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The Place of Arrival
Ninja Gaiden II’s launch event was a much concealed one, most probably usual, however it took place pretty much in two rooms, one for meeting & eating and the other for observing & playing. The launch event was the second floor up in the ‘Century Club’ (the launch event’s happening), and my name was checked off upon entering. The first room to find was the grouping point, and where we’d be eating later, or as I had called it above, the ‘meeting & eating’ room. As I was right on time, the doors to the second room weren’t closed for long, and we were led into a room which consisted of a collection of Xbox 360’s plugged into Samsung plasma TV’s, and right next to it was a small assembly of chairs and a large plasma screen facing them.
First on the agenda was the launch introduction by Tomonobu Itagaki.
A Brief Introduction
A short wait of reading the pamphlet left on our chairs then proceeded by the introducing of Tomonobu Itagaki, as he walked in from the left of me and I turned my head a quick nod of notice was given as I was sitting on the end. If anyone has ever seen Tomonobu Itagaki he is a well known for his ‘Rock Star’ style, ‘casual but cool’ as I like to say, as well as he is known for his Dead or Alive games and his previous Ninja Gaiden title. Joined with him was his translator; recognizable from some of his previous Ninja Gaiden pitches, and he made everything Tomonobu
Itagaki had to say understandable by us. This was the first time he had presented and promoted Ninja Gaiden II in London and one of the first things he had to say was some of the differences in development this game had to its previous title, Ninja Gaiden.
Apparently with this title Tomonobu Itagaki had been very ‘hands on’ with the game, he had more direct roles in actual development of the game, jobs such as implementation design & programming AI. He also mentioned that the game is now aimed at a wider audience, something a lot of titles are doing lately, as opposed to Ninja Gaiden before which was aimed at the hardcore fans due to its well known difficulty. Ninja Gaiden II had been worked on extensively with its difficulty levels providing for the new/casual gamers and the long term fans of the series, which are generally, but not all, hardcore gamers. After the short introduction of the event and game, a chapter 8 demo
was shown of the game in action; I won’t give any spoilers of the actual story and level footage, but what I will say is it played extremely well, at least the demo was played extremely well in comparison to my embarrassing four length combos later.
One of the first things I had noticed, looking at unique differences and comparisons to Ninja Gaiden, was the amount of action and epic cinematic movies which introduced each mission, I had gotten a glimpse of this before but actually witnessing it proved my judgment. The game presents itself in a good light by setting up each mission with a very adrenaline active opening sequence and then being quickly thrown in the action with barely knowing. Something that I know will keep me and most other fans constantly on their feet. The combat and animation fluency was another feature, or should I say, improvement which I noticed. The amount of combos you could pull off and the amount of animations which I saw Ryu perform was quite spectacular. It just didn’t seem to stop; the game didn’t feel like stages
anymore but effortless continuation to each part of the level. Another visual addition is the amount of gore and limb chopping, I found this quite ironic as it’s also a game which is aimed at a wider audience, nonetheless it’s nothing compared to Gears of War and it’s a favoured feature, at least by me. And of course while all this was happening, the game displayed and rendered extremely nicely in HD. It looked very crisp and clear to say the least, although, also extremely familiar to Ninja Gaiden graphically. But that isn’t really a bad thing.
Q&A with Itagaki San:
Q. How do the new difficulty settings compare to the original Ninja Gaiden?
A. Difficulty is emphasized upon its default difficulty, which caters for the casual/new gamer; however, there are several difficulties which cater to the wider audience, including its hardcore fans.
Q. What new weapons will we be able to find, how are they obtained and how do they work?
A. There are eight weapons in total, picked up during the progress of the campaign, these weapons can be upgraded via shops scattered throughout the game.
Q. What is your (Itagaki) favorite weapon in the game?
A. The dual swords.
Q. Will we be able to play as Sonia or any other secondary characters in the game?
A. The secondary characters act as story levers which move the game along, they will provide a hand from time to time, the game is focused on the journey of Ryu.
Q. How long is Ninja Gaiden II?
A.14 chapters set in a variety of places, some influenced and taking place in non-fictional cities, others fantasy fictional influenced places.
