As you may or may not have noticed reading this site since it started, I’m a pretty huge Ninja Gaiden fan. In fact, really, Ninja Gaiden is the watermark by which I judge third person action games that focus on melee combat. It’s sad in some ways, because the fluidity and rewards of Ninja Gaiden’s combat has largely spoiled me for many other games. Devil May Cry feels silly and cheap on its hard difficulties, as did God of War II. With Ninja Gaiden, I never felt like there was a fight that I was ill equipped to win. When I did die, it was because I just wasn’t good enough, and I’d have to get better. I’ve played through the game at least 4 times on normal, hard, and Master Ninja, and while I’m not the greatest Ninja Gaiden player around, I’m pretty good.

Because of this, I had to violently mask my sexual arousal at the leaked screenshots from the Japanese Xbox site for Ninja Gaiden 2, which feature even more outrageous ninja antics, including dismemberment (arms AND legs!), decapitation, and disembowelment by sword, axe, and FUCKING WOLVERINE CLAWS.

As a matter of fact, why hasn’t Tecmo gotten the license for a Wolverine game? Microsoft quickly pulled the page offline, but the damage was done, and the “surprise” was somewhat spoiled I suppose for one of Microsoft’s big Pre-TGS announcements. But really, who cares? It’s coming, it’s coming reasonably soon, and unfortunately for those who went with a PS3 instead, this time it’s being published by Microsoft, which limits its potential to migrate to the black behemoth.

So aside from claws, what else is new?

We don’t have the full details just yet, but we were able to pick up some early information. Perhaps as a way to counter many of the complaints about the series’ difficulty, one of the central gameplay changes is a new health system that will automatically heal players to a certain extent. We don’t know exactly how this system will work, but it seems to be similar to Halo 1’s setup where a certain portion of your life will recharge if you can stay out of trouble for a few moments, but another portion of your life (your “armor,” to continue the Halo comparison) will remain missing until you make it to the next save point.

Between those save points, you’ll bounce from New York to Tokyo to the Netherworld, and as you can see in the new screenshots from the game, come across an area called the Aqua Capital with gondolas and a river running through the center of town. It’s hard to say much definitively about the game’s New York appearance, but a “stage select” screenshot released by Microsoft suggests that the Statue of Liberty will make an appearance.

I’m actually a fan of the idea of something of a stamina recharging mechanic for the title, as buying elixirs over and over again was one of the few really tedious aspects of the last game. But knowing Team Ninja, this also probably means the enemies will be even more aggressive/dangerous. Since I’m at work, I’m trying not to embarass myself with the visual manifestation of my lust for this game. Suffice it to say though, I’m excited. Release is expected in the second half of 2008.

-Aegies

So yeah. That looks fucking amazing. I would argue that this is, in fact, a greater display of technical knowhow and presentation ingenuity than Ninja Gaiden Sigma, or arguably any other Nintendo DS title. If you look closely, you’ll see that virtually all of the polygons on-screen are completely devoted to character models, and the backgrounds are hand-drawn/painted. Basically, it’s hanging old-school Resident Evil and Final Fantasy VII style, and for a game whose screen is so small, it’s almost invisible. When Itagaki said he’d be making the best looking game on the DS, he wasn’t screwing around.

My questions continue to focus on how the game will play, however. While the person playing in the video above is clearly a master ninja already, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around how I would be able to control Ryu similarly to the Xbox and the upcoming PS3 version; while stylus control on the touch screen is all fine and good for swinging the sword around, and probably even throwing items, I want to know how you block and jump easily. Such a multifaceted contextual system seems unintuitive, and access to every move in your repertoire is vital in Ninja Gaiden. I see him jumping, I see him blocking, I see him stylus-ing, but I want to know how well it really works.

Still, I have faith in Team Ninja. Controls have never been a problem of theirs, so I’m confident that they’ll implement something very usable. Which is good, because I don’t see myself buying another DS game before this comes out.

-Aegies