The recent QL really got me jazzed up for NG3 and I've been thinking about replaying the previous two games (aka, not the old classic ones) but I can't figure out which one to get because of all the different versions.

So what I need to know is what are the definitive versions of NG and NG2. I know that NG came out on the Xbox then there was Black and Sigma after that on the PS3. But now there's Sigma Plus for the Vita. Is that the best one? Or should I pick up Sigma for the PS3? Or Black?

What about NG2? Should I get the 360 version or Sigma 2? I know it had co-op and more content, but it also had that bullshit purple mist crap. No blood in NG just feels wrong. What about performance? Heard the 360 version had a shitty camera and lots of framerate hickups. What's the word in the NG community? Which one is better?

Ninja Blade? Mini Ninjas? Ninja-Kid? Tenchu? Strider? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Ok, I got nothing...

Ninja Gaiden Black is the best version of the first one. I would say Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is the best version of the 2nd one. You can currently get Ninja Gaiden Black through Games on Demand on XBL as well if you decide to go that route.

@Demoskinos: If you don't mind, could you expand on your answer. Why are they the best ones?

NG2 has enough content in it to make it worth getting in favor of keeping the ridiculous amounts of blood. Trust me, that game would look wrong without blood, because limb chopping is a major "mechanic" in that game.

And so far as bad camera goes...Well, that's part of the Ninja Gaiden experience.

Also, I can't speak for how it changed from Black to Sigma, but Sigma is pretty good. It at least runs well, and I think it looks a little better than Black. Or maybe a lot better, I don't know. Of course, it might make sense to play both on the same system. But I didn't do that. Of course, when I played NG2, Sigma 2 hadn't been made yet, and I got it mad cheap.

So, if you want extra content, get the Sigmas. But I say play NG2 on 360 to keep the blood. BLOOD.

@Enigma777: Black was the re-release of the first Gaiden and the best entry in the series IMO. One of the main things I don't like in Sigma is they throw in a few chapters where you play as Rachel and while she isn't "bad" its hardly what you came to the show for. There are other tweaks that I'm not a huge fan of in Sigma small level revisions and such. It is however MUCH easier than black because of those changes.

As for Ninja Gaiden 2 vs NGS2. I'd pick Sigma 2 simply because Ninja Gaiden 2 was a rushed game it was being developed during Itagaki's last days with Tecmo and you can tell the stress of that situation got to the team leaving NG2 feeling unfinished and in some cases terrible frame rate drops and other issues. I like Ninja Gaiden 2's vision more but I can't really reccomend it unless your willing to deal with the broken nature of it and the fact that the balance of difficulty is off in the harder difficulties.

There are changes in Sigma 2 that I really dislike but thats really nitpicky stuff and overall while I disklike they got rid of the gore its the better preforming game in terms of stability.

I would recommend getting Ninja Gaiden Black. I played the first seven chapters of Sigma and was not fond of most of the changes. They added chapters where you play as Rachael but are not near as fun. They tweaked the structure of the game some, in some areas where you do a puzzle are revised or gone completely to give the game more action. Some item placement was altered and motorbike enemys were added. It is personal opion but I prefer the level design in Black.

I never played Sigma 2 at all but from the looks of it they reduced the amount of enemys on screen to thus making the game easier. The blood is unfortunate as well. In Sigma two they added Ayane, komiji and Rachael again as playable characters. They get there own mission each in the story mode. In NG2 mission mode was DLC and in SIgma 2 it comes with the game, I think there are more mission and you can play as the other characters. They also have online co-op.

Hope that helps.

Sigma 2 is a lot better than Vanilla. I don't get the argument that the blood negates the extra characters and that challenge mode thing. Sadly I can't remember all the little things that were changed. There was a time when I knew, but not anymore.
 
Well, they did remove the underwater gun which was tedious as fuck. (You shot underwater mines that walled your path, stopping you from progressing. They also re spawned for far to long) 
 
As for the original game. I played Black. It seemed to be a fine game. I didn't like the original Sigma all that much for some reason. If only you had asked this question when I had a passion for the game, darn it!
 
Oh well, that's my two cents. Hope it helps in some way.

Sigma 2 may be superior to the Xbox version, but the lack of blood makes me sad. It's so insane; literally gallons of blood every 3 seconds, it's so over the top and I love it.

Basically going to repeat what's been said and tell you to get Black and Sigma 2, but still check out NG2 on xbox for the ridiculous gore. I think they did some balancing too, NG2 was a cheap motherfucker.

Apparently the rule of thumb is to go with Black for the first game but go for Sigma 2 for the second one? Weird. I can see it though.

