Ninja Gaiden 3 - Discussion Thread
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Trust me, that's the probably the last you'll want to see of Downpour. I'm almost on the verge of dumping it and switch to Ninja Gaiden 3.
Started the game sometime back on the Normal difficulty and done with the first boss battle. First impressions - difficulty and gore toned down terribly! Tomonobu Itagaki's absence appears to be quite evident here. This isn't the Ryu Hayabusa we knew of.
No more limb dismemberments or decapitations. A lot of blood squirts and the body lays flat on the ground with some blood spatter. That is it. The new cinematic combat sequences are pretty good and Ryu is able to slash through the opponent's body during the slow-mo sequence. He can as well chain his attacks with a wide variety of combos but combat tends to get a bit repetitive over time. Stealth takedowns are possible as well. QTE executions and elements look solid for a change. Controls are slick as usual and nothing complex here. Visuals haven't evolved much but certainly look better than NGS 2. Then there are those occasional frame drops during heavy battle sequences.
Muramasa's shop is missing as was mentioned in the preview before. No more dragon statues for quick saves - instead, a glowing falcon appears at specific locations with the save prompt. Health recharges itself based on the ninpo Ryu has gained during a particular combat sequence. There's also the new Kunai climb wherein Ryu can climb structures using a pair of kunai using the triggers. Those are the few changes I could notice. Looks like newcomers can get adapted to the gameplay pretty quickly. Fans of the franchise will be disappointed but I do not certainly agree with the lowly rating IGN has rewarded the game. It doesn't deserve a 3!
PS: I just died once and it did not happen with the boss fight! Do the math!
EDIT: Done with chapter 2. Will call it a day.
No more limb dismemberments or decapitations. A lot of blood squirts and the body lays flat on the ground with some blood spatter. That is it. The new cinematic combat sequences are pretty good and Ryu is able to slash through the opponent's body during the slow-mo sequence. He can as well chain his attacks with a wide variety of combos but combat tends to get a bit repetitive over time. Stealth takedowns are possible as well. QTE executions and elements look solid for a change. Controls are slick as usual and nothing complex here. Visuals haven't evolved much but certainly look better than NGS 2. Then there are those occasional frame drops during heavy battle sequences.
Muramasa's shop is missing as was mentioned in the preview before. No more dragon statues for quick saves - instead, a glowing falcon appears at specific locations with the save prompt. Health recharges itself based on the ninpo Ryu has gained during a particular combat sequence. There's also the new Kunai climb wherein Ryu can climb structures using a pair of kunai using the triggers. Those are the few changes I could notice. Looks like newcomers can get adapted to the gameplay pretty quickly. Fans of the franchise will be disappointed but I do not certainly agree with the lowly rating IGN has rewarded the game. It doesn't deserve a 3!
PS: I just died once and it did not happen with the boss fight! Do the math!
EDIT: Done with chapter 2. Will call it a day.
Completed 2 chapters (or days) last night. Although, I have to agree with all the points that IGN touched upon, 3 is a very harsh rating. True Ninja Gaiden fans would be betrayed by the changes that this game has introduced. The visuals gave me a deja vu of playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 on the PS3. It's amazing how Team Ninja never felt the need to bump up the graphics, even by a notch. Albeit this game delivers 60fps, on most occasions, you'll notice the rest of the world around you being completely flat and dull.
I could forgive them for staying put on the visual front, but gameplay has been sacrificed as well. The core aspect of NG games were it's combat and difficulty level. This game feels like a step backwards and strolling in the Ninja Blade direction. You'll have QTE right from the very first sequence of the games, right down to the kills and the boss fights. Hell, you even get a QTE to scale a freakin' wall. Trust me, they are moronic and not required. Violence, as we all know, has been stripped down. Itagaki understood this and we got Ninja Gaiden 2's unforgiving dismemberment techniques. So f*ck you Hayashi! Moving on, I didn't find any weapon upgrades either. We get our trusty Dragon Sword, the shurikens and a bow later on. Dragon Ninpo is available by default and so is the Ultimate Technique. Unlike the previous games, there are no scrolls to be collected to gain these powers. Combat feels a bit disjointed. You'll have quick camera close-ups for the kill sequences, which isn't required, as it's a blink-n-miss affair. I have played 2 levels for now and haven't encountered a single enemy worthy of a challenge, or a boss for that matter. The damage we take on normal mode is fairly less. Off-screen projectiles still continue to be a pain in the ass. Camera has gone from bad to worse. Saving in performed by magical Eagles who appear out of nowhere.
As you can see a lot of stuff has been compromised. Plus, the boss battles are just a bunch of mechanical retards just performing their routine bombing run. No health bars for them either. And did I mention, they need QTE to be taken down as well, YAY?
Amidst this chaos, I had a very unfortunate event with my 360. During the first boss battle, the power cut off. I resumed once it came back on, defeated the first boss again and BAM, black screen and RROFreakinD greets me. Panic mode activates. I shut down the console reboot, defeat the first boss again and a few minutes into the cut-scene and RROD again. At this point, I'm really pissed off. I pull the power plug from the back, reconnect it, reboot the console and start playing, played it for an hour and it went fine. Was this an indication of the uncertain future?
I could forgive them for staying put on the visual front, but gameplay has been sacrificed as well. The core aspect of NG games were it's combat and difficulty level. This game feels like a step backwards and strolling in the Ninja Blade direction. You'll have QTE right from the very first sequence of the games, right down to the kills and the boss fights. Hell, you even get a QTE to scale a freakin' wall. Trust me, they are moronic and not required. Violence, as we all know, has been stripped down. Itagaki understood this and we got Ninja Gaiden 2's unforgiving dismemberment techniques. So f*ck you Hayashi! Moving on, I didn't find any weapon upgrades either. We get our trusty Dragon Sword, the shurikens and a bow later on. Dragon Ninpo is available by default and so is the Ultimate Technique. Unlike the previous games, there are no scrolls to be collected to gain these powers. Combat feels a bit disjointed. You'll have quick camera close-ups for the kill sequences, which isn't required, as it's a blink-n-miss affair. I have played 2 levels for now and haven't encountered a single enemy worthy of a challenge, or a boss for that matter. The damage we take on normal mode is fairly less. Off-screen projectiles still continue to be a pain in the ass. Camera has gone from bad to worse. Saving in performed by magical Eagles who appear out of nowhere.
As you can see a lot of stuff has been compromised. Plus, the boss battles are just a bunch of mechanical retards just performing their routine bombing run. No health bars for them either. And did I mention, they need QTE to be taken down as well, YAY?
Amidst this chaos, I had a very unfortunate event with my 360. During the first boss battle, the power cut off. I resumed once it came back on, defeated the first boss again and BAM, black screen and RROFreakinD greets me. Panic mode activates. I shut down the console reboot, defeat the first boss again and a few minutes into the cut-scene and RROD again. At this point, I'm really pissed off. I pull the power plug from the back, reconnect it, reboot the console and start playing, played it for an hour and it went fine. Was this an indication of the uncertain future?
Back on topic, I am done with Day 4. It was a cake walk similar to the previous chapters and Ryu did not lose many lives during the playthrough. Some good set pieces and level designs. Enemy variety has improved over the previous versions and Ryu now battles mutated creatures and cloaked soldiers other than the ninjas. Some of the chase sequences are pretty cool as well and Ryu must do a straight sprint across a narrow path overcoming the obstacles by jumping or sliding underneath them. The character models appear a bit like dolls and not very realistic. Camera angles are a serious pain at times esp. during heavy battle sequences and we must manually rotate the analog stick each time to focus onto the enemy.
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