Ninja Gaiden

"Fun game with some frustrating flaws"

The new adventures of Ryu Hayabusa, only on the Xbox. Thrill to the graphics, revel in the slaughter, scream at the camera obscuring your character...

GRAPHICS: 10
As expected of Tecmo, the graphics for the game are superb. The models all have lots of detail, and everything is sharp. If anything, they're a little too sharp; one of the minor quibbles I have with the in-game graphics is that everything seems very smooth and clean, which gives things a somewhat plastic feel. It becomes apparent that you're looking a computer model when, say, you're looking at one of the female character's bosom (and this being Tecmo of Dead or Alive fame, there's a lot of said bosom to view) and things just look too shiny and smooth to be like real skin. There's also little in the way of dynamic lighting effects. Overall, however, this is one of the best looking Xbox games to date.

The pre-generated cut scenes between chapters are amazing as well, giving Square-Enix a run for their money in detail and quality.

SOUND: 7
The sound quality is clear, and the game has the requisite explosions, weapon swings, and grunts you'd expect from an action game. The music is subtle and unremarkable, but at least it doesn't grate. The voice acting is good but not spot-on; some of the actors sound a little forced, and the dramatics are sometimes awkward.

GAMEPLAY: 8
First off, let's make clear that this is not truly a ninja game in the sense of stealth and subterfuge, which ninjas are traditionally known for. Anyone looking for an experience akin to Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell will be disappointed, because there's no stealth in the game whatsoever. The ninja theme only extends to the weapons used and the acrobatics, which are similar to the abilities in Prince of Persia (although the Prince is arguably more agile than Ryu). Ninja Gaiden is essentially an enhanced beat-'em-up, with some equipment and special move upgrades over the course of the game. The gameplay really boils down to canned combos, good blocking skills, and keeping on the move. Of course, if you like this sort of repetitive game play (and I do), it's a lot of fun. There's a lot of enemies to smack down, and they all have a good variety of attacks, so there's not a lot of down time between fights (especially since enemies re-spawn, which makes travel a pain at times).

The game is definitely not a cakewalk, either. The enemies have good gang mentality AI, and they'll take every advantage they can, disrupting your attacks while you're focused on another opponent or sticking you with guns or shuriken if you let your guard down for even a second. Some will also throw you or slit your throat if you guard too much, so you have to stay alert.

The difficulty is also ratcheted up by the scarcity of healing potions and save points. Unless you're exceedingly good in battles or you spend some time farming weak enemies for money to buy supplies, chances are you'll use up most of your healing potions on every level. You'll also spend a lot of time redoing parts of levels if you die, because save points are few and far between, maybe two or so a level. Expect to be challenged / frustrated if you have trouble with action games.

CAMERA: 5
I put in a special category just for the camera control, which to me is the biggest flaw in the game. Frankly, it sucks. First off, the camera is too low and close behind Ryu, giving the player a small viewing range. This also is hazardous to your health when jumping on platforms and anywhere where you have to be careful where you walk. This is particularly true when walking up an incline, as the camera will be almost at ground level, making any gaps in the ground difficult to see.

Unlike games such as Ratchet & Clank or Prince of Persia, which assign manual camera control to the right analog stick, the only camera control in Ninja Gaiden is the right trigger, which jerks the camera directly behind Ryu. The right analog is reserved for first-person observation mode.

This has a number of problems. For one, the centering of the camera is immediate, and the sudden change in view can be disorienting. Also, the camera angle directly in front of Ryu is frequently not the camera view you need. If your enemy is out of range of your current camera view, there's no way to know for certain that Ryu is actually facing the enemy, so for more mobile enemies you'll frequently have to center the camera, then turn Ryu around in another direction and center again, until you can find the enemy. In enclosed spaces, if Ryu happens to be facing towards a wall when you center, you won't see anything when you center. You thus have to spend extra time making sure you're facing in a good direction before you actually move the camera. This is tempered somewhat due to Ryu turning to face his opponents when blocking and a move that allows him to jump towards his nearest enemy, but these are band-aids for the bigger problem of lack of dynamic control. Considering your direction is constantly changing in an action game, restricting the camera control to snapping behind the character is frustrating, especially when other games that allow manual adjustment have been around for a while and give superior control.

The switching of the camera also affects your movement. Because the movement controls are based on the camera view, doing a sudden re-centering of the camera will change the actual direction Ryu is moving. For instance, say you want to go left, around a corner. You hold left to move Ryu, and then you decide that you want to see what's immediately in front of Ryu. So you hit the right trigger to center the camera. However, now that the camera is switched to point left, the left direction you're holding on the analog is now moving Ryu back to the corner you just rounded. D'oh! Again, because manual control isn't mapped to the other analog stick, you can't smoothly change the camera angle and move the character at the same time, so for all except the smallest of view changes, you'll have to stop the character while making the camera change.

This is more frustrating simply because it could have easily been avoided. The right analog stick is mapped exclusively to first-person mode; Tecmo could have instead toggled between camera and first-person views by pushing in the analog stick.

INTERFACE: 8
Outside of the camera issues, the game controls pretty well. It's easy to make Ryu jump, roll, and attack. The mapping of the ''interact'' and ''weak attack'' actions to the same button is annoying, however; if you happen to try attacking an enemy and you're too near a door, you'll end up in the next room instead. Why they didn't just map ''interact'' to the white button rather than showing your score as it currently does is beyond me.

The in-game menu also has its share of awkwardness. It's constructed as a two-tier system, where categories such as ''weapons'' are broken down into sub-categories, but the current highlighted menu option is easily confused. The confusion can be cleared out if you remember to only use the triggers to switch between main categories, rather than moving the highlight up and down the menu tree.

Finally, there's little in the way of a tutorial in the game, which may give you a rocky start. You'll have to do many aspects of the fighting system in particular through trial and error. Some of the more important moves aren't even mentioned until you beat the first boss (and only if you ask).

STORY: 8
It's about revenge and monsters and killing. What, you were expecting something deeper? For the amount of time you actually spend getting plot advancement (think, once per chapter), the story is sufficient, although I would have liked to have seen more in the way of character interaction.

OVERALL (not an average): 8
Ninja Gaiden is a fun and challenging game, but it's got some flaws that just suck some of the enjoyment out of it for me, such as the clunky camera and the sparse save points (I'd like to do less than half a level over when I die, please). Make sure you have a high tolerance for frustration before you dive in.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/11/04, Updated 03/12/04