Ninja Gaiden Black

"A wise Ninja once say, "The Ninja who laughs last, killed all opponents.""

Growing up, my favourite games were always 3D action or adventure games; such as Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot on my good old Playstation. However, since getting an Xbox and playing games like Halo, I began to prefer 1st person shooters. However, upon buying and playing Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox, my love for 3D action was completely restored.

Shortly after, I discovered the re-make (for lack of better words): Ninja Gaiden Black. Unfortunately for me, I live in Australia and somehow someone had decided not to bring NGB here, so I was forced to buy it on eBay. I've have only had it a few months now, but I can say definitively that it is the best purchase I have ever made...

Story
At first glance this would seem to be a fairly simple storyline. Ninja is training, ninja finds out that village is burnt, ninja goes on quest for revenge. However, there is far more depth to it than that. Ryu Hayabusa may not be the most charismatic star of a video game, but his story is compelling nonetheless. And there are enough twists and support characters to make the story stand up as one of the best ever.
Story: 10/10

Graphics
Put simply, the graphics are mind blowing. This game has graphics so good, that it makes most Xbox360 and Playstation 3 (I'm not even going to mention the Wii.... other than there) look terrible. A game far ahead of its time, especially in terms of realism, it stands out beyond anything else I have played. The cut scenes look real, and the game play is astonishing. Not much else needs to be said.
Graphics: 10/10

Sound
As I write this review, I am actually (believe it or not) listening to the soundtrack, that's how good it is. While it may not necessarily be the sort of music you like, each track fits in perfectly with the surroundings of the game and further immerses the player in this experience that is like no other. The sound effects are also top notch, with hyper realistic sword and shuriken action. Few other games have sound anywhere near this exciting.
Sound: 10/10

Game play
The best, ever. What else can I say? Since playing this, most other games of a similar nature have become boring and repetitive to me, but not this. Every time I finish the game I start again straight away to just play around with the amazing combat system, and it never gets old. Every fight is different, and every fight is insanely fun. The one thing that many seem to have a problem with, the same thing that seems to make this game a "love it" or "loathe it" is the camera. In the original NG, the only control a player had over the camera was to centre it behind themselves. In NGB, you can now rotate the camera freely in 3rd person mode. There are still some minor problems in some situations but mostly the camera is fine, and works well with the fast paced combat. I personally have no problem with it at all, but figured I should mention it here since many people do. To reiterate, this game has the best (yes, the best) game play system I have ever seen.
Game play: The best. Ever.

Difficulty
Probably the thing that this game is most notorious for, its difficulty. In NG, a player had only three difficulty options: normal, hard and very hard, and no normal is not the equivalent of easy. In fact (at least on the first few times through) this game on normal is harder than most games on their hardest difficulty. In NGB, two new difficulties have been added: Ninja Dog mode, this is the equivalent of easy, and Master Ninja mode, the equivalent of "throw your controller through the T.V. in frustration because you just died for the one thousandth time." Although, the difficulty is slightly alleviated as a player must play through the game on normal to unlock hard, hard to unlock very hard, and through very hard to unlock master ninja. So by the time you get there you should be battle hardened for the most, and prepared for the majority of the fights. Some fights on very hard took me 20+ goes but once I knew how to do them I beat them in just one or two goes on master ninja. All the same though, I still died a total of 104 times (yes I counted) in making it through this game on its hardest difficulty. Not for the easily frustrated.
Difficulty: 10/10

Overall
Not much left to say other than: This game is my favourite of all time and why are you still reading this and not out there buying it?
Overall: 10/10 Gaming perfection :-)

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/09/07