Ninja Gaiden Black (2005)

There’s a thin line between challenge and punishment, and then there is Ninja Gaiden Black.

It's sort of reminder of what happens when a developer prioritizes mechanical precision over mercy. By most measures, it's a brilliant action game - tight, responsive, and fast paced. But it is also gleefully hostile to the player and forces to you to play offense and defense at all times, simultaneously and with absolute mastery. No joke - Minor enemies can dismantle you with startling efficiency and bosses seem to treat Ryu Hayabusa less as a threat and more as a speedbump on the way to their next war crime.

There are no real checkpoints to speak of unless you are willing to run back and save after each combat encounter, which means a lot of death and opportunities to improve if you are willing to suffer through the frustration that comes with it.

I like a lot of the other classic & modern character action games a lot (esp. the classic God of War & DmC games) which is what drew me to this, but this one beat me and I think it's going to be a while before I pick it up again.

I will concede it still earns its reputation though, for better or worse.

Great game, satisfying combat, great production value with graphics, animations, levels and enemy design all being excellent. I loved being able to combine dodging and wall-running with parrying, something DMC separates into different styles, although in later games you can switch them without pausing.

Unfortunately this game gave me a tic and shortened my lifespan probably by a good year.

An example of character action excellency but certainly not for the faint of heart.

I remember playing this game and being obsessed with its challenge. I never played the Ninja Gaiden games on the original NES. Kind of a shame because it was certainly the type of game I would have loved even if I probably would never have beaten them. Ninja Gaiden certainly upped the ante and served as an apt transition for a classic and demanding 2-D action platformer into the new foray of 3-D. It certainly takes notes from both Zelda and Devil May Cry (mostly from this game). Incorporating a heavy emphasis on action, platforming and light RPG elements creating a sense of progression.

For a game that's basically 20 years old, I got to say it ages surprisingly well. It certainly has jank and flaws but it's really easy to overlook them when the combat feels as satisfying as it does here. Not to mention that it was a surprisingly good looking game for its time as well. I remember being dazzled by the graphics. Really pushing the original Xbox to it's limits. Still one of the best Ninja fantasy games out there, though Sekiro has certainly surpassed it in every way (for me at least).

Combat is tight and responsive, for the most part. You can attack, dodge roll, jump, wall run, cast spells and used various ranged and melee weapons. Truth be told, I mostly just stuck with the Dragon Sword. It has such a great moveset, scales throughout the game and the Ikuana Drop is just awesome to execute. Launching an enemy into the air. Juggling them, then suplexing them WWE style into the ground for AOE damage. Then there's the flying swallow attack which is extremely effective at decapitating enemies who are agile. Or can be used to close the gap. Even the wall lounge attacks can be pretty effective. Enemies in this game are hyper aggressive as well. Bum rushing you constantly without relenting. Then you have ultimate attacks, which are charged powerful attacks that can often one shot an enemy. These can be charged faster with essence, which are various orbs (yellow for money, blue for health and red for magic) enemies can drop. Another trick the game never tells you is you can unleash a fast ultimate attack if you press Y the moment you land from a jump. Very useful.

There are two things that you will struggle with in a bad way with combat. The camera and the auto-lock system. The camera is mostly fine, with it following directly behind Ryu. It's possible to use the right thumb stick to move the camera, but you have to click the right thumb stick first which can feel a bit awkward. Otherwise the right thumb stick will pop you into a first person camera. Overall this is functional, but becomes a problem when fighting fast enemies that like to zip across the arena or you are fighting in narrow corridors. These two issues aren't too prevalent, though there are plenty of hallways with tight turns that can give you a headache. And the last boss fight can also feel a bit cheap with him dashing across the screen and the arena having pillars (which can block your vision resulting in cheap hits from the boss).

