Quick Look: Ninja Gaiden 3 - Preview

Ninja Gaiden can't go for extreme difficulty anymore because Dark Souls has that niche market covered. Without difficulty or the extreme dismemberment of Ninja Gaiden 2 (sorely missed in this third installment), Ninja Gaiden 3 seems kind of dull.

@CptBedlam said:

@Demoskinos said:

@CptBedlam said:

@Demoskinos said:

@CptBedlam: I laugh at your complete ignorance of the depth of combat.

I hope you're being sarcastic. I loved NGB and NG2 ... this, not so much. Someone should tell these devs that QTEs are not the latest thing anymore and people are not exactly craving for them.

He was playing on Normal. At that point you might as well play on easy. Ninja Gaiden doesn't get fun or even challenging until you play on at *least* Hard. I'm sure on the higher difficulties there will be need for actual tactics. And believe me I'm a huge fan as well I list NG:Black as my favorite game of all time.

It's not like the design decisions that I find questionable will go away with harder enemies.

Exactly. From this quick look all I see for combat options are block, fast attack and strong attack. Oh and crazy dragon. Its not like changing the difficulty will give you more moves to use. At the same time though none of us have played it so meh we can just wait and see but this looks pretty bad.

I hope they dont have an achievement for completing the game using each weapon alone for 5 points a piece like gaiden 2, because that was crazy

@Demoskinos said:

@PJ: Again, as I said in previous posts in this thread he was playing on normal. They made normal REALLY easy in this game. When you don't have enemies doing shit to you of couse its going to come off as being button mashy.

Him playing on Normal has no impact on the depth of the combat. The fact that he could mash buttons and cool shit happens is pretty much proof of that. And like Jeff said in the beginning, previous NG games had near fighting game level of combat meaning you can't mash buttons because no real attacks will come out of it, and that's not the case here. You are completely confusing depth of combat with the difficulty. If playing it on hard will suddenly make combos more complex and timing oriented and totally dump the QTEs then I could agree that the combat could have more depth but that's not the case. On top of that it seems to be horribly paced.

someone should tell Hayabusa that Kratos was a big enough dick for the both of them; stop trying so hard.

People please calm down. I love you guys, but I wish you'd have given a bit more real information.

While I can't say this for sure I think you guys are playing on the new "easy" mode. The developers have stated countless times that this is for people that don't want a challenge, and that the normal difficulty is in line with the older titles. Moving on, as someone who has played both games thoroughly I can say 100% from watching you they are using a modified version of the same combat engine. You can even see his opportunities to do dragon sword combos such as the Izuna Drop, but he just keeps mashing X so he just keeps slicing him to the ground.

I don't know why I am wasting my time, but it is really unfortunate because now there is a sea of mindless people shitting on a game they don't know shit about.

Not bad looking, but never really been my thing. Nice to see the way it rolls though.

There is a distressing lack of severed limbs in this game. I hope that gets fixed before launch.

Also its good to see the raincoat killer is still getting work.

Ninja Gaiden without Itagaki is like a plate of cake without the cake.

How many times does that lady say "Hayabusa"?!?

Hayabusa! Hayabusa? Are you okay Hayabusa? Hayabusa be careful. Hayabusa Hayabusa Hayabusa.

@PJ said:

@Demoskinos said:

@PJ: Again, as I said in previous posts in this thread he was playing on normal. They made normal REALLY easy in this game. When you don't have enemies doing shit to you of couse its going to come off as being button mashy.

Him playing on Normal has no impact on the depth of the combat. The fact that he could mash buttons and cool shit happens is pretty much proof of that. And like Jeff said in the beginning, previous NG games had near fighting game level of combat meaning you can't mash buttons because no real attacks will come out of it, and that's not the case here. You are completely confusing depth of combat with the difficulty. If playing it on hard will suddenly make combos more complex and timing oriented and totally dump the QTEs then I could agree that the combat could have more depth but that's not the case. On top of that it seems to be horribly paced.

