Ninja Gaiden 3 Review
LATEST ‘NINJA GAIDEN’ HAS PLENTY OF FLASH, BUT VERY LITTLE SUBSTANCE
By Billy O’Keefe, McClatchy-Tribune Services (MCT)
The more credit you give “Ninja Gaiden 3” for re- specting your ability to play it, the likelier it is to make you rue the thought.
That alone makes “NG3” — a beautiful, blazingly fast ac- tion game that’s also a descen- dent of one of the most perfect action games ever made — a crushing letdown.
Superficially, “NG3” looks a lot like 2004’s “Ninja Gaiden,” a game so cherished that Tecmo keeps reissuing it (most recently, for the Vita in February). Ryu Hayabusa (that’s you) remains one of gaming’s most agile action he- roes. The places you’ll visit are beautiful and diverse, and while many of the enemies you face look like reskinned versions of enemies you saw already, the bosses — from a T-Rex to a giant witch whose body becomes a level unto it- self — are satisfactorily outra- geous.
In flashes, “NG3” also fights like the original “Gaiden,” which treated every single enemy as a significant danger and provided the ingredients — a healthy offensive and de- fensive arsenal for Ryu, some cunning intelligence for his enemies — to turn the most ordinary fight into a show- down more intense than many games’ boss encounters.
But those flashes — where you’re evading a pattern of at- tack in perfect time and coun- tering to turn the tide — are fleeting. “NG3’s” tendency to crowd every encounter with roughly six to 10 mindless grunts leaves little room for showdowns, and respecting your enemies’ intelligence simply leads to cheap, frustrating barrages of knock- downs where the game effectively strips control from you. You’re better off just mashing the at- tack and evade buttons mind- lessly and relentlessly — which is about as much fun as it sounds — because that’s all your enemies are doing to you.
The result looks spectacu- lar, in part because “NG3” takes a page from other games and uses interactive cut-scenes to add flair to Ryu’s kills. But the satisfaction of a grueling fight intelligently won — the main pillar of the original “Gaiden” and, to a dampened degree, its sequel — is just about gone this time around.
Boss fights, sadly, rarely fare better. There is a gem or two, and the one-on-one for- mat certainly provides some badly needed focus to the action, but sloppiness and re- peat encounters abound all the same. More than not, the same rule of engagement still applies: Give a boss enemy’s attack pattern more credit than it deserves, and prepare to get burned and just mash away on the next (and likely successful) attempt.
Elsewhere, “NG3” takes steps forward and backward to ultimately settle comfort- ably into mediocrity. A sur- prising attempt to tell a more personal Ryu Hayabusa story results in the usual incoher- ence, but the presence of one character lets the story fulfill its mission to partial effect. As bloodthirsty ninjas go, Ryu’s a pretty nice guy. Who knew?
The not-entirely-welcome infusion of interactive cut- scenes and quick-time events has a similarly mixed effect. “NG3” looks great when Ryu’s cutting a helicopter to pieces while it’s in flight, but it screeches to a halt every time you have to laboriously press the triggers to climb a wall. When did simply pushing up on the joystick stop being enough? “NG3” also marks the series’ first hand at online mul- tiplayer, and the result likely matches your expectations for it. The solo or co-op Ninja Trials mode presents no- frills missions that load up the screen with enough ene- mies to bring down the frame rate, while Clan Bat- tle (eight players) lets you cut your friends to pieces via team death match. “NG3” bakes in a leveling and up- grades system to encourage replayability, but the sloppy gameplay that ails the story- line also persists here. And without that story to pull it along, the novelty runs out pretty quickly.
“Ninja Gaiden 3”
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: Tecmo Koei
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, suggestive themes)