The auto-lock system forces Ryu to automatically target the closest enemy. This can be a bit of an issue when there's a pile of ninjas ganking you. You won't be able to control which target you want to focus. So typically AOE attacks are the best option in these situations. Another issue that happened to me a decent amount was wanting to use the Flying Swallow dash attack, but Ryu deciding "nah," and instead just jumping straight up and lunging down (which opened me to attacks). The reason this happens frequently is due to the context sensitivity required for the attack to execute. You basically need to be a certain distance away from the enemy and have the right angle. Otherwise the attack just won't happen. This becomes way more chaotic when fighting a crowd of enemies since you can't specifically target an enemy with it. Such as maybe an enemy away from the group to give you more space. Ect. Being able to manually lock on to enemies, particularly for Boss fights, would have significantly improved combat. Still this was an old game and DMC 3 hadn't been made yet.

Speaking of DMC 3, the game unfortunately is missing a convenient weapon swap mechanic. You basically need to awkwardly navigate the menu to select which weapon or support item you want to use. This sadly made me far less likely to experiment with different weapons since it was a hassle. DMC 3 incorporated a fluid weapon swap mechanic that added more depth to the combat and encouraged experimentation with weapons. Still this isn't really a deal breaker. Combat is still fun in spite of the lack of these modern conveniences. The Ninja Gaiden Sigma release of the game does address this a bit, though the game also is significantly easier in comparison to the original release.

The only other headache with combat is ranged weapons... there are a few encounters where you basically need to manually aim a weapon to take out a helicopter or target dishes on a radio tower. It's so awkward and with how aggressive enemies are, you are almost certainly going to get hit. The game does offer an unreliable auto-aim with ranged weapons, but it can have mixed results and sometimes you will just pop into first person anyways... There isn't a lot of ranged combat fortunately, but I never enjoyed it.

Levels overall have solid design with light focus on platforming and puzzles. Combat is still the name of the game. But the game does leverage it's wall running mechanics in some pretty clever ways. One of my favorites was a cryptic message hinting at a legendary weapon down a dark alleyway. You need to basically wall run from wall to wall to reach it. There's a fun Easter egg with a giant XBOX that will refill your magic and a boomerang throwing weapon as the main reward. There were a few places where I felt like a dummy because I thought I was stuck, but it turned out I just needed to wall run to get out. So it does become a pretty standard way to traverse the game.

There are a series of dungeons throughout the game and this is where the level design is at its best. These levels typically loop in on themselves and you organically unlock short cuts. The larger city of Tairon serves as a hub that you will loop back into as you explore the game. While this game does have a Chapter structure, the world itself still stays interconnected. With the ending of the game giving you a victory lap through all the levels of the game which was pretty neat.

None of the puzzles reach levels of complexity in a Zelda game, but they are still engaging and can make you feel clever for solving. The aqueducts in particular was well designed, also coincidentally the level that made me feel like a dummy because I thought I was trapped on the lowest floor. I just needed to wall run to get out. The caves feel like a more conventional Zelda dungeon. Where you need to acquire iron and keys to progress to the boss. The only thing I didn't like about this level is the amount of backtracking. Would have been nice if they added in a few more shortcuts to cut it down. For example, there's a cracked wall between where you make the key and collect it. Why not have the wall be destructible? Not a big deal or anything.

The real pull of the game is in the boss fights. There is a bit of an inconsistent difficulty curve with the bosses. With Alma, Ghost Doku and the penultimate chapter boss rush being very punishing. The last two chapters are rough and almost frustrating. Mostly because these fights are long and tough and there isn't a convenient shop nearby to replenish your healing items. So you will certainly run out of resources before beating the game. I did manage to beat this 20 years ago, but was still satisfying to beat it again.

It's an easy recommend if you have a hankering for a Ninja power fantasy game. Sekiro is certainly better in my book, but this game ages surprisingly well in spite of it's flaws.

Ninja Gaiden was the first character action game I've ever played. It's one of my all-time favorites making me fall in love with my now favorite genre, but I never actually beat it. I gave up after getting stuck on the Flame Dragon boss which was one of many times I got stuck on that game. The game was really hard. Now, I have returned to the game and finally beat it (well, I beat Ninja Gaiden Black at least since that's the version available on Xbox backwards compatibility which from what I've learned is an even greater feat).