Jeff wasn't attempting to do anything grand in the first place. He was quite literally just mashing the "X" button. Your going to judge the game based on the gameplay of someone who is quite obviously not into it at all? I mean jesus you could just mash the "X" button and eek your way through Ninja Gaiden :Black on normal. And yes.. difficulty has everything to do with it because mashing "X" on higher difficulties doesn't fly the depth of the combat can't really be tested if the player isn't forced to actually use it so it completely matters.

@Demoskinos said:

I mean jesus you could just mash the "X" button and eek your way through Ninja Gaiden :Black on normal.

No, definitely not.

I really feel bothered by Ryu killing surrendering enemies. With him just slicing them without any problems I don't have any hatred towards them. It's even not fair for them to go against him since apparently rockets to the face are nothing for him. And on top of this absolutely unnecessary murder the slicing itself is boring and unsatisfying since every finishing blow implies decapitation but doesn't go through with it. I don't really like challenging games but NG and NG2 were fun thanks to not only complex fighting system but also because of the ridiculous amounts of gore they had. It's just a good effect to indicate that you are doing crazy things to a guy when his torso is split in half. And ninjas would even fight without limbs, how cool was that?! This looks like an alright hack and slash game but I don't want to play it at all.

That really looked a lot like Prototype for a moment when his arm mutated. Good catch. Also, great talk about the wondrous ways of ninja magic!

@CptBedlam: Didn't say it was easy but it was doable if you kept yourself stocked with potions.

@Demoskinos: What game were you playing, the additional difficulty setting they added for Black was way harder than anything in Ninja Gaiden 2, with the exception of the last bonus mission in the DLC.

As a master ninja the lowering of the difficulty has me a bit annoyed. These games don't start for me until I'm playing on master ninja though so if they get that right I'll be good.

@Blood_for_the_blood_God: If your talking about Ninja "Dog" mode its still normal mode they didn't make any tweaks to the difficulty they just supplied you with an enormous amount of health items to lean on. So, again... if you have a enormous amount of health items to lean on you can mash your way through.

@Splodge said:

Graphically, this is boring as hell.

Yeah, everything looks flat and bland. I hear ya.

This is one of those types of games that fails to change after a game comes along that is similar, but makes the game play mechanics better. Of course I am talking about Batman. This just doesn't look as cool as it used to.

@oddduck said:

Calling it "Ninja Gaiden: The Third" ended up being kinda prescient. If Team Ninja amped up the ridiculousness just a couple notches more, they might have something.

Yeah, I feel like it's juuuust on the cusp of being the kind of ridiculous I would pay money for.

But that bit where that guy begs you not to kill him and then you just kill him? There was a truck behind him. I wanted that truck be sliced in half. But it wasn't! Missed opportunities like that just make me think that they don't know what game they are making!

I find it highly odd that right after the generator is taken out that it shoots off like it's tied to a bunch of rubber bands as well as when Ryu does his flying leap with a sword at someone how the person is able to get up. With Batman Arkham City it seems that there's some slight possibility that the guy landed on could get up and be sore as hell but at least he didn't have a sword slicing through him. At least this might be comically fun more than the previous ones though will probably rent it first to find out if I want to dive into it further.

Those London terrorists seem to have taken a peek at the Gary Whitta Guide to Gaming.

"Get him."

HAHA, wow, it really turned to shit. i'll get it when it's $20.

Man this QL was hilarious!

So many good lines :D

Ninja Gaiden 3: Anonymous Strikes.

Awesome.

This is just like Onimusha 3, thanks for ruining the series, assholes! *sigh*...

@Demoskinos said:

@PJ said:

@Demoskinos said:

@PJ: Again, as I said in previous posts in this thread he was playing on normal. They made normal REALLY easy in this game. When you don't have enemies doing shit to you of couse its going to come off as being button mashy.