Get Black and 2, I thought people didn't like sigma 2...huh.

I think Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 has a stunted difficulty, because regular-ass Ninja Gaiden 2 is fucking hard and cheap in some ways, though I still did find it ridiculously fun. Haven't all second versions in the Ninja Gaiden series been significantly easier?

Ninja Gaiden Black is easily the best character-action game ever created. Definitely pick up that one. The Playstation 3 ones are a little inferior with their lack of blood and odd choice of add features.

Go for Black for the first one and Sigma 2 for the second. Black is crazy hard but fixes most of the issues with the first version, and Sigma 2 has a better framerate than 2 which is really important for this series.

I bought Black... because of the easy mode. And the new staff was my favorite weapon.

@Napalm said:

I think Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 has a stunted difficulty, because regular-ass Ninja Gaiden 2 is fucking hard and cheap in some ways, though I still did find it ridiculously fun. Haven't all second versions in the Ninja Gaiden series been significantly easier?

Ninja Gaiden Black is the hardest game in the series, or at least i think so. it was the one to add the Master Ninja difficulty, which is something i wouldn't dare try at the risk of what's left of my own sanity.

Playing through Sigma 1 right now on Very Hard and it's easily the best action game I've played. Compared to Black it sucks that you have to play as Rachel, but thankfully her chapters are really short and easy. I like how they removed the backtracking and tedious puzzles in Sigma though but you can't lose either way.

As for 2/Sigma 2, you can safely avoid it but the differences are pretty significant.

Just pick up the Sigma versions of both games. They're great and add new weapons to the game. Don't know about any added features from the PSV version.

(This is coming from a guy who beat Ninja Gaiden Sigma three times and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 six times.)

Like many here yes Ninja Gaiden: Black is definitely a must since its has the most balanced difficulty among its sequels. Sigma tweaked it to become easier and I noticed this as this was the reason I bought a PS3 thinking it was once going to be an exclusive there :/. I couldn't say much about Ninja Gaiden 2 since I didn't have an Xbox360 and the fact I only played it in a rental shop (failing to finish the game as I paying for alot of hours in a rental shop isn't my thing).

I however got Sigma 2 for PS3 and the changes are the added chapters where you can play as Rachel, Momichi, and Ayane (which was hardly a good addition since I only wanted to get that over with immediately cause its simply much more fun playing the main character). Another addition was the mission mode which I found in the vanilla Ninja Gaiden 2 to be better due to the fact you can play the missions solo (just like Ninja Gaiden: Black which also featured a fun mission mode), while in Sigma 2 this mode is forced to play as coop either with another player or a bot(which is completely useless in the higher levels, and you can forget about this if your net connection isn't much as lag here really counts a lot with the required frame timings). Another change in this version is the removal of certain weapons like the Windmill Shuriken which was a fan favorite, the bow no longer consumes ammo and it has an integrated hot-key for the player to quickly use it, the bow can no longer be charged like the ultimate techniques. Added some boss battles which were hardly necessary and came out as just additional fillers that paled to the original bosses already in NG2.

(This part was my personal experience) the difficulty (for me) in Sigma 2 was actually easier due to the fact that there we're certain bosses that we're simplified. A good example of that was the in game's Water Dragon boss fight no longer required the player to use the swimming mechanics that required the player to actually run or swim on water to fight the boss while in Sigma 2 they conveniently placed the boss fight in a platform that made this fight significantly easier especially with the fact that it was really friendly to abusive invincible moves. Likewise Sigma 2's difficulty also increased due to the fact that in the story mode you are forced to play as the 3 ladies who have pretty weak and lame move sets as compared to the main character. The only real perk I saw with Sigma 2 was the fact that much of the unfinished optimization's of the vanilla version (i.e. small framerate issues and certain texture tweaks) has been fixed but not all so it's not necessarily a "superior version" as some claim it to be as its additions does not really fix the issues already found in the vanilla version.

Oh I forgot to mention that another addition Sigma 2 has is the fact that you can play around with the six axis controller of the PS3 when playing as the heroines to see their breasts "jiggle" which was a completely useless addition.

Overall the difficulty balance of NG2 and Sigma 2 definitely pales in comparison to Ninja Gaiden: Black as the NG2 and NGS2 while its combat mechanics have significantly improved they rely too much on abusing "invincible frames" to get through while its predecessor promoted actual skill to get around the game.

Stick with the NES games! Way more fun to play than the recent 3D ones!

@Enigma777: Get Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 on 360. Sigma 2 is a very toned down version of the original and the bits of added content aren't worth the things that this version lacks.

@Killroycantkill: Now play the real versions of these games instead of the easier and toned down Sigma versions. ;)