Ninja Gaiden 2, for better and worse, feels like the pure, unfiltered vision of director Tomonobu Itagaki, even moreso than Ninja Gaiden Black. As a point of reference, Ninja Gaiden Black was a game that Itagaki made harder after playtesters complained it was too hard, and that he created the infamous Ghost Fish enemy because he insisted that the developers either take them out or make them into enemies because Ninja Gaiden is an action game.
Ninja Gaiden 2, meanwhile, is best described as the video game version of cocaine, with its intensely fast and visceral combat with many a basic enemy feeling like an insane high, and its less than stellar boss line-up feeling like when you come crashing down from it. When a game running at a framerate beyond that of a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation feels like it was tertiary to the incredibly frenetic combat and making the game just barely toe the line between a great challenge and pure fucking bullshit. Itagaki's influence, for better or worse, was felt in almost every aspect of Ninja Gaiden 2, and is up there with games like The Wonderful 101, Devil May Cry 5 and No More Heroes in terms of action games that purely embody their director and what their games are.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is not Ninja Gaiden 2.
Much like the original Sigma, Itagaki was not back in the director's chair, with Yosuke Hayashi of Sigma 1 and NG Dragon Sword for the DS returning. It also has the same exact life story as its older brother; a PS3 exclusive initially, then got a Vita port for reasons only God knows, and is now the version of NG2 that's been stuffed unto the Master Collection. Although this version comes with the "great" bonus of having its online co-op challenges stripped for some reason. Did you know the removal of that feature also made the Vita version impossible to get the platinum trophy in without hacking? And exactly like its predecessor, Sigma 2 is an incredibly weird sidegrade that adds, subtracts and fucks with a lot of the basic foundation of NG2 and what made it the game it was.
And not everything it does is bad! The game introduces the ability to have the bow out at the same time as the shurikens, which is really nice in a game that still doesn't have full-blown on-the-fly weapon swapping. Also has infinite ammo, but loses its Ultimate Technique, so there's some winning and losing there. Ryu's got a new buster sword weapon, which feels damn good to use and has a lot of satisfying crunch to it. Genshin's second boss battle is actually a straight-up 1v1 without Incendiary Shuriken douchebags like vanilla 2, which is great, and the late-game worm enemies aren't constantly blinking in and out of reality, which is also quite nice.
Sigma 2's absolute best change, however, is the inclusion of a full-blown level select, something I pined for in both Black and Sigma. A great inclusion that I'm shocked took them this long, but Ninja Gaiden finally found itself catching up with... Devil May Cry 2, from 2003. Better late than never, I guess. Original 2 had New Game Plus for the difficulty you finished the current save file on, but you'd still be starting fresh if you wanted to tackle the next difficulty up, and this is only a good thing to go the extra mile to change.
But much akin to Sigma 1, 2 makes numerous structural changes to level design. The small amount of key hunting for progression is outright removed, and either I'm misremembering my time with 2, or some entire sections of levels are cut as a result. Either way, these changes lead to Sigma 2 making for possibly the most linear action game... probably ever. Team Ninja somehow found a way to make Ninja Gaiden 2, a game that was already really linear compared to Black, even more linear than it already was. I'm glad they removed almost all of the game's underwater combat, at least.
But that isn't where issues with Sigma 2 start and stop. The game's enemy count is massively reduced, both in terms of quantity per battle and in terms of enemy types, and the game is massively censored in order to get it released in Germany(?), both massively detracting from the things that make Ninja Gaiden 2 exactly what it is; a gory mess of brutality stuffed to the brim with enemies as lethal as the player. It removes so much of the punch from the satisfying Ultimate and Obliteration Techniques, that allowed Ryu to tear foes apart into gory stains on the floor in a grotesque display of violence and carnage.
In place of the lower enemy numbers, their health gets boosted far more, which also breaks the pace of the game. Ninja Gaiden 2 was a game where you die fast, but you also kill fast. It only made the game even more frantic and enjoyable, even when it was being total bullshit, and now that the very foundations of the core combat are being toyed with, it feels wrong and so, so much worse off as a result. The notorious staircase battle, known for throwing a dizzying amount of enemies at the player all at once and tanking the framerate as a result, is a flaccid joke in Sigma 2, and is just one of numerous examples I actively thought Sigma 2, taking account of both it and NG2's Warrior difficulties, was so much easier of an affair than the original. Not to say NG2 was solely better because it was hard, and it definitely had moments where it went a bit into bullshit territory, but nuking the difficulty to this degree is just too far a step in the opposite direction, to the point the game was actively boring me throughout.
There's a few new bosses, with some outright being replaced. The awful dual-dragon fight gets replaced with a fight against a single, different dragon that isn't too much better, and the terrible worm tunnel, arguably the worst boss in the entire series, is completely gone. But in their place are two fights against a statue of Buddha and the Statue Of Liberty. And they're both the usual "giant boss over a ledge" battle that're stapled onto the end of chapters that already ended with better bosses to go along with them. It's a case of one step forward, and two steps right back. Another thing the game removes is Ryu's ability to use the Windmill and Incendiary Shuriken, for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Is this a trade-off in order to get the big fuck off buster sword or something, because it's only further contributing to the Sigma series' baffling addition-subtraction method.
