Incline Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection coming to PS4/Steam/Switch/XB1

[Ash]

From my understanding, DMC is all about juggling demons for dat S-S-Smoking rating, while NG is all about surviving at all costs.

Yeah, DMCs, Bayonettas and MGR are pretty easy if you just want to rush through the missions and you're okay with getting bad scores, but the fun aspect of these games is to play them with (smokin' sexy) style for maximum scores and personal enjoyment

Not for me then. I hate the "make your own difficulty" schtick.

It's not exactly like that. When you play them for a while you start to feel that you are not "winning" if you don't make good scores. Well, and if you think they are easy, just play the harder difficulties. Normal difficulty in DMC and MGR is like an extended tutorial to learn the combat mechanics, practice and be prepared to the harder difficulties.

The same applies for Ninja Gaiden games, but in those games even normal difficulty is very hard for a newcomer. Also is fantastic how harder difficulties add new enemies and even bosses.

It's not exactly like that because, using DMC (original) as an example:

Bosses are hard as balls
There are no faggy quicksaves here. Harder than many games by that virtue alone
Certain enemies will fuck you up (Shadowcats)
Platforming is challenging
Secret stages are always super tough
Getting style rewards you with currency. If not playing for style, game will be harder as you have less upgrades and items.
You can unlock numerous higher difficulties which get brutal as fuck.

eh most of this applies to most DMC games. All other DMCs are shit regardless by the way, except 3.

Ninja Gaiden (2004) is in my opinion better than DMC, only just, largely because of its superior difficulty, and it is also the only Ninja Gaiden worth playing. There are times where spamming the flying swallow move over and over cheapens the experience though, unless using the same moves over and over rewards less currency/points in NG too, I don't remember now.

 

[Matador]

Spamming Flying swallow is only effective in lower difficulty.

Will get you killed in very hard and Master ninja, except in the appropriate situations, like going fast for a rocket launcher enemy. In general the new enemies there will destroy you on the long recovery frame window.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

https://www.nexusmods.com/ninjagaidenmastercollection/mods/32?tab=description

https://github.com/ggill24/NGS2-Spawn-Mod



I didn't try it so I don't know how it compares with the Xbox version. But as I expected, it was a matter of time until someone would try to fix with mods...

Thank you! I was holding off on this and forgot in the mean time. Haven't played the original but Sigma 2 bored the fuck out of me! Razer's Edge was incredibly fun though.
Now I can try Sigma 2 again with this and the blood mod.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Well, it suddenly disappears

Edit

Guy actually deleted/hid his youtube videos... all his mods on nexus disappeared

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrMx62z2dhysMqeN0jEDAQQ

 

[visions]

Ninja Gaiden (2004) is in my opinion better than DMC, only just, largely because of its superior difficulty, and it is also the only Ninja Gaiden worth playing.

What's wrong with the old 2D ones?

 

[Duraframe300]

Well, it suddenly disappears

Edit

Guy actually deleted/hid his youtube videos... all his mods on nexus disappeared

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrMx62z2dhysMqeN0jEDAQQ

Considering this happened right after you posted the mod on the codex I blame you.

Bad Darth Slaughter

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Well, it suddenly disappears

Edit

Guy actually deleted/hid his youtube videos... all his mods on nexus disappeared

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrMx62z2dhysMqeN0jEDAQQ

Considering this happened right after you posted the mod on the codex I blame you.

Bad Darth Slaughter

I was just browsing through my steam library, and I remembered these games. First thing I did was check if there was anything in the mod scene. Stumbled upon the mod and the first thing I did was post it here. I myself have not downloaded any files. It had a lot of videos showing NG 2 with increased spawn rate. the idea was to bring closer to xbox version, though I can't say how close it was.

I gladly take the blame... just knowing it's possible to mod it satisfies me at the moment...

 

[Great Deceiver]

I played the original Ninja Gaiden on Xbox when it came out (2004 I believe), although I never played Black. I also played and finished NG2 when it was released on the 360.

I hadn't played these games since release. It's crazy to think it's been 17 years since the first. It's been longer since then than it had been between its release and the first NES Ninja Gaiden. Just another demonstration that significant advances in videogames have hit a complete brick wall for the past 15-20 years.

Anyway I felt like replaying the games so I gave this collection a try on PC. I had never played the Sigma versions, autistic screechers fans seem to think they're incomparably inferior to the canonic Xbox versions, but I always take those opinions with a grain of salt.

