So me like many others bought Ninja Gaiden 3 about a year ago from this time. There were two types of people people that outright hated it and the rest of us who didn't hate it but still were left kind of shrugging our shoulders wondering what went wrong. Well, then we hear tale of a fixed version for the WiiU and it comes out and it gets better reviews and.... I don't have a WiiU. So, now comes a reduced priced version of the WiiU version of Ninja Gaiden 3 with all the DLC from the vanilla game and RE on WiiU bundled for $40.

I think they hit the right price here and the game feels a TON better. Combat flows better for multiple reasons. One is the steel on bone mechanic has been revised to be more of a counter mechanic now. When an enemy's hand glows red as he attacks that is indication he is going to to a strong attack if you counter with a strong attack of your own you instantly get to kill him and if any of his buddies are near by you can chain SoB attacks with up to 3 additional enemies. This rewards precision timing with potentially room clearing ability. Second is a overhaul of the Ultimate Technique and Ninpo Systems they have given Ryu Back all of his former Ninpo abilities from Ninja Gaiden 2 (minus the Flaming Pheonix) and overhauled the Ultimate Technique system to work much like it did in previous games.

You can now charge UT's for your weapons whenever you want like previous games instead of only being able to when the game prompts you. Also added is a "bloody rage" mode I'm not entirely sure what activates it I'm guessing a kill streak without being hit but once one is activated it activates a score multiplier that keeps growing as you kill more enemies. Very useful for score runs.

The weapons are all back too! The Dragon Sword, Claws, Scythe, Staff, Kasuri-Gama and Dual Katana all make appearances. Also added are two brand new Ayane Story missions which are some of the best missions in the games. If you played Sigma 2 then you know that Ayane's mission in that game was possibly the worst out of the 3 girls in the game. Ayane this time feels vicious and actually extremely useful and as deadly as she is supposed to be.

Added as DLC in the WiiU version Momiji and for the first time ever Kasumi make appearances also as playable characters in the "Chapter Challenge" and "Ninja Trials" modes. So look nothing is ever going to live up to Ninja Gaiden Black like...ever that was just a random occurance of right time , right people and right place but if you are a Ninja Gaiden fan or just someone who wants more hack and slash now that you've beaten DmC and Metal Gear Rising you really can't go wrong with this game.

Oh, few last bits. This game is HARD like...really hard. And for the most part is usually pretty fair about being doable as long as you have the skills. Oh and of course if you get in on PS3 Sixaxis Boob shaking is back because Team Ninja knows that is the hot feature everyone wants.

But seriously buy this if your an action game fan. If you buy the digital version off PSN right now its $40 but comes with the online pass AND free costume DLC and is only a mere 3.5 GB in space. If any of you wanna try some Clan Battles or do some Co-Op Trials I'll most likely be jamming on this off and on for awhile.

I played Ninja Gaiden and a ton of Ninja Gaiden (Sigma) 2. When Ninja Gaiden 3 was about to come out I played the demo and decided that I wasn't going to buy it because all of the poor choices they made when designing the game (wasn't the combat filled with QTEs in the original release?).

I have however put about two to three hours into the demo of Razor's Edge on the PS3, unlocked everything there is to unlock and had a blast slicing fools up. Death came nearly instantly on my first try and I even knocked it down to the lowest difficulty to get used to the systems and the feel and then worked my way up.

I agree that it's pretty hard but I feel like it's also fair (for the most part) and in moments where you are really close to dying and you spot an enemy trying to grab you, use the SoB and kill the remaining enemies thus surviving the fight it's pretty fucking awesome. You had my curiosity Ninja theory but after playing the demo you have my attention (and my money I guess).

@altairre: Sorta the SoB system in the first one was confusing how to even activate and when you did go to cut someone you had to continually mash Square to do so. There were just a lot of elements that added up over time that made it a big pile of meh.

The demo's difficulty was rather frustrating but I still felt like I wanted to play more when I was done with it.