Him playing on Normal has no impact on the depth of the combat. The fact that he could mash buttons and cool shit happens is pretty much proof of that. And like Jeff said in the beginning, previous NG games had near fighting game level of combat meaning you can't mash buttons because no real attacks will come out of it, and that's not the case here. You are completely confusing depth of combat with the difficulty. If playing it on hard will suddenly make combos more complex and timing oriented and totally dump the QTEs then I could agree that the combat could have more depth but that's not the case. On top of that it seems to be horribly paced.

Jeff wasn't attempting to do anything grand in the first place. He was quite literally just mashing the "X" button. Your going to judge the game based on the gameplay of someone who is quite obviously not into it at all? I mean jesus you could just mash the "X" button and eek your way through Ninja Gaiden :Black on normal. And yes.. difficulty has everything to do with it because mashing "X" on higher difficulties doesn't fly the depth of the combat can't really be tested if the player isn't forced to actually use it so it completely matters.

No, you could not mash the "X" button on any difficulty in any previous NG game and beat it. Like I said, you have obviously never played the previous games in the series. In the previous NG games you HAD to make combos and change up your attacks otherwise they would just block every single hit, even in Ninja Dog mode(That by the looks of it, is easier then Normal in NG3) where the enemies pretty much just stand there and don't do that much damage.

And even though Jeff was just mashing buttons he still pulled of amazing looking combos. If you pull that shit in NG, NGB or NG2 it would be more like hit, open for attack, hit, open for attack, blocked hit, open for attack, dead.

And adding QTEs removes depth in the combat since instead of finishing the guys off your self, all you need to do is push a button. It looks cool, but it takes away from the combat.

No sir, I don't like it...

Call me when they beg Itagaki to come back.

WTF is this, I hear English! This is not a Team Ninja game!
Also, why does Jack of Blades want to kill Ryu?

So they're rehashing the plot of Front Mission Evolved?

I popped in Ninja Gaiden Sigma yesterday and that combat system is lightyears ahead of this. I still have some hope for the hardest difficulties but the more I hear about Japanese dark hero and multiplayer and the more I see of this, the less sure I am that it will be good.

Yippi ki yay Mr. Falcon.

@PJ: No, I very much have. I own all the games for every system. And whats more I've placed top leaderboard scores in both games and beaten them on Master Ninja. I fully know what I'm talking about.

@Abendlaender said:

Uch I really, REALLY hate the scene where he kills a guy who pleads for his life.

Sorry but this is bad guy stuff, I HATE it when games force you to kill someone who is cowering or pleading.

Bah, I even spared all the Stormtroopers in Jedi Knight 2 who ran away after I took their weapons

But this game is more "REALISTIC". So like in real life when you have a sword and are running around London. You KILL EVERYONE.

No dismemberment was definitely not the right decision for this game.

While this looks more of a game I could play without tearing all my pubes off it at the same time seems to lack the difficulty that I've come to know and respect (and in a way love) from the previous games in the series. We'll see how this turns out…

What did they do to this series? When did it turn in to an easy button masher?

That walking thing Jeff was talking about was really apparent after he pointed it out. Seems really weird.

Also, not being able to hit dudes when they're in their flipping animation is just dumb.

Oh and I hate that trope where a dude gets worked over but at the end of the fight acts as if he had the upper hand. It makes the fight seem pointless.

Man, I'm such a downer.

I hope that HUD is temporary because it looks baaaaad.

Man that was really funny, game looked ok. Since this is an early demo I am assuming they can fix some stuff like crazy camera stuff that we saw their towards the end.

@PJ said:

@Demoskinos said:

@PJ said:

@Demoskinos said:

@PJ: Again, as I said in previous posts in this thread he was playing on normal. They made normal REALLY easy in this game. When you don't have enemies doing shit to you of couse its going to come off as being button mashy.

Him playing on Normal has no impact on the depth of the combat. The fact that he could mash buttons and cool shit happens is pretty much proof of that. And like Jeff said in the beginning, previous NG games had near fighting game level of combat meaning you can't mash buttons because no real attacks will come out of it, and that's not the case here. You are completely confusing depth of combat with the difficulty. If playing it on hard will suddenly make combos more complex and timing oriented and totally dump the QTEs then I could agree that the combat could have more depth but that's not the case. On top of that it seems to be horribly paced.