I even tried emulating Ninja Gaiden Black but although it works pretty well on Xemu, there are weird frame drops during certain effects (like charging UT) that really make the whole thing annoying to play right now. I'll wait for awhile longer until these quriks are fixed to play it.

Anyway, Sigma 1 doesn't seem too bad. There's some shitty bloom and some enemy placements are different, but no big deal. Camera controls are significantly improved over vanilla NG1 - I don't even think that game had manual camera controls other than a wonky first person mode.

However, I had some rose tinted glasses when I used to think about NG. I'm fresh off a complete run of Sekiro, so this feels very strange. Regular mooks are very aggressive and can hit you out of pretty much anything. It's nice that even fodder enemies have guard breaks but you can get around that by jumping like a mongoloid. In fact, I didn't remember how effective jumping attacks were in this game, but they're very, very effective. Most of the time it's much more advantageous to just jump attack spam and do the instant charge kill moves than actually manfighting enemies.

Anyway still very early on and as I remember it, the early game was much more interesting than later parts, because they had some seriously silly enemy designs like those toy demon dinosaurs that looked straight out of a children's cartoon.

I'll keep playing but I don't think I'll finish it. I think Devil May Cry has aged much better.

 

[Matador]

Great Deceiver Ninja Gaiden Sigma is great and very worth playing if you have no option to play NG Black. My main issue with the game is the boring Rachel chapters that break the great pace of the original game.

Some people get unfairly very nitpicky with it, but of course NGB is superior.

What difficulty are you playing on? On harder difficulties you can get away with some UT abuse, but you need to know the game and the encounters very well to time it and execute it correctly in the harder parts. Try to mindlessly charge attacks around cats, IS ninjas, etc and you are going to get destroyed as easily as with flying swallow spam.

The scaling between difficulty modes in NG1 is superb. You think you are good for beating hard mode, until you encounter the new nasty enemies and bosses in very hard and Master ninja.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Playing on hard, but I'm not talking about flying swallow specifically (on hard even the first enemies block and punish the slow recovery already), just the regular XY, insta charge on land.

Yeah I agree that difficulty scaling is great in these games, they don't make enemies more bullet spongy but instead change encounter composition and enemy tactics. It's great.

I like the QoL changes in Sigma and don't mind if the pacing is slightly inferior to NGB. Fuck Tecmo for not including all versions anyway, they probably didn't want to pay royalties to Itagaki and made up some bullshit about losing the source code.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Well, it suddenly disappears

Edit

Guy actually deleted/hid his youtube videos... all his mods on nexus disappeared

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrMx62z2dhysMqeN0jEDAQQ

Considering this happened right after you posted the mod on the codex I blame you.

Bad Darth Slaughter

https://www.nexusmods.com/ninjagaidenmastercollection/mods/37

 

[Ivan]

Giving this a spin on PC (I gave the PS3 version a spin many years ago and dropped it b/c of the camera and awful platforming/wall running segments).

I'm finding myself clicking with the game now that I'm approaching it like Sekiro. Carefully baiting enemies into my counters and going to town. So far I still think the camera is the worst enemy in the game.

 

[Matador]

Giving this a spin on PC (I gave the PS3 version a spin many years ago and dropped it b/c of the camera and awful platforming/wall running segments).

I'm finding myself clicking with the game now that I'm approaching it like Sekiro. Carefully baiting enemies into my counters and going to town. So far I still think the camera is the worst enemy in the game.

Camera is not great but not so bad. I guess you are getting away with overly defensive play because in the lower difficulties there are no spawns yet for enemies that ignore your guard like the cat fiends or more grab happy AI.

Normal difficulty in NG is just warmup. In higher difficulties you get the new and really dangerous enemies

 

[Ivan]

It features deadly, lethal combat where you're encouraged to spam dash/momentum strikes and/or bait enemies to counter. I'm playing on normal difficulty, and I'm finding this to be the breat and butter for my victories. The exception are the boss fights, where it's more a game of reading attacks, finding windows to punish, rinse and repeat. I've not been able to counter them. So in this regard, the combat reminds me more of Sekiro/Onimusha than it does the spectacle action from Kamiya's games. It's solid enough, it feels good to counter, but I do wish there more unlockable moves. I've been able to purchase/find new moves by way of upgrading the weapons and buying specific moves (kind of like in Yakuza). There's also maginc (win button) but it isn't always clear what causes them to replenish/drop from enemies.

Combat aside, I'm finding a ton to dislike about this. The game as an adventure often introduces segments that are just awful: platforming, confusing level design (e.g. Aqueducts), a pretty horrible camera that often gets stuck behind geometry. There are also plenty of shitty combat encounters against non-humanoids that are a chore: bikers, helicopters, tanks, archers, fish, mermaids?!

