that you fight unarmed. It doesn't seem to have much exploration, puzzles or platforming, so it's not an action-adventure like Uncharted or the Arkham games. You wouldn't call it a fighting game either. Yeah, I think action is narrow enough.

I totally get your dislike of Ninja Theory games, I personally quite Enslaved and DMC, but I see how others would dislike them. I think something that should be considered when talking about the old DMC games vs the new one is that they might both be classified under character action but they are very different in their general gameplay concepts. I personally think DMC would have been far better received if it was the same basic game but not part of the DMC series. The game's combat isn't perfect at all but one shouldn't criticize it for lack of stuff like styles when at its core it handles quite a bit differently.

@adam1808: I don't mean to sound like a giant ass, but I don't like any of the games that the company has made and because of that I'm skeptical. That's the great thing about being skeptical, it puts me in a position where if I'm wrong and HellBlade turns out great, then we all get a good game and I can praise Ninja, but if it suffers the same problems that I have with their past games (shallow mechanics and boss fights) then I'll be in the same position as I am now. Nothing will be lost.

I also implied that the creative risk was the only thing I liked from ninja theory.

It's rude not to cheer people when they show up on a panel...

More on topic though I really enjoyed DmC but I'm sure Capcom had their hands over the creative process. I'm interested to see what Ninja Theory can do now without publisher interference!

@viciousbearmauling: I understand where you're coming from, but I'm honestly super glad they get to continue to make new games. I'd rather them continue to put out mechanically flawed games that take real risks than for them to make an excellent series of games that becomes a major commercial hit. I play a lot of great games but I don't play that many interesting ones, especially in this genre.

On a slightly related note, if you didn't get a chance to watch the GB PAX Prime 2014 panel yet, everybody's favorite lovable goof, John Vignocchi, announced at the panel that Ninja Theory would be helping out with some of the combat in Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes (2.0 Edition). They didn't really say to what extent they were helping out, but it was said that they were at least helping with the combat for the playable villains, as well as Princess Jasmine. That news kind of came out of nowhere, but it's an interesting addition to both Disney Infinity and Ninja Theory's repertoire.

Personally, I like Ninja Theory. I didn't play Heavenly Sword, but I thought Enslaved and DMC were pretty good games. Flawed, for sure, but they were certainly interesting and unique with a kind of ridiculous, grungy flair and style that they fully committed to. I'm a fan of weird B-tier games, and Ninja Theory's games have always seemed to fall into that category.

I also don't remember what the last big AAA character action games were besides the God of War games. Honestly, I don't know if I really consider anything that Platinum has developed to be a AAA game, per se (despite the Metal Gear nomenclature on Revengeance). The original Devil May Cry games, perhaps, or the Ninja Gaiden games? Most of the recent character action games within the past couple years have more or less been unceremoniously dumped into the quiet late-winter/early-spring months without very much in terms of marketing or promotion. So I don't really know what a "AAA character action game" is anymore.

And I remember Kung Fu Chaos. I remember it being pretty decent and amusing, at least from the demo.

@gnomeonfire: Holy shit I miss Ryan so much now. I sadly have nothing else to bring to this discussion.

I get why the mainstream press liked DmC so much, given how user-friendly it was compared to the older games and the new art-style etc. That being said, the game was an enormous step back for the series in terms of gameplay. Fans of the series were right to be disappointed with how little variety there was and how clunky the new jump cancelling etc was. DmC was also extremely easy on DMD compared to the older games, which was kind of disappointing as well.

I still don't understand people claiming that DmC was bad because it wasn't as good as DMC3. DMC3 is the best game in the genre by leaps and bounds. NO other game is as good, with a possible argument being made for Bayonetta. After that, it's Ninja Gaiden Black followed by DMC4 then DmC. I'd argue that fifth best (I dunno, am I forgetting anything?) in an entire genre is actually very good. Yes, the original DMC was groundbreaking at the time but I'd argue that taken outside of that context DmC is a better playing game.

Also the storyline was way better in that it was something I actually wanted to pay attention to. I played DMC3 like twice but couldn't tell you a single goddam thing that happened in the story.

Also the cutscenes in Heavenly Sword are still better than the shit in 99.999% of games out there.

Also I'll eat my hat if Hellblade isn't very closely linked to Heavenly Sword. I mean come on. Hell/Heavenly Blade/Sword?

Given the absolute dearth of character action games nowadays, I'm not going to shit all over the company that is second-best in one of my favorite genres. They fill the time nicely between Platinum struggling to put out Bayonetta 2 and hopefully will continue to do so after it bombs commercially until maybe Microsoft throws money at them as a hearts & minds move to make Bayo 3 whenever gen 9 rolls around.

@viciousbearmauling: Complexity doesn't inherently make for a good combat system. DmC's system was simpler than previous DmC games for sure however they still allowed for a ton of personal expression and freedom with how one approached a situation. Just go Youtube some of the many combo exhibition videos out there.