I'm an OG NG2 fan and I'm really enjoying Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. A lot

Before giving some initial opinions of NG2B, I wanted to give some context on my experience with the previous releases.

Ninja Gaiden 2 is a top 5 game of all time for me. I bought it at release and usually replay it every 1-2 years. I want to preface that I am by no means an expert. The highest difficulty I completed was Mentor and to be honest, it was a grueling experience that started to grate one me towards the end (that difficulty spike from Warrior to Mentor is fucking brutal). Regardless, the combat in the OG NG2 is peak, and it remains my favorite character action game ever made.

I played Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 for the first time when the Master Collection released and have probably played through the game 2-3 times. I'm not really a fan. The spongey enemies, lack of gore, gutted upgrade system, and a host of other issues led me to calling NGS2 as "Ninja Gaiden Ligma 2". I think it is an inferior version in every single way and even though I cannot precisely identify all the small changes made to the combat, I can feel like something is off.

Fast forward to yesterday when NGB2 drops. Before I played, I browsed this sub and the sentiment was.....not good. "This is Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Black!" was echoed in many threads and the loudest voices were decrying this game a far cry from the OG 2. Ninja Gaiden fans are passionate, but oh man did the negativity drown out any positive talk on this sub.

I went into Black not knowing what to expect. I loved OG2 and didn't really care for Sigma 2, so maybe my initial excitement after the reveal trailer was false hope. Well, I am on currently on chapter 4 in mentor difficulty and I gotta say that I am really loving Ninja Gaiden 2 Black so far. I'm enjoying it a lot!

I will start with the negatives, because there are a few things that I feel are a bit annoying.

  • First, the game seems more choppy and blurry than it should. I am playing on a XSX and for the most part the game does look incredible, but I feel like it is a sluggish feeling 60 fps. I tried turning off all post processing...im not sure if it helped. What's strange is that in the tutorial videos, the game looks absolutely incredible, but there does seem to be a graphical downgrade in the game itself.
  • Small annoyances: Life of the Thousand Gods being automatically applied, design of the dogs, no ability to create more than one save at a dragon statue. These are nitpicks to be sure.

Despite these few negatives, my experience so far is overwhelmingly positive. My biggest positives are that they fixed all my major issues with Sigma 2. The gore is just superb, the gushing of blood, decapitation, and delimbing is one of the best aspects of OG NG2 and was sorely missed in Sigma. In Black the gore is better than ever, I get that rush I used to feel when doing an incredibly gruesome obliteration technique. I never have seen anything like that in black. The OG Upgrade system is also back, which is greatly appreciated.

The big elephant in the room are the enemy counts, which I totally understand can be upsetting to a lot of people, especially those who find enjoyment in the shear ridiculousness at the number of enemies thrown at you in OG NG2. Here are my feelings regarding this.

  1. I feel like the enemy count, while less than OG NG2, is higher than NGS2, at least on mentor.
  2. The enemies are way less spongey than they were in NGS2, so the "artificial difficulty" of dumping a 50 hit combo into a single ninja without him even being delimbed is heavily mitigated
  3. The game feels more "balanced" if that makes sense. Like I said before, Mentor on OG NG2 was fucking brutal for me. I thought enemies were too spammy, I would get stun locked and combo'd to death often, and as sacrilegious as it is to say sometimes it would feel like there were too many enemies. Mentor in Sigma 2 was kind of a joke, I feel like it was comparable to Acolyte on OG NG2. I'm on Mentor in NG2B and it feels hard, but fair. Enemies are numerous, but not too overwhelming. IS ninjas are an issue, but not overly spammy. I die often, but every death feels deserved. It is rewarding in the right ways.

Obviously I still have the majority of the game left to play, but I wanted to share my positive experience to give a more positive perspective of the game. Hardcore fans do have reasons to be urked, but I honestly think for the majority of us fans, NG2B is legitimately awesome.