I've been a life-long devotee to the NINJA GAIDEN franchise since I can remember. The first Ninja Gaiden on NES is my all-time favorite NES video game and a strong contender for my all-time favorite video game ever. Needless to say, I dearly love the Ninja Gaiden trilogy on NES. I used to imagine what a Ninja Gaiden movie would look like when I was growing up and wishing to be hero ninja Ryu Hayabusa.
I'm not sure when I discovered that Ryu Hayabusa was a regular character in the fighting game series DEAD OR ALIVE. It was around my time in college and shortly after DOA 3 came out. I was so blown away that my old ninja hero, Hayabusa, was in a fighting game (I had become a huge fan of fighting games by that point). Then in 2004 Tecmo released a new Ninja Gaiden exclusively on Xbox. I borrowed my buddy's Xbox and played everything I could on Ninja Gaiden. Then again on Ninja Gaiden Black. Then yet again on Ninja Gaiden Sigma (finally on a system I owned, the PS3). I missed Ninja Gaiden 2 on Xbox 360 but you better believe I played it once it hit PS3 with Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2!
When Ninja Gaiden 3 came out I didn't bother buying it (even though it was launched on the PS3). I had seen the trends and figured a Sigma version was sure to come (just like you never buy a Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film when it comes out. You wait for the extended cut). And sure enough Tecmo released the "Sigma" version of NG3, NINJA GAIDEN 3: RAZOR'S EDGE! I bought NG3:RE quite some time ago (not on release day mind you, but a few years ago nonetheless). The game got shelved after only playing the first level, for whatever reason. And there it waited and collected dust as I basically fell out of playing modern video games, shifting focus to retro gaming.
Recently I've been getting back into ninja video gaming in a big way (if you haven't checked out my GAMING DIARIES: THE SHINOBI CHRONICLES, please do!). While trekking through the classic Shinobi series, I was inspired to play Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge. And after a week or two I am now able to say I have beaten it and at long last finished the modern Ninja Gaiden trilogy! "Sigh" it feels good to say that.
THE PLOT
A terrorist group has laid siege to London and demand the presence of the Dragon Ninja. Top officials of the Japanese Self-Defense Force visit the Hayabusa village to relay the message. Ryu agrees to accompany the JSDF to London where he encounters the Regent of the Mask, one of the terrorist leaders. In a battle the Regent curses Ryu with "the Grip of Murder," a fatal curse that slowly spreads from Ryu's arm to his whole body with the more people he kills. The Regent flees leaving Ryu and the JSDF to follow. Ryu is forced to chase the terrorists to uncover their true plot and find a way to save himself from the horrible curse.
PRESENTATION
The game looks as good as the previous games. I didn't notice much of a graphical enhancement beyond Sigma 2 or even Sigma 1. It's been a while since I played to original Ninja Gaiden for Xbox, but my memory has that game looking remarkably similar to this one. So, no noticeable visual enhancements in nearly 10 years. It still looks good, but either that first game in 2004 looked WAY ahead of the competition and games are just now catching up to it or Tecmo didn't invest much at all in the graphics of Razor's Edge. That or my memory is going. I am getting old after all.
The move list and abilities menu gets a new coat of paint but otherwise doesn't function any differently. And beyond that the presentation is the same as it always has been for this new trilogy.
GAMEPLAY
If you've played the previous Ninja Gaiden games for Xbox or Playstation 3 then you should have no trouble jumping right into this game. There wasn't really anything strikingly new I noticed as I went through the game. But even having played through every difficulty, including MASTER NINJA difficulty, on both the previous games, there was one major thing I noticed: Razor's Edge was hard.
VERY HARD
I'd go as far as to say it was downright mean! I guess when the original iteration of Ninja Gaiden 3 was released there was considerable backlash from the fan community about how "streamlined" the game was for normie players. Veteran players were whining about NG3 being too easy. I wasn't aware of this when I bought Razor's Edge. I just thought Razor's Edge was like the "Gold Edition" of the game with all the extras and stuff, you know, like how the Sigma versions were. I didn't realize that it was a direct response from the game designers to the angry fan complaints about the game being easy.
Now, it had been many years since I last played a Ninja Gaiden game (barring the original NES trilogy which I play almost every year). My skills may have been a little rusty but I wouldn't say they were bad. I started the game on Normal difficulty and got beat down...bad. Razor's Edge slapped me hard, pissed in my hair, and said, "Go home!" And after so many times dying the game itself asks you if you'd like to drop down a difficulty level, Hero Mode (which is this game's Easy Mode). I got to the first boss of level 1, the mid boss spider-tank thing, and was thoroughly punished for even existing.
