Ninja Gaiden Black

"Back In Black"

Ninja Gaiden Black is the remake - well it's more of an expansion pack - of 2004's award winning Ninja Gaiden. Various changes and additions have been made to the original game to not only fix problems but add difficulty. I'll score the based on these categories; graphics, sound, controls, story, game play and re-playability.

Graphics - 10/10
The graphics in the origonal were stunning. These are even better. Everything in them game looks good. The characters have a very high poly-count and the environments are great looking. There are also some pre-rendered cut scenes in the game. The weapons and enemy's are great too. The animation are also well done. Everything looks fluid and at a constant 60 FPS everything flows smoothly. The oly problem with the graphics is that I found some minor clipping problems but it was nothing extensive. Overall the graphics are some of the best ever.

Sound - 8/10
The lowest scoring category is sound. For most of the game you get some weird techno beats that at first I found I wasn't to fond of. Over time though you get used to them. The voice-acting is excellent top-notch stuff. All thr sounds that the weapons make when they connect with a wall or enemy are appropriate and done well. All the sound effects are also done fairly well.

Controls - 9.5/10
The controls are also done extremely well. They follow a standard action game control scheme. X and Y attack while L blocks and the left thumb stick moves. It doesn't take too long to get used to the control set up. The one small problem I had with the control scheme was that sometimes you would target the wrong enemy but that seldom happened.

Story - 8/10
While the story is nothing amazing it does work pretty well. You play as Ryu. He is a ninja, well more of a one man army than ninja as you do no sneaking in the game. After his village is burned down and the Dark Dragon Blade is stolen he goes on a quest to get it back and kill the person who stole it. The story moves are a brisk pace and there isn't much that will confuse you story wise.

Game Play - 11/10
This is where Ninja Gaiden outclasses every other action game on the market. The main focus on the game is combat with some very light puzzle solving and platforming. The combat system is deep, very deep. It's basically a fighting game put into an action environment. You can choose from many different weapons, all of which have their own uses and style of play. There is also a very deep combo system in the game with each weapon having many of it's own unique moves. The difficulty is another thing in the game. This game is not for people who don't want to spend their time getting beaten down and learning how to use the weapons and moves at your disposal. It is extremly difficult even on normal. There is a Ninja Dog mode that serves as an easy mode but it's not that much easier. On hard mode and up you will fight different enemys that appeared in the Hurricane Packs (Downloadable expansion packs for Ninja Gaiden). They have also tweaked the combat a little bit making the weapons more equally powered. Along with this they have added a Master Ninja mode which promises to be one of the hardest modes know to man. The best thing about the difficulty of this game is that while being hard it in noway is cheap. When you die it is your own fault. The combat flows as smooth as water and the non-combat parts are fun too. I also need to mention the bosses, they are many, they are tough and they are awesome. The bosses are probably the hardest part of the game, they range from 'That wasn't too hard.' to 'Oh my god stop ****ing me.' really they are tough and if you're not prepared they will eat you like it was nothing. There are a few times you will find yourself frustrated in the game but overall it is worth it for the depth that the comabt system allows.

Replayibilty - 9/10
Unlike the origonal this game has a lot more unlockables. Some thing you unlock by finding the hidden scarabs. Other things like different costumes you unlock through beating different difficulty settings. There are also 50 missions to complete along with hurricane pack 2. Each mission tier has five missions in it. To unlock the next tier you have to beat five missions. You start out with ten missions that start easily enough but get much harder as you progress. There are a lot of goodies to be had in this game.

Final score - 10/10
I cannot praise this game enough and for the $40(CDN) ($30 USD) price tag you have no reason not to buy this game. This is the zenith of action games. It is a definite contender for game of the year. You owe it to yourself to buy this.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/05