Thus far I'd definitely rank this below Devil May Cry 1, as aside from the humanoid combat, I'm finding this to be pretty frustrating, boring, and dull.

Still, I think I'm toward the end, let's see how this ends.

 

[Ash]

It features deadly, lethal combat where you're encouraged to spam dash/momentum strikes and/or bait enemies to counter. I'm playing on normal difficulty, and I'm finding this to be the breat and butter for my victories. The exception are the boss fights, where it's more a game of reading attacks, finding windows to punish, rinse and repeat. I've not been able to counter them. So in this regard, the combat reminds me more of Sekiro/Onimusha than it does the spectacle action from Kamiya's games. It's solid enough, it feels good to counter, but I do wish there more unlockable moves. I've been able to purchase/find new moves by way of upgrading the weapons and buying specific moves (kind of like in Yakuza). There's also maginc (win button) but it isn't always clear what causes them to replenish/drop from enemies.

Combat aside, I'm finding a ton to dislike about this. The game as an adventure often introduces segments that are just awful: platforming, confusing level design (e.g. Aqueducts), a pretty horrible camera that often gets stuck behind geometry. There are also plenty of shitty combat encounters against non-humanoids that are a chore: bikers, helicopters, tanks, archers, fish, mermaids?!

Thus far I'd definitely rank this below Devil May Cry 1, as aside from the humanoid combat, I'm finding this to be pretty frustrating, boring, and dull.

Still, I think I'm toward the end, let's see how this ends.

The platforming in DMC1 is worse than the platforming in NG. Still welcome in both cases though.
The camera is equally "bad" in DMC1, but who cares. Most of the time it does its job just fine.
Confusing level design? Please explain. It's hardly expansive nor vague, not that those are bad things necessarily. The aqueducts are cool. Get good?
Nothing observably wrong with combat against non-humanoids. Diverse enemies that force you to switch things up and utilize all the mechanics are a good thing.

As much as I love DMC1 (above all other DMC too), NG is probably better. Though I am cautious of the remaster/sigma/black editions, some of which seem to introduce decline. I only played the very original version.

 

[Ivan]

How many times are you going to make me fight this fucking worm

noticing that in the 2nd half of the game, the game's encounter design reminds me a lot of Serious Sam. They will spawn wave after wave after wave after wave after wave of enemies, but what sucks is that it's the SAME wave of enemies. I thought it was some cruel joke at first, or some bug, then I just got sad. lol

will read ^ after I roll credits

-that red dragon fight was pretty awesome.
-enemy design is comically bad: mosquitos, pink demons with flowy mohawks, dinosaurs?
-adding ghost fish and cats to the list lulz holy shit these fish are like crimson heads
-got Smurfed by super saiyan doku. also what was that dryer tumbler death animation
-janky ass platforming strikes again in CH 19 with the Metroid ESACPE sequence
-had a fun fight with dinos, near the floating platforms area

Rolled credits. Ash, yeah the aqueducts reminded me of some Resident Evil maze-like shit. At least the enemies there were the humanoid ones. God I hated the mermaid fish shit. Also, who the fuck thought the ghost fish crimson heads were a good idea.

combat is fun, it has this heavy feel to it where you commit to your blows. the game largely felt like survival action versus the stylish combat I was expecting. aside from the actual battles, I found much of the game laughably poor: the swimming, the platforming, the camera, the level design, the monster design, most of the music, sucks. Curious to see how Sigma 2 handles all this extracurricular bullshit/fat.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

worm

Use Dabilahro, charge, release when they attack

Anyway...
Honestly the more I play Ninja Gaiden 2, the more I think Black/Sigma are the best ones
This game series is frustratingly wasted potential

 

[Ivan]

Ninja Gaiden 2 report:

-I do quite love this theme
-methinks I should have started on Hard, Normal is starting off a bit too ez, enemies inflict MUCH less damage than in Sigma Normal
-excellent first level
-checkpoints restore health? meh, I liked that they didn't in 1. it gave the game more of a survival horror/action feel, and made finding shops feel like a big high/moment of respite

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Are you playing NG2 or Sigma 2?

 

[Ivan]

this is Sigma (it's on gamepass, part of the Sigma collection). Finished Sigma 1 on Normal, it was tough, but not Sekiro tough. If Sekiro is 4/4 difficulty, Ninja Gaiden was 3/4 for me. Not one fight took me too long, but overall it was on the tough side. Specifically specifically aggressive enemies. I like the idea that higher difficulties include new encounters, but the idea of slogging through those boring levels + platforming is a huge turn off for me.