Q. Will this be the last chapter in the Ninja Gaiden series?
A. This is unsure; however, I won’t be personally continuing the Ninja Gaiden series.
Q. What will be your next project/title you’ll be working on?
A. Nothing specific as of yet, but I would quite like to continue action titles such as Ninja Gaiden.
My ‘hands-on’ experience
At this stage of the afternoon I was, and I’m sure much others, were heavily anticipated to get a hands on play of the game itself. The groups were split into people who had played the game previously, and hadn’t played the game, we we’re given the choice to play the later and harder chapters of the game but seeing as I had never played the game before; I thought I let myself in for the easy ride. On the side of the table were some high quality overhead head phones, placing those on I picked up the controller to start the game.
Upon startup we were given a choice of difficulty, the “path of the Acolyte” or the relatively harder,” path of the Warrior”. For my first go I chose the sensible yet embarrassing “path of the Acolyte”. After selecting this I was given a choice of picture tags, all labeled with strange names, I think set names for the launch event. I picked the black tag; I then later found out each of these tags represent a different outfit, and that you can download these outfits on Xbox LIVE as a type of download content. There were about five to choose from here, I expect there being a lot more when the game has been out a while, an interesting yet obvious download content for this type of game. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out about any other downloadable goodies. The first mission started off with a cinematic, and like the first game, it wasn’t long until you were right in the middle of the action.
Upon first control of Ryu things felt very familiar, and it brought me back to the good old days of frustratingly jumping Ryu about on the heads of enemies wielding his sword. The difference this time though is I didn’t have to do that, the game was definitely a lot more accessible, part of the reason maybe is that I was playing on the easiest difficulty, but it really did ease you into the game with the first mission/coincide tutorial. Dismemberment was enjoyable, and I’m pleased to let you know bodies stay for the ‘attention to detail’ lovers. The controls were easy to learn and simple to use, I think they may have been the same with Ninja Gaiden except the addition of the magical ability selection menu. The way that you could slice one enemy, and as you are about to be attacked from behind, attack one
opposite you was pleasing to say the least. Finishing moves were another highlight, I vaguely remember these being in the first title, but if they were it is so much better this time around, the camera gets a nice close up when you’re finishing an enemy, fairly similar to Assassins Creed. Any skilled player will be able to get a variety of high length combos with this game, I found myself doing the same few attacks now and again and by accident, although it looked good, pulling off a thirty plus combo. Double checking the menu making sure it was as in depth as I thought, I was right, there were dozens of different combos with every weapon, I had barely scratched the surface. This game was Ninja Gaiden, but a step further in the right direction.
At this point we were called for lunch and I had a chance to talk of a few of the participating members while walking about. Many of the other people at the event were around my age and place of work, freelance/part time writers who were at University. Others were full time editors, retailers & journalists coming to get an insight of the game. The people I had a quick talk to all seemed to share the same opinion of the game, that it reached expectations and that it was a solid sequel so far. And I must say, watching some of them play I didn’t feel too bad about my Ninja Gaiden skills after all, it was good to see we were on the same playing level as well.
The levels lay out almost completely linear, like the previous game, but it’s meant to be, it’s what you can do with your character and your enemies which count in this game, and those hardcore fans of Ninja Gaiden shouldn’t be disappointed as I was rather engrossed in the screen for about an hour and a half. Take account I’m a novice at Ninja Gaiden and I hadn’t played it for three years.
Visually... quite stunning. One of the sharper games I’ve played on the console, other than the just about noticeable jaggy textures due to a lack of full Anti Aliasing, but that’s just being picky. I was surprised to find the graphics engine looked almost identical, but, an updated version of Ninja Gaiden, I really didn’t know what to expect, and when thinking about it, I can’t imagine it looking any different. This is definitely not a game for the faint of heart, and even more so now with the added gore effects. What Ninja Gaiden has done though, seen from this event, which quite a few games don’t do is it live up to its expectations. Most modern games nowadays have a tendency to being
promoted and advertised to an extent that there’s nothing left to enjoy, and that gives the impression of a flopped title. Ninja Gaiden II hasn’t done this. After about an hour and a half of constant jump, hack and slash and me constantly making feeble mistakes, hoping Tomonobu Itagaki isn’t watching behind me and laughing, I felt it was time to stop. After saying thanks to the coordinator of the launch event and taking my bag I made my way downstairs to the door exiting one of the most fulfilling and interesting game related days I’ve had. My questions I wanted
answered had been answered, my curiosity had been quenched and I am now confident from second hand & firsthand experience this game will live up to its name; and maybe even surpass its near perfect predecessor.
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