Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Review

gaming, PC, playstation, review, xbox

Ninja Gaiden 2 has shadow dropped during the Xbox Developer Direct and straight in to Game Pass! I like many, was quick to download this greatly adored game. The perfect game to play in anticipation of Ninja Gaiden 4.

It is important I preface this review by informing you that this is my first ever Ninja Gaiden game. At first, I wanted to research and talk to friends about their thoughts and opinions on the series, but I decided I wanted to go in to this blind. It is important to me that I share with you my fresh perspective on the game without prior knowledge as to where it comes from. Its a unique position I find myself in, so take advantage of my newborn eyes.

The original Ninja Gaiden 2 came out June 3rd, 2008. It currently sits at 81% on Metacritic. Its a game loved by many over the years and it sadly hit the dark crevices of my backlog collection. I have a soft spot in my heart for Xbox 360/PS3 era games and I was overjoyed to hop in to this game for the first time.

Without doing a side by side comparison to its predecessor, this game is beautiful. I played it on my Xbox Series S and it ran smooth as butter. There were a few times when there was a lot of on screen action where some character models became slightly pixelated. But this mishap was far and few between.

The combat is where Ninja Gaiden shines the most. Rack up combo hits with aggressive cool ninja moves to achieve the satisfaction of slicing up your enemies in the most gore’ific ways possible. With 9 different weapons and 2 different ranged weapons, you will experience a wide array of combat styles. Each are immensely satisfying and keep you wanting more action.

You will get to play as some guest stars as well in certain missions. There is also “Tag” missions you can access as you progress through the story where you will fight off waves of enemies and rack up points with an AI teammate. You can play as a few different characters. For spoiler purposes, I wont name them. There are 3 of them aside from Ryu.

One of the characters you get to play as

There are 17 chapters in Ninja Gaiden 2 and it took me roughly 8 hours to complete. There are five different difficulties you can play on. I chose Path of the Acolyte because one thing I have heard about this game, is that it is very difficult. Below are the difficulties…

Hero Play Style.
Path of the Acolyte - Normal.
Path of the Warrior - Hard.
Path of the Mentor - Very Hard.
Path of the Master Ninja - Punishing.

As I braced myself for a punishing time, the last thing I expected was the difficulty to not come from the enemy. The most challenging thing about Ninja Gaiden 2 was the controls. I say the following with a heavy heart, because I enjoyed my time with the game, but I can’t in good conscious label this as a “amazing” game.

The reason why, is that every time I started to lose myself in everything good about the game, my good time was immediately squandered by poor controls, bad traversal, and bad camera angles. I have no idea if the original played the same, but if it did, this solidifies the fact that this is a remaster, not a remake.

I listed off three major cons in Ninja Gaiden 2, so I want to go a little in depth on why they are issues. Poor controls seep through almost every aspect of the game. Like any game, it offers you instructions on how to do combat, parkour, etc. If you ask me, the game needs to rename “instructions”, to be “I don’t know, maybe try this combo of buttons and see if that works.”.

An enemy grapples you, press X repeatedly to break loose. This works half the time. Block with LB and press X to break their attack chain. I stopped trying to use this move when I realized the mechanic is simply broken and doesn’t even respond to 75% of the enemy types. Call it a skill issue if you like, but once I explain the other issues, you might be more inclined to believe its not my fault these mechanics didn’t work for me.

The lack of being able to lock on to an enemy hurts the combat in this game immensely. I can’t fight the way I want, because Ryu fights who Ryu wants to fight. After finishing the game, I still can’t explain how I will aim at an enemy, attack, and Ryu does a 180 to attack someone I’m not aiming at. So many times I was forced to fight someone I wasn’t trying to, while fighting the camera angle simultaneously so I can attempt to go after the guy throwing fireballs at me.

The camera in this game is constantly fighting you. So many times I didn’t even know what was happening because the camera did its own thing while I attempted to survive.

When people say this game is difficult, I refuse to believe its for no other reason than what I just said. I go to attack someone, but unless I am laser focused on where that person is positioned, I will slice at the air beside them. This constantly breaks immersion and makes me miss how games like Batman Arkham Asylum would negate the distance between you and an enemy so you can land punches. This game simply doesn’t have that. So there are many time you will just swing at the air, breaking your combo because the game has no way of locking on to an enemy.

As for the third flaw, traversal, it made me want to rage quit like an unbeatable Elden Ring boss. It was anything but fluid. You can wall run, bounce back and forth on walls to get high places, and so much more. But actually being able to jump on to a ledge can be a pain in the ass. You have to jump on to a ledge from a perfect angle or you will proceed to wall run up and bounce back. This could send you down a cliff if you are climbing a mountain.

Specifically, there are multiple towers you will ascend in the game. “To wall run, hold down Left Joystick and press A to jump.”. Again, I wouldn’t call this an instruction. Because I was still left trying to figure out how they wanted me to finesse the controller in order to simply wall run. Below is a Youtube video I took of me trying to ascend a tower. This happens multiple times in the game.

The last thing I will point out with traversal is hanging from ropes or poles. Want to shift yourself toward the right of the pole? Try messing around with the joystick to figure out how you are suppose to do that. Because every time I found myself in this situation, it was a different solution. I tried adjusting the camera angle and moving the joys stick in the opposing direction, and Ryu would just start swinging instead of going in the direction I wanted him to go in. Once I thought I figured it out, I’d replicate the scenario and I had to do something different to simply shift myself right on the pole.

When it comes to difficulty of the enemies, it wasn’t a difficult game on normal. When there were challenging moments, it was because I was being shot at by enemies I couldn’t see due to bad camera angles. Again, I fought the game mechanics more than the enemies.

Can you tell what is going on in the image? Me neither.

I loved the boss battles and enemies. For a 2008 game, it sure has variety. However, toward that last quarter of the game, they just recycle the same boss battles. Which is fine, but 4 times for two different bosses? That seems a bit excessive. This particularly left a bad taste in my mouth after fighting the final boss.

I do not say this with pleasure or exaggeration. Literally, the final boss was the worst boss fight I have ever encountered. Every boss fight up to this point took me roughly 3-7 minutes. With the exception of 3 taking 10 minutes. This boss took me 20 minutes. Not because he was difficult. But because you shoot him, dodge, shoot him, dodge, shoot him… you get the picture. I could literally do it blind folded. It was a slog. He had a 3 stages of the exact same thing. His final phase was actually fun.

I know I’ve spent most of this review griping about the game’s mechanics. But it is important to remember, this is a remaster of a 17 year old game. If it was a built from the ground up remake, I’d be far less forgiving.

Summary:

If you want to come back to re-visit Ninja Gaiden 2, I highly recommend you do. If you loved it the first time, you will love it even more with its new polish. But if you are new to the game, be aware that you are paying for graphics. In terms of game mechanics, you will have a similar experience to the original title. To play this game in 2025 is a reminder of how far games have come technologically speaking. But it is an amazing revitalization of a classic that reminds us, 2025 needs more 2008 era games.