Thus far I'm loving Sigma 2, despite my complaint about the checkpoints restoring your health (that's pretty lame). Pacing is notably better. It's like all action almost all the time now. No forced platforming yet or camera nightmares. Some fights in tight rooms do make it a bit of a pain, but so far I'm enjoying this far more. The music is much better as is the presentation. I think I'm finding it easier, obviously, b/c I have Gaiden 1 under me now.

Also, wtf, the merchant doesn't charge you for upgrading your weapons EITHER? hmmm

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Finished Sigma 1 on Normal, it was tough, but not Sekiro tough.

Try Hard mode
Pros - increases damage, mixes encounters, replaces enemies with more "skilled" variants
Cons - most bosses have minions aiding them, some enemy placements are even more anoying than normal
EDIT> Also have you tried the mini-games?

Thus far I'm loving Sigma 2 ... I'm finding it easier

Yeah that's just Sigma 2 in general
And since you're not playing the PC version you can't install the NGS2 Black Mod - you should've gone with Ninja Gaiden 2 as you're on gamepass, it's clearly unpolished an unfinnished but also the intended experience
Sigma 2 is easier because it you fight a similiar amount enemies at the same time as Sigma 1 - i.e. never more than 10 enemies simultaneously - a stupid mistake because 2's combat was designed for the player to fight HORDES of enemies - in some cases the original threw so many enemies at the player that the 360 would shit itself violently
EDIT> Although Sigma 2 mini-game/extra content are pretty cool

Honestly Ninja Gaiden 2 is what a Dinasty Warriors, if it had good combat
It's a really rough game, filled bullshit but also occasional flashes of brilliance

When I finnish it, I'll maybe write here a TL;DR essay on the good, bad and ugly of this franchise and how a revival will need some serious reworking... maybe

 

[Ivan]

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 starts off strong, its first level was actually my favorite. Then it becomes this weird globetrotting adventure with saturday morning cartoons. There were numerous changes from Sigma 1 that left a bad taste in my mouth. The difficulty is nerfed significantly in a number of ways, these were the ones I felt the most: it doesn't cost anything to upgrade weapons, so upgrading isn't this big moment anymore, items are cheap, the save statues replenish health completely, I think the devs knew this was on the easy side since the cap on health items you can hold at any one time is x3.

The monster design was better done, the camera is more flashy, the tone of the game is more over the top action with much less platforming or confusing level design. Of course the levels that DO feature platforming stick out like a sore thumb (looking at you Clocktower level). But the pacing of the game was mote to my liking, but it did make the experience feel more one note. I didn't appreciate the inclusion of other playable characters, up to 4.

There were so many boss fights that many of the fiends started blending in for me, execpt for the "main" 4. I did find that the bosses were better at dodging the magic "win" button in this one. Still, pretty disappointed by HOW they nerfed the difficutly with this one. My favorite part of Sigma 1 was how it felt like a survival horror/action game, where I would breathe a sigh of relief when I would find the shopkeep to replenish my health items. Here, after switching to hard, it was still a breeze and I don't think I ever died (to an enemy anyway, I did during the platforming levels lulz).

To anyone who plays Sigma 1 and 2, I recommend playing 2 on Master difficulty right off the bat.

Now on to Sigma 3 (err... Razor's Edge edition)

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Are you on vacation?
'Cause it seems you're binging these games in 1/2 days...

 

[Ivan]

working from home...has its perks. also, these are pretty short games...

Gaiden 3 observations:
-you don't stat with 3 pips for the magic win button, so duels against bosses or big mobs is quite harder
-more cinematic/set pieces
-difficulty on Hard feels like Gaiden 1, boss kills me in 2 hits
-no items? healing seems to be done through combat moves (a la Revengeance), adding to the difficulty

 

[Matador]

working from home...has its perks. also, these are pretty short games...

Gaiden 3 observations:
-you don't stat with 3 pips for the magic win button, so duels against bosses or big mobs is quite harder
-more cinematic/set pieces
-difficulty on Hard feels like Gaiden 1, boss kills me in 2 hits
-no items? healing seems to be done through combat moves (a la Revengeance), adding to the difficulty

NG 3 Razor´s edge is a different beast. Not a bad game but pales in comparison to NGB/Sigma and NG2.

I would rather try to at least beat NG Sigma on Very hard to get a better experience and be able to talk properly of the franchise

NG3 is for die hard fans.