In no time at all the game asked me if I wanted to drop down to Hero Mode...
Like an idiot I said, "No!" The fact that the game even does this feels a little like a mean taunt. All of the modern Ninja Gaiden games have done this (the Ninja Gaiden game from 2004 called easy mode "Ninja Dog" mode, really rubbing salt in your wounds and pride). These games have always prided themselves on being really fricken hard, even the original Ninja Gaiden II for NES advertised "Hard To Beat!" on the game box. I refused to be a Ninja Dog in those past games and I refused to be one here!
Again, it had been a while since I last played Ninja Gaiden, but this was really tough. I don't remember the previous games being this tough from the start, so hard that the game didn't really feel fun anymore. I've gotta admit that it wasn't fun until about halfway through, after fighting that evil Gigantosaurus, that the game became fun. Throughout the entire game I must've been asked over a dozen times or more if I wanted to step down to "Hero Mode." Oh god, how annoying that became, seeing it pop up periodically, most often during certain boss fights.
The things I hate most about this game are:
1: Spider-Tanks
2: Helicopters (again I ask, why the hell is this a staple of ninja gaming?!)
3: Gigantosaurus boss
4: Cliff (generally everything about his character)
5: Giant evil airships
6: Kunai climbing (this game makes climbing a stupid wall an arduous event)
7: Bow and Arrows (I've hated these in all three games)
8: the first stage of the final battle with The Goddess
Ryu has a guard/slide-dodge move which I heavily relied on to avoid attacks. That move became my best friend. The Izuna Drop and the Ultimate Technique, mainstay moves from the previous two games, were also present and, once more, my best friends in this game. There are a host of weapons to choose from once more but I mainly stayed with the traditional katana and the Lunar Staff. I didn't need anything else to get me through the game. There's a new gameplay mechanic called STEEL ON BONE or BLOODY RAGE where Ryu's curse flares up like a case of bad herpes. During these flare-ups you can cleave enemies apart with bloody efficiency. Doing this helps fill your Ninpo (ninja magic) gauge. Other than that the game plays like the previous two games in the series.
After the fight with the dinosaur something clicked with me. I'm not sure what changed but I started enjoying playing the game. Before that point though the game felt like a chore I was doing out of spite. I think I hit my stride at that point. Either that or I had a decent sized life bar by that point that I wasn't dying all the freakin' time and I had unlocked enough moves to make playing the game easier. Regardless, that's when I started liking the game.
But then the hate sorta resurfaced at the end for a moment. When the character of Cliff (who looks strangely similar to Rhys Ifans) transformed into a monster and I had to hear that "We're just getting started!" line repeated over and over I got frustrated. I muted the tv at that point. Then the first stage of the final battle with The Goddess (the only stage of the fight worth noting) became a demoralizing struggle. Basically you have to survive against a giant monster with screen covering attacks while killing an endless stream of regular enemies (regular in this game is still very very hard) to fill your completely empty and newly enlarged Ninpo gauge.
I could get my gauge to about 75% full using the Dragon Sword but that was the best I could do. After trying many many times on my own, I broke down and went to GameFAQS for a boss strategy guide. And guess what? THERE WAS NONE! Luckily I found a forum post where someone recommended the Lunar Staff. I tried the battle again with the Lunar Staff and got it on my first try. The Lunar Staff appears to be the only way to go with this fight as it has a wider hit field and keeps the other enemies just far enough away to keep you from being mauled. Having to exploit such a fine detail in order to win is either genius or plain stupid.
Like the previous Sigma versions, Razor's Edge periodically inserts "bonus" levels where you get to play as other characters. Ayane, the purple-haired kunoichi of the DOA series, gets two levels all to herself in this game. And then there's a level where Ryu returns to the Hayabusa village and about halfway through the level it becomes a co-op level where Ryu and the kunoichi Momiji team-up to fight evil ninjas. Out of all the levels in the game I enjoyed these three the most. I was hoping for another bonus level with the game's fourth playable character, Kasumi (the poster character and main protagonist of the DOA series). Instead Kasumi is only unlockable once you beat the game and has no story elements whatsoever in the game. I do like Kasumi's design in this game quite a bit.
