One of the best of its kind and easily the best in the series. This game is brutal, unfair, frustrating and magnificent. The satisfaction this game brings you from pulling off a combo with a new weapon, or killing a new boss or taking on dozens of enemies in style as a ninja is unmatched. Even to this day, the graphics and controls still hold up. Sadly this version has yet to have been rereleased and we have the inferior Sigma versions instead. Nevertheless, I still recommend anyone who enjoys Devil May Cry or the classic God of War games to check this series out, especially this version of the first game. An absolute must play.

Goes hard as stone, godDAMN. The combat's obviously the star of the show here, expanding on and improving the original DMC's philosophy of elegance and simplicity the same year that 3 would take the DMC series more into the "fighting game training room" simulator (also good). The violence here is balletic and beautiful, more like a mid 70s Shaw Brothers film than the direct anime influences that usually lead the character action genre, paced as a dance between roughly equal opponents. The weapons edge more towards situational than universal, but it doesn't stray into the lock and key territory some more RPG focused stuff does. I do still think the boss fights are a kind of weak link, none are BAD (cept maybe Emperor), but few reach the heights of Doku and Murai. I respect the restraint to lock so many enemies behind higher difficulties, but I might have appreciated a few more standard goons instead of the repeated Shadow fiends for a lot of the latter two thirds of the game. I will beat this on Hard and try Very Hard, but I'm slightly offput from doing it immediately as the lack of NG+ does make it a smidge more tedious than it could be

More subtly impressive is the commitment this game has to atmosphere. The flowing world of the Hayabusa village and Tairon give you time to bask in its history and structure, giving this a very adventuresome quality that gives great balance to the white knuckle action. The box in the void level vibe works for latter era Bayo and DMC but it's impressive to see here that nothing was compromised on a mechanical level while still maintaining this small pseudo open world.

One of the best action games ever created. Ridiculously satisfying weapons and combat with a mostly fair high difficulty. I really appreciate how quickly you can die while having enemies be very squishy themselves, keeping it tense but satisfying. There is the occasional bullshit thrown in that at least keeps you on your toes well after getting used to the mechanics and it can usually be avoided by playing carefully.

Rarely was I genuinely fucking annoyed, namely at having shoot arrows at the radio tower, spending a million years spamming the flail at ghost fish, or screaming at Alma's fucking projectiles that hit me every single time!! FUCK!!!!!!!

A lot of the levels outside of the city are not as fun since this game is best when it's more explorative but there are still plenty of varied challenges to keep each area feeling distinct, a huge plus that makes for a hugely replayable game when combined with the multitude of differences between difficulty levels. A fair bit to unlock too!

So good, so smooth, so fun, I love this game to pieces.

Ryu Hayabusa is one of the coolest protagonist designs in history. After a slow open, you hit a level on an airship where Ryu finally dons the sleeveless ninja gear from the cover and it's like the game announcing "alright, the real shit starts here".

With that chapter's over the top setting, the change to Ryu's outfit, the introduction of some over-the-top enemy designs, and the essential parry mechanic the game had me hooked.

There's just something special here with the game's stripped down, more defensive approach to action. You're not learning 100 different dial-a-combos like in Bayonetta or something else. Instead, you're blocking and waiting for your opening in each encounter. Every enemy a new puzzle to learn—when can you parry them? what moves or weapons work best? Play carefully, push only when you have the advantage, and success will be rewarded with your survival. And failure? Well, I hope you like seeing the game over screen.

One of the best action games I've ever played. It kicked my ass a bunch. A+ experience.

Video game equivalent of stepping outside the bar and getting jumped by four guys all kicking you at the same time while you're down (this is a good thing).

It's stunning how much depth NGB's high enemy aggression adds to the combat, even simple mob encounters are intense because it's all about managing their numbers, distancing yourself or closing in, deciding who to attack... Ryu's arsenal has a lot of simple moves and combos (usually just alternating weak and strong attacks) that are not often suited to crowd control, but rather to deal high damage against one enemy. Longer, more flashy combos would not fare as well since you'd be getting interrupted a lot. Instead, the approach is to find gaps, kill fast and get out.

Action is fast, and some opponents are just as agile as Ryu, but may outnumber you. Yet you can also dispatch enemies fairly quickly: chains often kill on their last hit (which generally do the most damage in a combo), especially fast foes which usually aren't tanky.

It demands your attention to everyone onscreen (and offscreen!) rather than have enemies that you're not fighting wait on you. Focusing just on who you're attacking means death. It also requires you learn their patterns, since it's essential to know which attacks are better to dodge, roll or counter; in order to find openings between the onslaught. Spamming block just means they'll grab you, and attacking mindlessly has them dodge.

That is not to say you're forced to play defensively, quite the opposite. There's plenty of moves and strategies for each situation, allowing you to guide the flow of the battle; and in general it's just as necessary to damage, stun or kill enemies in order to deal with numbers as it is dodging and blocking. So long as you know which attacks are suited best for the situation and react fast to enemies you can do almost everything.