The demo's absurd unlock requirement for Kasumi has left me waiting for some confirmation, but maybe you know, how do you unlock Momiji and Kasumi? I heard Ayane is just beating the game with Ryu on any difficulty. I can do that, I couldn't beat it on MNM though and I want to know that I will be able to use all of the characters in the game before I buy it.

Also, you mention that Kasumi is for chapter challenge and ninja trials. No story mode for her then? What about Momiji? Won't kill my interest but I was hoping they'd have some sort of story mode even if it was just a few chapters.

Ur definitely probably the only person I would listen to when it comes to ninja garden stuff. So I'll take ur word for it and pick this up

@superwristbands: You get Momiji by beating one of the later chapters in the game you unlock Kasumi by beating the game on any difficulty. And correct no story mode for Kasumi or Momiji. They are playable in the Co-op and Solo trials mode Chapter Challenge but Chapter Challenge is basically a "Score Attack" mode where you pick a story level and a character and run the level. So they don't have their own levels but you can play story levels with them.

@mrfluke: Ninja Garden eh? xD

I really want to try this out for myself. So there is a demo?

It's a better game, yeah, but it's still not a very good Ninja Gaiden game. The whole '' i'm such a murderer '' theme is lessened, but feels out of place now that most of the scenes surrounding it have been deleted. The level design is pretty ordinary, and the settings themselves are pretty redundant.

Are there still only like 4 enemys types? Two of which being awfully designed?

@klei: I'll give you that both the previous games either end up with Ryu in the depths of hell or some other crazy looking eviroments at some point. So yeah... the levels themselves aren't top notch although the core combat is what matters most to me and that has drastically improved.

@immortalsaiyan: Yes sir. It features a level segments from both Ayane and Ryu.

@demoskinos: Awesome, thanks duder. Chapter Challenge is pretty much what I wanted then, playing through a campaign style level.

No they have actually drug a ton of past enemy types back in including the pink fiends from Ninja Gaiden Black and the Van Gelf's from Ninja Gaiden 2. There are probally I'd say 15 types of base enemies with some pallete swapping on some of the human enemies in later levels. In the trials mode they actually drug back ALL of the bosses from previous Gaiden games. They've mixed them up in some crazy ways too.

So there is 100 challenges along side the multiplayer and story so pretty good amount of content for $40.

"Ninja garden" GODDAMMIT xD stupid iPhone autocorrect

I have the Wii U version as well. Need to go back and finish it after getting distracted, but it's definitely a fun game.

Picked up the 360 version, it's practically the best NG game there is (note the last NG game I played was 2, on 360 not any of the refined sigmas, and felt it was a pretty overall 'meh' experience).

The combat is super fast paced and fun, like a turned up to 11 version of 2's, the difficulty can sometimes be pretty intense on normal (especially bosses), I'd say the levels are linear and a little bland, but the stretches without combat having to solve key puzzles in the previous games weren't very good either so it feels like a compromise.

Story is, well NG as hell, it's not important but I love seeing the over the top moments.

Even performance wise the game kinda shines, I don't think I've ever seen it slow down or stutter except when saving at a crow, and although the initial load time for a chapter is fairly long, there's no in-game loading until you complete the chapter and any death only takes 2-3 seconds to take you back to a checkpoint.

The extras are pretty good to, the online co-op for Ninja Trials (can also be played singleplayer) works better than I'd have anticipated, the new characters (of which I've only played as Ayane so far) while only seemingly having one weapon each still have a full moveset for them, and the weapons imported from the other games all have their uses and disadvantages.

Not intending to review it, but in my head this is hovering around an 8 to 8.5, it's a solid action game that while not doing much new for the series, does it exceptionally well.

Ryu Hayabusa plunged his rake into the Earth, and scratched it along the bedrock. The soil had eroded too far, now the bedrock had been exposed closer to the surface. The clan would need to find more fertile soil to raise their normal bounty of crops for this season's harvest. But the fiends would not relent in their attempts to destroy the ninja farm that the Hayabusa clan had kept for so long.