NARRATIVE
I've never been too fond of the stories for the Ninja Gaiden series. I've enjoyed the first two Ninja Gaidens on NES' stories but beyond that nothing really stands out. I guess the modern era Ninja Gaiden games' stories have felt pretty generic to me. This game too feels slightly more generic than the previous two (despite having the writer of the original NES game back). It's more of a "insert your generic action hero here" story rather than something uniquely Ninja Gaiden or authentically Japanese. The game's design even loses those authentically Japanese or "real" ninja elements for the most part. I'm not disappointed about the story being blah because that's become the expectation with Ninja Gaiden games. I am disappointed that the Japanese esthetics in the game's design are far more minimal in this third installment.
But what has always been a disappointment in these games is Ryu's character. And NG3:RE is no exception. The action gameplay is and has always been the shining aspect of these games, but beyond that, Ryu is an incredibly boring character. From his generic character design to his monotone and flatlining personality, Ryu is so very vanilla. Even when the game tries to push Ryu out of his comfort zone, the voice acting and animation is vapid and cliche.
It's weird but the best character in this game, or the character treated the best, in my opinion, is Ayane. I'm sure today's sensibilities would say that she's once again portrayed as an oversexed piece of fan-service and cheesecake (which she is, let's be honest). But she's the only one in this game who's having fun and that fun translates. Also, her character has range, not much, but more than Ryu's. Designwise, her look is the most interesting among the game's characters, and easily the best design she's had in any of her many video game appearances. And she's teamed-up with the original lady of the Ninja Gaiden series, Irene Lew.
EXTENDED PLAY
As far as the replay value of this game goes, there's a good amount. There are 50 golden scarabs to collect (as per usual) and 10 crystal skulls to find too (which are now challenge stages complete with Ninja Gaiden 2 bosses at the end of them!). Chapter Challenge mode lets you stage select to anywhere in the game and you are allowed to play the entire game as any of the four characters (Ryu, Ayane, Momiji, and Kasumi) which is totally awesome! My favorite part of Ninja Gaiden 2's bonus material were the Co-op Challenges where you can two-player through special levels and this is also featured here as well. However, the online network lag is just as bad as it was in Sigma 2 (which is a HUGE letdown).
And of course there's the trophies to collect and multiple higher difficulties to battle through. But, if I'm being honest, after muscling through the game on Normal difficulty, I do not feel the need this time to go through anything worse than that. What I'm most excited for in terms of extended play is playing as the other characters and the co-op gameplay.
THE VERDICT
I love the Ninja Gaiden franchise. I always have since I've been playing video games. And I am happy to say that I still love Ninja Gaiden. I'm glad I finally sat down and carved out time for NG3:RE, at least for one playthrough. And I'm proud to say that I still haven't cowed to the game's difficulty (no Ninja Dog here!). But am I done with this current style of Ninja Gaiden? Yes. I don't need another game in this current trilogy style. NG3:RE has some fun elements to it. As always I love when the game is extended to include other playable ninjas (because Ryu himself is such a generic snore-fest). Maybe it's that I played the first modern Ninja Gaiden on all difficulties on all three releases. And then played everything on NG Sigma 2 save one online challenge. Maybe it's having done all of that that's got me played out. But overall I feel this gameplay/presentation of Ninja Gaiden has been done to death.
Overall Ranking: 5 out of 10
I'll play the original NES Ninja Gaiden trilogy all the live long day. But I don't know how much I relish the idea of having to play the "modern" Ninja Gaiden trilogy again, any of them really. I know I'm being harsh, but I've felt more obligated to play them as opposed to genuinely wanting to play them. Maybe the closest I came to truly enjoying these games was somewhere in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 or Ninja Gaiden Sigma 1, but even NGS2 was soured because of the laggy online network.
I am happy that we have a modern completed trilogy of Ninja Gaiden games. But I feel it's time for another ninja video game series to rise and take the ninja gaming experience to the next level. And by that I don't mean harder difficulty!
For more of my posts on video games and video game related stuff, check out these posts below!
TOP TEN FIGHTING GAME GALS
TOP TEN FAVORITE NINJAS (VIDEO GAMES: MALE)
TOP TEN FAVORITE NINJAS (VIDEO GAMES: FEMALE)
TOP TEN FAVORITE NINJAS (VIDEO GAMES: FEMALE)
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