Is Ninja Gaiden II cheap or am I just bad at this game?

I've been playing vanilla Ninja Gaiden 2 on the Xbox360 on hard mode. A lot of fans have been saying the game was almost as or just as good as the Ninja Gaiden Black. I played it and didn't like nearly as much as the original, and I wasn't impressed by Sigma 2 either. I decided to give it another chance and I still didn't like it. The enemies spammed way too many projectiles, the camera is awful, the frame rate is unstable, the difficulty curve is unbalanced, and it has too many cheap moments. At least to me anyway.

Am I just bad at vanilla Ninja Gaiden 2 or is the game just an unbalanced mess?

I personally think NG2 is a better game than Black; I also don't remember it having frame rate issues, but maybe you're just more sensitive to that stuff than me.

Ninja Gaiden 2 is jacked up. It’s not balanced at all and it’s an unpolished mess. It came out during the whole Itagaki debacle so it’s an incomplete thing like MGSV.

I thought Sigma 2 was supposed to be a bit fixed up. surprised to hear it has similar problems.

Somehow the camera got worse in the second game! I never actually played it as there's a gauntlet sequence near the end that was just unbearable.

@liquiddragon said:

Sigma 2 is just way too easy on normal. On harder difficulties enemies just became damage sponges. I think it's a little bit better than vanilla, but most fans claim it's worse.

@prox: shame. NG2 deserved better. It’s stylish as all hell and I loved the dismemberment. I still think it ranks somewhere in the middle in the pantheon of character action games.

@liquiddragon said:

Except most people rank it high which boggles my mind. It's either a middle or below average one for me. It's better than vanilla Ninja Gaiden 3, but not by much.

@prox: oh really? That was not my sense. I've always been afraid to touch NG3.

Official Ranking (joking ofc, My Ranking from the ones I've played):

1. Devil May Cry 3
2. Ninja Gaiden Black
3. Devil May Cry
4. Bayonetta
5. Bayonetta 2
6. DmC: Devil May Cry
7. Devil May Cry 5
8. Devil May Cry 4
9. Ninja Gaiden 2
10. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
11. Transformers: Devastation (Idk if this one counts)
12. Devil May Cry 2

Lol I guess I rank NG2 pretty low.

I'm not sure who you're talking about but I dont really hear many people saying NG2 is as good as the first game. It's flashier, it's got more weapons and bosses and each level (aside from Hayabusa Village) is unique. But even at the time I remember people complaining about the camera and the performance. I will say that if you play it on the XB1X it looks and plays a lot better but it's still a much more repetitive game.

All that being said, it's a fun hack and slash game thats more about crowd control than pulling off flashy combos. I also just love how ridiculous some of the sequences are. I'll be vague because this borders on spoilers but theres a mission where you're fighting your arch nemesis in a flying battle ship thats on the verge of exploding, in the middle of the fight part of the ship breaks off seperating the two of you so you ride a motorbike off the battle ship down a mountain and then proceed to fight a giant armadillo. It's some damn Contra Hardcorps nonsense and it's brilliant. How you got to the battleship in the first place is also very good but i've rambled enough.

Ninja Gaiden Black is the best character action game of all time.

I didn’t have TOO many problems with Ninja Gaiden 2, no beating my head against the wall, that I can remember. It was cooler in some ways, performed like hell in some places, and didn’t come together as masterfully as Black.

It was very good, but felt a little flawed and rushed.

I don't remember anyone saying Ninja Gaiden 2 was as good as Black, or any of the first game's iterations. The game isn't that cheap, although that was one of the complaints that was knocked against it, like later in the game. That said, you go from a game like Sekiro and then Ninja Gaiden 2, and while NG2 still proves somewhat of a challenge, it's relatively a breeze comparatively in terms of making progress through the game (I played a little more than halfway through it when it became X enhanced after I finished Sekiro). I didn't like two around the release, in fact, it wasn't until a few years after release that I finally thought 'dang, this is actually great. Not as good as the first, but it's great nonetheless'.

The game is even better on the Xbox One X. It's closer than ever to being as good as the first game and that's awesome. The action is great, and I really like the music and visually it looks good and runs great on the X (on the 360, the resolution is pretty blurry which put me off, and frame rate doesn't quite hit 60fps). I think the thing that I didn't like as much was some of the levels from an artistic perspective. It wasn't memorable. I do think, however, if you have an Xbox One X and can play it, it's a great, challenging experience to play today and you won't find a better way to play it.

Oh, and I couldn't find any motivation to play NG Sigma II. I don't like it as much as the original 360 version despite it having a bit more content, and again, if you have an X, playing it there is the best way to play it.

I've seen some fans claim it's just as good as NGB, while others say it's not as good as NGB, but a worthy successor. As I said before I disagree with that. I like how silly the game is, but I couldn't enjoy it when the game was just too frustrating to play. At least on the harder difficulty settings. It was decent on normal, but it wasn't anywhere near on the level of quality of Black.

Black is a lot more refined and technical. NG2 is more about quantity and upping some antes.