Ryu lifted the rake up and lifted it over his shoulder with one arm, the other hitching up a loose strap on his overalls. It looked like today was going to be harder than usual.

I don't know if anyone can answer this, but does the tweak make the gameplay feel more like NG1 and NG2, or is this some sort of Sigma upgrade? (or just better version of NG3 that doesn't really have the same feel as NG1 and 2) For some reason I never enjoyed the way the Sigma games played compared to the xbox versions; I can't even describe it but it felt less tight. I don't know if it was the controller or the engine but I expected the sigma games to be like Black, but I was very disappointed with them. I don't care about the side mission and new playable characters and online play. I am happy they have added back weapons and enemies, but I really want to know is how it compares to previous xbox ninja gaiden games.

Anyway, I hate all of you for praising this game. I had written it off, and now I might end up spending of the money I had been saving up for Injustice and Revengance on this. I'm still heartbroken from NG3, YOU BETTER NOT BE PLAYING WITH MY EMOTIONS.

Oh and how is the ratio of rocket launcher enemies bombarding you? It seemed like those instances increased exponentially from NG1 to NG2 and NG3. Not that they were super hard, but those are not the type of enemies I enjoy fighting in NG.

***edit: can someone link me to some gameplay footage of this game and some of the changes? preferably by someone who knows what they are doing. I read more about the changes and seems like this might be the real thing.

@theveej: Dude, Ninja Gaiden Black is not only the bar I judge all action games of its ilk but also my favorite video game PERIOD of all time. I'm deeply invested in Ninja Gaiden. Like I've done score runs for Ninja Gaiden 2 that landed me in the top 3 spots on the leaderboard.

To answer you question bluntly though the game does feel a whole lot more like Ninja Gaiden 2 specifically. Mind you it has a few of its own systems like SoB and there is still not essence system like the previous games BUT the core combat flows much more like Gaiden 2.

@theveej: As for Raw footage this is not mine but a dude from GameFAQS but his videos seem pretty alright and he seems like he knows what he is doing.

@demoskinos: Thanks a lot! You have sold me on this game. I do agree about the greatness of Black, I still go back to it every year or so, just too god damn good.

Good to hear it plays more like Ninja Gaiden 2, I enjoyed that game a lot even though it had some flaws, when it was good it was fantastic. I hope my skills haven't gone down too much, I was also really deep into Ninja gaiden, Black and 2 making score runs etc. How do the difficulty setting compare to the previous games?

@theveej: There are a few spots that are pretty challenging on Hard and there are two difficulty options above that. There are also 100 challenges you can play solo or co-op, Chapter Challenge for score runs and of course the actual multi-player. Its a pretty good deal for $40. And yeah, I can totally see why most people would just roll their eyes at this and write it off as yet another disappointing entry into the Ninja Gaiden series from the Hayashi lead Team Ninja. Which is exactly why I wanted to post this to try to get some word out that this is actually worth the $40.

Am I a bad person in wanting this for PS3 even though I have the original and I have Razor's Edge of Wii U...?

@liquidprince: I'm probably worse as I considered buying a WiiU at one point for this. =p

@demoskinos: Well I fully agreed with your opinion on NG3, It wasn't a 0/10 game, but a very baffling "meh" after NG1-2. At least the Ninja Trials were quite serviceable. Bandwagons don't interest me.

I almost considered buying a Wii U early for this, glad I held out. PS3 demo was very impressive, almost no FPS drops. And the difficulty was on the right track, although a bit overboard since they just seemed to turn the magical NPC aggro meter to 9000 and didn't tweak much. It felt a bit like they brought back the combat of NG 2, but didn't re design the enemies around it. Let's hope I'm terribly wrong on this.

I also don't know what to think about this whole thing. On one hand, I'm happy they stuck with the game and finally updated it to something worthwhile. On the other hand, they shoulda fucking nailed this on one go. Oh well.

Anyway, the hard copies here are around 60$ for some reason ,so I'm downloading this now from PSN. It's 3.4 GB, which is kinda weird.