Ninja Gaiden Black

"Have an xbox or 360? You NEED this game"

Let me start off by warning you that this is not an easy game, the first 2 levels will beat you senseless time after time until you'd rather pass a kidney stone than press 'continue.' But you will, and you should - because once you get through onto the third level the whole experience becomes much more enjoyable. This is, assuming you can get to the third level, and the game doesn't exactly hold your hand on the way there - it throws you right in at the deep end with the very first boss being harder than making Chuck Norris cry for most beginners and the second level forcing you to climb that learning curve and learn that button mashing is not the way. In a way, the first boss is comparable to Devil May Cry 3's first boss - Cerberus - if you've played that game.

If you have the skills and the patience then Ninja Gaiden Black will keep you occupied for MONTHS, you think normal is difficult? Wait till you ramp it up to Very Hard or even Master Ninja! Which brings me on to my main point about the difficulty: each new difficulty isn't just what I like to call 'a cheap add-on' - you know the thing: 'enemies can take more damage, you can take less' garbage that most games pump out. Well, Ninja Gaiden Black isn't like that - with each added difficulty you'll get whole new enemies, new enemy sets, tougher enemies and even added boss battles, changed item locations, item prices, weapon locations and 'secret' (golden scarab) rewards. Golden scarabs are little secrets you find on your journey, and trading them to the blacksmith will yield prizes depending on how many you find. There really is a lot of replayability in the main story mode alone, with there being a lot of incentive to go back and play through it again - if you think you can handle the extra difficulty. This is all before I even mention mission mode and the fact that you can compete against others online via the ranking system which compares your game score to other players over the internet. The main game is long enough, usually taking 20 hours or more to complete the first playthrough of the game, which is decent enough in its own right.

The combat engine is brilliant, timing is always key and you'll have to figure out strategies to beat the tougher enemies and bosses - for those who love doing this. There's no 'style' bar like in Devil May Cry, instead you are rewarded based on how quickly you bring enemies down, and how many Ultimate Techniques you pull off in the encounter - which are special moves unique to each weapon which you pull off by utilising the 'essence' dropped by each enemy as they die in your strike. There are a lot of moves available for the vast array of weapons on offer, most of the weapons can be upgraded to new levels to unlock even more moves.

The game is severely lacking a convincing story, the script is nothing you yourself couldn't have pulled out the bag within a few hours but story isn't the main focus of the game - and you certainly won't be incredibly interested in it, though you'll no doubt have some questions about it once you've finished it, since everything isn't exactly made clear.

The graphics are superb, some of the best on the xbox, and if the same graphics had been released early in the xbox 360s life, there wouldn't have been many complaints about it. There are no graphical hitches to complain about with Gaiden, they're absolutely superb, though naturally not as good as Ninja Gaiden Sigma's graphics - a next gen game though itself, on the ps3.

Aside from the difficulty, the only other real complaint people make is with the camera. Now, the main problem is that in Ninja Gaiden Black (as opposed to Ninja Gaiden) the bosses have minions to help them in the higher difficulties, and (cleverly enough) the camera now stays fixed on the boss so that you can't see the minions attacking you from off screen - this is a poorly thought out decision (the camera, that is - not the minions) and it makes for some 'cheap' deaths within the game in some cases - though you may be lucky enough to never actually experience this problem, since it isn't guaranteed to happen to you. A big enemy called the Ogre can actually manage to attack you from offscreen too, this can be extremely frustrating during the fiend challenge involving Ogres in the stadium. But again, still a minor issue.

The difference between this, and Devil May Cry is that DMC basically throws you in with a load of enemies and just says 'rack up as many combos as you can do, as stylishly as possible (don't get hit)' which means the DMC gameplay is a lot more freeform with its combos since the enemies are much less aggressive, and are kind of like 'punch bags,' whereas NGB enemies are highly aggressive, they don't give you enough time to start pulling fancy moves and they can't take enough damage to have you pull out hundreds of moves on one enemy at one time - you do what it takes to get the job done in the situation - you fight the group as a whole, in DMC the enemies are slow and you generally don't have to worry about other attacks while you're busy being 'stylish' on one enemy, but in NGB you do, and in this way it keeps you on your toes. Some will not enjoy this form of fighting quite so much, others will prefer it - but you should definitely try it out even if you're skeptical.

In terms of sound, don't expect too much in the way of classic tunes that will stay with you for the rest of your life, but they get the message across as to whether you're in a battle, in a cold area, in a monastery or in a peaceful village. There are some good tunes that you'll recognise when you hear them, a lot of the music in the game is very similar though, which is bad for variety in a way, but in a way it is also good since they squeezed more tunes from the same basic template, in other words: be glad they did this, because it could have been worse. But yeah, don't expect anything to the standard of Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid - though the standard is at least up to par with the Devil May Cry series as far as sound goes, except for this little thing called voice acting. But again, story is unimportant - making voice acting unimportant. But yeah, DMC has a better story and slightly better voice acting (mainly because there's more of it). As you can see, NGB is very comparable to DMC - both are great games and slightly different in their approach.

In all, this game is a true classic - you can't call yourself an expert on the action adventure / hack and slash genre without having played this game - it definitely deserves to be ranked above other genre classics like Devil May Cry and God of War.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/12/08

Game Release: Ninja Gaiden Black (Classics) (EU, 10/21/05)