Videogame Review: Ninja Gaiden — Master Collection

This will be broken into short reviews of the three individual games and then thoughts on the overall collection and franchise. Let’s begin.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma

Ryu is indeed the ultimate Sigma Male

The original XBox Ninja Gaiden game is an absolute classic that, for my money, still holds up really well. It was one of the first games I recall getting DLC for with its “hurricane pack” extensions that added tons of cool new content. The definitive version, Ninja Gaiden Black, is for most series fans, the absolute best NG game ever made. Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PS3 improves upon Black in several ways, such as incorporating far better graphics, much better camera controls, and some cool new content like making Rachel a playable character. Yet unfortunately Sigma also changes a number of things that people liked about Black such as removing some of the puzzle sections, pre-rendered cutscenes, the secret playable NES NG game, and also a minor reduction in difficulty with some swapped enemy encounters and additional findable healing items.

On balance, I think Sigma is the better game because it just plays better. The improved camera makes it hard to go back to the XBox versions (I still do though lol). The changes made however just caused the game to lose a bit of its charm. The mark of a successful remaster/remake is that it feels like it can properly replace the original. Sigma falls a bit short of this. Still if you have never played any NG game this is a fine place to start. Here’s what you are in for:

1. Extremely rewarding fast-paced and complex combat with numerous weapons, tools, spells, and techniques.
2. Punishing difficulty, even on normal. If you don’t learn to play well you won’t finish the first stage.
3. A really well-designed integrated world that encourages exploration and paces the game perfectly. There’s plenty of action but also just enough downtime.
4. A pretty engaging “straight to DVD” level plot with some memorable characters and interesting lore.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma is my favorite game in this collection. The game set the bar for the entire hack & slash genre for over a decade. Coming from recently beating Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition (with Vergil!) it is amazing how Sigma still outclasses it in several aspects. Being able to play Sigma now on my laptop and PS5 is a real treat.

Grade: A

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2

This game still makes me pine for what could have been…

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is one of the most frustrating games I can ever remember being hyped for when I was younger. I remember when it was first announced and they showed images of the new playable female characters — Ayane, Momiji, and Rachel. I had loved NG2 on Xbox 360. I agree with the general consensus that it wasn’t quite as good as the original. Even with its more gory combat and new weapons, the inferior level design, occasionally unfair difficulty, and inferior story, made it unable to surpass its predecessor. Yet still, I was truly excited to be able to play an enhanced version on my preferred console, the PS3. And then I got it and played it, and started noticing that for every good new thing there was at least one bad new thing.

We got three very cool new playable characters, but the game difficulty had been significantly dumbed down. We got an awesome new two-player combat challenge mode, but the game had removed the blood and gore in favor of weird purple mist. We got great added content such as new weapons and bosses, but then inexplicably the game also removed content such as Ryu’s windmill shuriken and the optional trial of valor combat challenges. We got better performance and graphics on the PS3 hardware, but then as with Sigma 1 we also got a lot of the little puzzles and platforming sections removed. We got less annoying encounters such as incendiary shuriken spamming ninja, but we also got damage-sponge enemies with a reduced number appearing in each encounter, which just feels less like NG.

Sigma 2 is one giant case of “two steps forward, two steps back.” Here is a game where new series director Yosuke Hayashi had an opportunity to make an absolute improvement — a definitive version of NG2. He was not up to the task. I genuinely do not understand what motivated some of the changes that were made other than Hayashi’s ego. He wanted to put his own stamp on things without regard to what the fans wanted. This seems even more evident in NG3 (see below). Sigma 2 can’t replace the original NG2. I still play that game and recommend it because many things about it are better. Yet that isn’t to say that Sigma 2 is bad. It’s not. In fact I play it probably more than any other NG game for two simple reasons: It has the best variety of challenge modes and the best combat overall. On Mentor mode the difficulty is just right in my humble opinion. The first NG game will always have a bigger place in my heart as I think it is the better single playthrough experience thanks to its integrated world and better story. Yet for all its flaws, Sigma 2 is still one of the best iterations out of all the many releases of 3D NG games.

Grade: B

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge

Ninja Gaiden 3 was a travesty. Designed explicitly to appeal to the western audience the game felt nothing like classic Ninja Gaiden. The game abandoned a lot of the fun things about NG — weapon variety, fair but punishing difficulty, superbly satisfying acrobatic combat, complex stages, cute female sidekicks, and a fun B-movie story. Instead we got The Last Jedi of Ninja Gaiden, a deconstruction if you will, thanks to a super serious plot meant to make us feel bad about dicing up hundreds of videogame bad guys. Enemies would even beg, “I don’t want to die!” while you fight them. Great fun. What’s more, the story was just dumb, the enemies and level design uninspired, the new quick time events totally unnecessary, and the added “kunai climb” platform sections tedious as hell. To add insult to injury, before NG3 even came out, Koei Tecmo announced that an enhanced version of the game would come out later exclusive to, of all consoles, the Wii U. The game was unlikeable before anyone even got a chance to play it.

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge eventually did make its way to PS3 and XBox 360, and now again we have it in the Master Collection. Unlike Sigma 1 and Sigma 2, there is no debate that it is an absolute improvement over the original. NG3:RE added several new weapons and ninpo spells for Ryu, as well as three more playable characters — Ayane, Momiji, and Kasumi. The combat is revamped and tighter and many annoying segments were removed, such as several kunai climb platforming sections and parts where Ryu is overcome by the curse he receives in the story. I really love the return of the gory combat. The obliteration techniques in particular are really cinematic. The difficulty is also nicely tuned as even normal difficulty will really test you as it should. In spurts NG3:RE really shines. Unfortunately it just isn’t consistent. Annoying QTE’s, bad boss fights, some unfun enemies, boring corridor level design, and that insufferable story just bring the entire experience down. There’s fun to be had here but you have to kind of dig and tease it out.

Grade: C

Overall

My overall take is that this release needed more effort. Whether it was lack of funding, dev time, or poor management — the final product just feels lackluster. It is a very low effort port. The games run fine on consoles but there have been zero additions or improvements. On PC it’s even worse as the games are buggy and lack basic configuration options. Sigma 2 for example consistently refuses to close properly, forcing me to use the Windows task manager to stop the game. Razor’s Edge has a number of QTE bugs that will get you killed or just lock up the game at weird moments. Sigma 1’s UI feels clunky as ever, hardly surprising for a nearly 20 year old game, but relatively easy to improve with a bit of effort.

The games, while still fun, are starting to show their age. They are not likely to make a great impression on modern audiences without some development TLC. What this collection really demonstrates is that lacking a significant commitment from Koei-Tecmo, the series may as well remain dead. The NES originals are still out there for folks looking for a retro challenge, and with this Master Collection release at least the 3D games are easily playable on modern hardware. There is even a burgeoning modding community on PC which may lead to some of the above mentioned issues getting fixes.

I love Ninja Gaiden — I’ve beaten every single game on every difficulty. I am rooting for this franchise and hoping we get a return to form Ninja Gaiden 4 to re-spark the IP. Given Koei-Tecmo’s excellent work on the Nioh franchise, I know they have the talent to do just that.