There's also some weapons that are a bit better for crowd control, like the Lunar. Or heavy hitting ones like the Dabilahro. They're situational, may be faster but weaker, very good against a certain enemy, require a different type of playing... but the variety is good enough even though half of them are reskins.

The enemies though, fiends as a whole are a bit underwhelming. By the end I was a bit tired of the pink fiends, and non-humanoid fiends didn't really seem like a good fit: no room for aerial combos and usually best to stomp them with a heavy weapon, while I much prefer the fast paced exchanges with humanoid enemies such as ninjas. And bossfights are even more of a mixed bag; the most unremarkable ones are also the ones you fight the most. And in general, giant bosses do not flow well with the combat either. Worms, hydracubus, tanks, bone dragon, emperor... even if they're not hard it's like a chore. But the game does have some good challenges. I enjoyed fighting Alma and Doku, but they feel more like exceptions than anything.

There's other shortcomings for me. Water segments are boring and underwater controls very limiting. While platforming isn't the best it does feel good, especially wall running in combat or going around fast with your moveset. Yet there's not much fun to be found in water. In general level design is not too much of a pain but I don't particularly enjoy picking up every last secret in the game or missing out on an item or upgrade because I found only 49 out of 50. Not many 'puzzles' or exploring around or rather, it's simple enough, which I think is for the best. Just enough to break up combat segments while not trying to be another type of game.

Fiend challenges are ok, especially early on, facing the same enemy really helps you to know them, but then a bit boring when you see the best tactic is just to constantly use orbs and UT to kill every wave. And later on you're doing challenges against the same enemy in a different room.

There's some seemingly 'cheaper' tactics like izuna drop, charged UT, wind slash or wall attacks; but they still have you vulnerable at times, and they're less cheesy the more you advance in the game or in difficulty and meet new foes with tactics against it. Besides, it's just more fun to engage enemies than to constantly run up the fucking wall, if you want to not have fun go ahead.

And I must emphasize how much these faults are far outweighed by its strong points. Combat here is the focus and it does it extremely well. In addition to that, higher difficulties add a lot by really switching it up and if that's not enough there's also mission mode with a lot of content and challenges as well.

One of the best Action/Adventure game of its generation.
With 16:9 support, 60fps, impressive graphics and a really smooth combat. It's a masterpiece as a video-game and also as a technical piece.

It adds a lot to the 2004 version, and each difficulty is different when it's about the placement of ennemies, new spawns, the order of unlockables, the price of items in the shop so you need to manage your money well, and new bosses!
They also added a mission mode outside of the stoy mode, you can finish challenges and such, and unlock a new costume.

Even though I call it a masterpiece, its main problem is still the camera. It's not horrible, but it's not good either. You will need and have to learn how to use it properly through the game.

Don't wait, it's available on every Xbox gen possible.

Game's REALLY fuckin' good but REALLY fuckin' hard.... just like Ninja Gaiden ;D

Movement is god damn everything. Even takes more priority than stuff like combos and Ryu is more than agile enough to slip past every enemy and boss moves if timed well enough. Movement in combat feels smoother than something like Trickster from DMC3 (as a direct comparison.) With this game, they made god damn sure you use that movement at all times.

My only real problems are with a couple of enemies. The black ninjas, while I got used to them for my first playthrough, can be infuriating whenever they whip out their sticky bombs. And the fish... the fish at the last couple of levels can kiss my ass.
And sometimes I feel the camera has a hard time keeping up with the fast-paced action going on. And it's one of those camera that can screw up the view when in an unlucky spot. Also, I don't like when the R-stick defaults to the first person camera every time you boot up the game so you have to click the R-stick to the more normal camera control.

Badass game despite how soul crushingly hard it gets.

I don't mean to come off like a hater, but for The Greatest Action Game of All Time there sure is a lot of shit that sucks in here lmao. I know you're already fuming so keep in mind, I didn't play on Master Ninja and my opinion is not valid. Okay? Cool.

So what do I mean? The occasionally finicky platforming, the tedious (but graciously easy) water level, and especially the part where the game goes DMC2 mode and makes you fight tanks and a helicopter with ranged weapons. C'mon man, how can you directly invite that kind of comparison and not think "what are we doing here?" If the idea was "we can do it better," well sure, you did, but not by much.

Frankly most of the bosses weren't great; the first fight with Murai sets you up to expect a bunch of sick duels and then most of the fights are just giant stationary creatures with three attacks and a nasty grab. I mean you fight four of those worms, man. Is that really making the most of the killer combat system? I understand that higher difficulties mix things up with adds, etc. but to me that kinda illustrates how weak the boss designs were in the first place...

As negative as that came off, when the game is cooking, it is absolutely sick and overall, I had a very good time with it. But given its monstrous reputation I was really surprised how just much of the mid-game felt like a slog.