Ninja Gaiden II Game Preview

April 17th, 2008

A few days ago, I got the chance to preview Ninja Gaiden II, which is scheduled to be released June 3rd. This is sequel to the first Ninja Gaiden which was released in 2004 on the original XBOX console. There are a few changes that the developers made from the first Ninja Gaiden; the first is an all new gameplay engine. I haven’t played the first Ninja Gaiden but was told it was extremely difficult and the sequel has made the fighting manageable to the casual gamer but still difficult enough to pose a good challenge. Don’t be fooled though, it’s still not a walk in the park on the easiest level!

The other change is a new health system. You start off with a full blue bar and when you are involved in a battle and get hit you notice that the blue level goes lower and a red bar appears. If you survive the attack you’ll be able to replenish your health by walking around or by going to a health/save station. Here you’ll be able to heal yourself and save the game.

On to the gameplay. This is a third-person type game and involves a lot of fighting. I was able to play it for roughly 20 minutes and fought at least 7-10 times against groups of 5-8 daemons all attacking you at once! Similar to a lot of new games, your character, Ryu Hayabusa, has the freedom to leap over gaps by jumping on the walls, swing on bars and climb ladders. I played on the easiest level and got my ass handed to me a couple of times! Be warned: there’s a lot of blood and limbs flying around. At first the daemons are a decent size but still bigger than you, and as you progress in the game the daemons get bigger and harder to defeat. I saw someone else showing a demo and the daemons he fought were huge! Of course as you get further into the game you get better weapons which help kill off these huge daemons.

The fighting is a lot of fun if you are the type of gamer who likes that sort of thing. From what I got to play it was rare to fight a single daemon – they were always in groups, which made fighting challenging. While trying to kill one daemon another one is throwing stars at you or fireballs, so it will always keep you on your toes.

There are two attack methods, light and heavy attacks. While fighting it’s pretty simple to slice a limb off of the daemon, but don’t think he’s dead – he’ll still attack you. When you slice the limb off with either a light attack or a heavy attack, hit the heavy attack button and you’ll see how Ryu Hayabusa will finish off the daemon in a cinematic view. That could mean the slicing of the head or a stabbing. Either way it’s extremely graphic and bloody!

The game looked great graphic-wise and was fun to play! I look forward to getting more involved in the game when it comes out. Until then enjoy some of these screengrabs of Ryu Hayabusa fighting!

Official site: Ninja Gaiden II
Release date: June 3rd, 2008
Platforms: XBOX 360
Rating: Mature (17+)
Developer: TECMO / Team Ninja (http://www.tecmogames.com/)
Publisher: Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/games/)
Genre: Action