Ninja Gaiden Black

"There was ninjas! Thousands of them!"

INTRODUCTION

Well, I use to own the original Ninja Gaiden on the XBox, but I decided to trade it in when I heard Black was coming out. Black has more features and it also is only $30 brand new. Is it worth your money? Hell yeah!

SOUND (9/10)

The music in this game is awesome, no question. I'm sometimes amazed at how well the music is. The combat sounds are well done, too. But mostly, for me, there isn't much to say about the sound.

GRAPHICS (10/10)

Okay, the graphics in this game are absolutely amazing. No question, no argument. Anyone that says the graphics sucks needs to be punched repeatedly. These are by far the best graphics I've seen on a console yet. The cut scenes are absolutely beautiful. The environments are very well made, but what steals the show is by far the cut scenes. Absolutely beautiful. If I could give the graphics an 11, I would.

STORY (8/10)

The story consists of Ryu Hayabusa (from the Dead or Alive series) wanting revenge on a greater fiend named Doku. Pretty simple storyline, but it's still rather interesting how it folds out.

GAMEPLAY (10/10)

Alright, the gameplay. The gameplay consists of you going around chopping ninjas heads off, or chopping up other fiends. But it isn't as simple as it sounds! This game is hard. If you're a very skilled gamer, you'll blow through this game. But if you're not that skilled, you will have problems, assuming you're playing on the Normal difficulty mode. For the unskilled gamers, there is "Ninja Dog" which is the Easy difficulty mode. Is that difficulty level easy? Yeah, it is. However, if you are a very skilled gamer, you'll have an even harder difficulty mode that wasn't found in the last game. This is an expansion pack, ya know! Alright, besides the difficulty, how is this game? Fun, fun, fun, fun. This game will suck you right in and won't let go. Sometimes though, once you get into the heat of the battle, you'll find yourself repeating the same moves over and over. Is that a bad thing? Well, yes, if this was any other game. But this game is so fun that I don't mind repeating the same moves over and over. Wanna know what is different this time around? Well they've added the Hurricane Packs that originally you could only find on XBox Live. There are new cinematic scenes. Brand new missions and bosses. You can unlock the original arcade version of Ninja Gaiden. There are new costumes and much, much more! I do have a bit of a problem with the game though, the camera. I think the camera is the only thing I've really found wrong with the game. Because sometimes you'll find yourself adjusting the camera and it still doesn't help you out that much. I thought they were supposed to fix the camera problem but I guess not. Still though, the camera isn't enough to completely bring down the gameplay department. I think I've covered everything, so woo.

REPLAY VALUE (10/10)

Well obviously this game has a high replay value. As I said, this is an expansion pack on the original. As I just covered, they've added a lot of new things that will keep you coming back for more and more. Any need to continue here? Nope.

CONCLUSION ON SCORES

Sound - 9/10
Graphics - 10/10
Story - 8/10
Gameplay - 10/10
Replay Value - 10/10
AVERAGE SCORE: 9.4
FINAL SCORE: 9/10

THE FINAL WORD

Rent it? Nah. Buy it? Oh yes! For $30 how can you possibly go wrong? The only reason I wouldn't recommend this game is if you're not that skilled at gaming. I mean there is an easy mode, but if that'll hurt your pride, then maybe you shouldn't pick it up. Because I've wanted to toss my controller at the TV many times while playing this game. If you wanna take the challenge, then by all means, buy it. I wouldn't say this is the best action game ever. But it might just be the best action game on the XBox.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/23/05