An Important Game
If I had to sum up this game in one word, it would be "important".
Ninja Gaiden 2 is a breath of fresh air in a world of grey and brown filters and military fetishism. Similar to how Serious Sam & Painkiller showed up and laughed in the face of all the piss-easy, cinematic, shallow shooters, Ninja Gaiden 2 kicks down the door, slits the throat of all these action “games,” then nonchalantly flings the blood off its blades into a glorious splatter on the walls.
The game is about timing…quick, precise, meticulous, clockwork movements through wave after wave of brutally intelligent enemies. You must constantly be on guard, paying attention, reacting to every subtle enemy movement, able to spot if a werewolf is going to do a grab or a sudden aerial attack, knowing that a centipede’s aerial dive can only be avoided by dashing forwards or jumping backwards, knowing the last two hits of an XXYY Kusari-gama combo make you invincible…these are the thoughts you need to be focused on to even think of succeeding in this game on anything above Easy. The moment you start thinking about what you had for lunch, you die.
The entire game is designed around the exploitation of the invincibility windows granted by certain moves, to an even greater degree than its predecessor. You need to pull off that OT right before the rocket barrage hits you to survive the entire thing without a scratch. You need to launch that UT quickly before those exploding kunai you’ve been stuck with explode. You need to aim those Piercing Void shots so they plow through as many giant spider fiends as possible at once, and you only have 3 seconds to line up that shot.
In this game, the spectacle is what you can do in the game with the proper amount of time and skill invested. All those incredibly choreographed fight scenes with Dante and Solid Snake that you wish you could pull off in-game…well with a bit of time and a lot of patience, you’ll be pulling off sequences of moves in Ninja Gaiden 2 that far surpass those of any cutscene. A few properly timed button presses and you’ll be piledriving a ninja mage over and down a three story high ledge and smirking as he explodes in a gorenado on the stone below.
This game is not for people who just want to make it to the end. The satisfaction in this game doesn’t come from knowing Ryu saved the big boobed chick from the evil demon and lived happily ever after. This game is there for the ones who want to climb the ranks of difficulties and leaderboards; the ones who want to try weapon runs, speed runs, no item runs, and projectile only runs.
If you’re a fan of action games in any capacity, and especially if you’re looking for a rewarding challenge, Ninja Gaiden 2 will welcome you with open arms, lovingly embrace you, then snap your neck. It is an updated, modern homage to the elders of the 8 and 16-bit era; before Nintendo started making games for the people who watch Oprah.