Now on the the most obvious problem with this game: the camera. It does suck to not be able to control the third-person camera. The camera is such an unnecessary hassle in this game. The final boss of the game is a great example as to why. The final boss will teleport or fly across the screen pretty quickly causing the camera to wildly change angles. This would lead to moments where the camera was stuck behind a stone pillar blocking my view of the arena or the camera viewing the action from a perspective that makes it difficult for me to determine how far away from the enemy I am. While out of action, I would often have to stop and move the camera into first person view just to get the camera behind me to see where I'm going. And of course there is the occasional moment where the camera gets stuck on the wall when I'm in a corner, and I can't see myself at all.

The checkpointing is also terrible. There are dragon statues throughout the game where you can manually save. There is no auto-saving (I'm not sure if that was a thing yet), and there is not saving option at the end of chapters. That last one is the biggest issue here. I struggled with the Spirit Doku boss fight. When I finally beat it thus completing the chapter, the next chapter started me off in the same boss arena with new spirit fish enemies that killed me. Dying here sent me back to the previous chapter before the Spirit Doku fight forcing me to fight him all over again which took another several attempts. There wasn't even an excuse for this this back then. This is also the second version of this game. How did they not address this issue? Merchant placements could've been improved too. I had to fight 6 bosses back-to-back at the end of the game, and at no point did the developers think to put a merchant anywhere during that for buying more healing items.

The last major issue is that the story is bad. It relies on Rachel to be the heart of the story as she is trying to save her sister who was turned into a fiend. This doesn't work at all because Rachel is given very little to do and very little screen time. The protagonist Ryu Hayabusa is mostly silent throughout the game. The gave doesn't tell you much about him. He's just here to do cool shit. The story is about the Dark Dragon Blade being stolen. It seems to be some powerful, evil blade that is guarded by a clan of ninjas that Ryu is a part of. I don't much more than that because I didn't care to pay too close attention to any of it.

The reason I could fight through this bullshit to the end is because this game is just that fucking good. I love how fast the combat in this game moves. I impressed myself with how I was able to keep up quickly reacting to enemy movements attacking, counter-attacking, and dodging. Combat would get so intense that It had me sweating. And the moves are cool as hell. It's really satisfying to just cut an enemies head off once you've defeated it. This game just like any good character action game made me feel powerful. It also made me feel smart as the moves aren't just for flash. I memorized combos and used different weapons for certain situations. The game required strategy to get through.

The game breaks up the action with some Prince of Persia-style platforming involving wall-running, jumping, and swinging which is really fun. There are also some Resident Evil-style puzzles involving moving around objects and placing them in the right spots to trigger a door to unlock. These puzzles are never too hard or time-consuming, so it was a nice breather between combat sections.

Now that I have finally finished Ninja Gaiden, I can solidify it as one of my all-time favorite games.

Played during free trial of xbox game pass and beat on normal difficulty. I had already beaten the sequel (Ninja Gaiden 2) and found that to be the most frustrating game I have ever played. Black was still fairly frustrating but felt far more fair. I liked the setting, violent nature and especially the semi open world which allowed me to backtrack significantly. I made use of that to farm health whenever I needed.

I am fundamentally not a fan of this type of game for 2 reasons. The first is camera angle and controls; I would do much better with a first person camera and typical FPS controls. Trying to use ranged weapons in this game is especially painful. The second reason is I do not like playing the rogue class with dex and agl as primary stats (especially without the all important stealth); as a paladin I would rather have heavy armor, massive shield, magic protection and magic healing.

I mostly used the dragon sword and learned a few moves for it. Used flying swallow a lot, and the one where you jump straight up and then straight down with an attack at each point. I found most of the game (including bosses ) to be doable, though I had my fair share of deaths. The most frustrating part were the god damn ghost fish. Tried as I could and even looked up online and was not able to reliably kill them without taking damage. There was that part at the end of the game where a health farming and save point was on one side of a ghost fish gauntlet, and a series of difficult fights and the final boss on the other side. I spent quite a bit of time going back and forth though that gauntlet trying to face each new fight at full health, and the amount of times that those ghost fish interfered with that... bastards.

I cannot remember if I did anything other than story mode. Despite being a good game and reasonably enjoying it, I would not but this game or be inclined to play it again.