Jeff wasn't attempting to do anything grand in the first place. He was quite literally just mashing the "X" button. Your going to judge the game based on the gameplay of someone who is quite obviously not into it at all? I mean jesus you could just mash the "X" button and eek your way through Ninja Gaiden :Black on normal. And yes.. difficulty has everything to do with it because mashing "X" on higher difficulties doesn't fly the depth of the combat can't really be tested if the player isn't forced to actually use it so it completely matters.

No, you could not mash the "X" button on any difficulty in any previous NG game and beat it. Like I said, you have obviously never played the previous games in the series. In the previous NG games you HAD to make combos and change up your attacks otherwise they would just block every single hit, even in Ninja Dog mode(That by the looks of it, is easier then Normal in NG3) where the enemies pretty much just stand there and don't do that much damage.

And even though Jeff was just mashing buttons he still pulled of amazing looking combos. If you pull that shit in NG, NGB or NG2 it would be more like hit, open for attack, hit, open for attack, blocked hit, open for attack, dead.

And adding QTEs removes depth in the combat since instead of finishing the guys off your self, all you need to do is push a button. It looks cool, but it takes away from the combat.

yah agree, go back to NG and NG:black and play the first 2 mission tryin just to button mash and you fail, or atleast you will look like a fool and the combat looks god damn ugly. (even if your remember the NG demo that came out on xbox magazine, though way easier than first level of the actual game due to more weapons being available was still challenging )

Many of my freinds tried to play NG and they couldn't pull it off and got frustrated cause they couldn't button mash through it and make all these cool combos happen.

On another note, I think the graphics are just disappointing. A reason why NG was so amazing was because of the amazing graphic supplementing the great gameplay, just playing those games back in the day was a visual treat.

I dislike, and I mean dislike the amount of rocket guys they put in this demo (and some other levels iv seen like the desert level). The rocket guys were by far my least liked enemies, I mean in NG2 it got really bad (especially at swamps and the Russian level). NG is best when ur fighting crazy demons and Ninja (the area where NG2 really shined for me). The QTE just reminds of Ninja Blade, automatically making me projectile vomit..... the stupid camera cuts are just annoying. I did like the Ninja magic and the gliding (although the guy should die when u hit a gliding attack like that). Also with all the blood they putting in this game, why cant you cut off limbs and heads like NG2? that was the best part of NG2 and even though it was superficial it made u feel like a fucking bad mofo.

I'll reserve final judgment before I play it for my self (specially at higher difficulties), but as of right now I'm really meh about this game.

I fucking love NG, so this is kind of sad. Even though NG2 had problems I still had a blast playing it (during the first week when i finished it I was ranked in the top 20 which was really cool), but I could see the game going the wrong direction with the Sigma games, specially sigma 2 which left me super disappointed.

Gonna go put my metal music on and play some ninja gaiden black and forget about this.

Aside from the graphic this game seems totally fine.

This looks like SHIIIIIT

I love how the sword wasn't on his back, then it was, and then it wasn't. All within a few seconds in a cut-scene.

Ever since actual details of this game have been released, I have expected it to be a really shoddy, generic version of past Ninja Gaiden games. Looks like I was right.

If you never played a Ninja Gaiden game before, check out Ninja Gaiden Black or the Sigma games, they're quality.

how can you NOT be in the market for a "cool stuff happening" simulator???

If overwhelming difficulty was an issue to be corrected, why not simply decrease the damage dealt by enemies as well as enemy health? To fundamentally alter the gameplay was completely unnecessary if difficulty was their concern.

I still think that Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox was the greatest third-person melee action game made to date, sitting on a knife's edge of many variables; combat flow, the number of enemies in any given encounter, and the ability to be constantly vulnerable yet through skill and effort be effectively untouchable.

great, the camera boss is back from ng2

@falpatrick:

You know, if I could summon a magical dragon I probably wouldn't even touch a sword