Much akin to Sigma 1, Rachel returns... and she still isn't too fun to play. Even better, Momiji and Ayane are both playable as well, each getting a single stage that similarly breaks the pace when they pop up in a campaign that wasn't designed with their inclusions in mind. None of them are especially fun and only serve to bloat the campaign in the same way Sigma 1 was bloated by Rachel's 3 stages. Much as I don't care for playing as any of them, I'd at least be more tolerant of the trio if I could just not play them during the main campaign. Having them sit in their own 3-chapter side campaign upon completing the game would be a far more welcome choice, because it wouldn't serve to pad out a game that didn't need this extra content. But alas, that isn't the timeline we live in.
But probably the single biggest complaint I can level with Sigma 2 over the original is its needless change to the upgrade system. In place of the original allowing you to upgrade what you want when you wanted, Sigma 2 now bestows this horrendous limit of only being able to upgrade one weapon at a time, for free, at specific shops throughout the game. This leaves the player with basically zero way to strategize on how to go about spending their currency, since it's now only used to purchase healing items. On top of that, there's an arbitrary cap to the weapon's max level, only allowing you to hit level 3 for each of them at around the second half of the game for zero fucking reason. This upgrade system is dogshit, and has no reason to exist beyond removing player freedom.
And the absolute worst part of it all, the thing that makes me go from simply not liking Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 to outright hating it, is it's seemingly just the version of Ninja Gaiden 2 now. Due no doubt in part to the missing source code of both Ninja Gaiden Black and 2, the Sigma releases are now all we have, which I would hate even if either game was objectively better. But while Sigma 1 is flawed, mostly due to Rachel bogging the pace of the game down, I'd still stand by it being a good way to play Ninja Gaiden Black if you're without an Xbox console. Sigma 2, meanwhile, is almost just Ninja Gaiden 2 in name only, and this has probably given a ton of people the absolute worst idea of what Ninja Gaiden 2 is. It isn't this damage sponge-filled slog with its brutality-focused attacks feeling limp and censored. It's a kinetic, insane shitfest of a game that felt like it was designed with the intention of killing the Xbox 360 you were playing it on as much as it was killing you in game. If you're interested even slightly in Ninja Gaiden, I implore you to consider getting an Xbox One or Series and playing the original version of 2 through there. You can probably find the game physically for the price of a hamburger, so if you're willing to stomach the brunt of purchasing an Xbox One X or Series X, an extra £2 for one of the most batshit loco games of all time shouldn't hurt your wallet too much.
Were it in a vacuum, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 might be fine. But it's not in a vacuum. It's in a world where Ninja Gaiden 2 exists, is directly comparable, and is a much better game in just about every way.
Sigma fucking balls.
Ninja Gaiden 2, meanwhile, is best described as the video game version of cocaine, with its intensely fast and visceral combat with many a basic enemy feeling like an insane high, and its less than stellar boss line-up feeling like when you come crashing down from it. When a game running at a framerate beyond that of a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation feels like it was tertiary to the incredibly frenetic combat and making the game just barely toe the line between a great challenge and pure fucking bullshit. Itagaki's influence, for better or worse, was felt in almost every aspect of Ninja Gaiden 2, and is up there with games like The Wonderful 101, Devil May Cry 5 and No More Heroes in terms of action games that purely embody their director and what their games are.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is not Ninja Gaiden 2.
Much like the original Sigma, Itagaki was not back in the director's chair, with Yosuke Hayashi of Sigma 1 and NG Dragon Sword for the DS returning. It also has the same exact life story as its older brother; a PS3 exclusive initially, then got a Vita port for reasons only God knows, and is now the version of NG2 that's been stuffed unto the Master Collection. Although this version comes with the "great" bonus of having its online co-op challenges stripped for some reason. Did you know the removal of that feature also made the Vita version impossible to get the platinum trophy in without hacking? And exactly like its predecessor, Sigma 2 is an incredibly weird sidegrade that adds, subtracts and fucks with a lot of the basic foundation of NG2 and what made it the game it was.
And not everything it does is bad! The game introduces the ability to have the bow out at the same time as the shurikens, which is really nice in a game that still doesn't have full-blown on-the-fly weapon swapping. Also has infinite ammo, but loses its Ultimate Technique, so there's some winning and losing there. Ryu's got a new buster sword weapon, which feels damn good to use and has a lot of satisfying crunch to it. Genshin's second boss battle is actually a straight-up 1v1 without Incendiary Shuriken douchebags like vanilla 2, which is great, and the late-game worm enemies aren't constantly blinking in and out of reality, which is also quite nice.
Sigma 2's absolute best change, however, is the inclusion of a full-blown level select, something I pined for in both Black and Sigma. A great inclusion that I'm shocked took them this long, but Ninja Gaiden finally found itself catching up with... Devil May Cry 2, from 2003. Better late than never, I guess. Original 2 had New Game Plus for the difficulty you finished the current save file on, but you'd still be starting fresh if you wanted to tackle the next difficulty up, and this is only a good thing to go the extra mile to change.
But much akin to Sigma 1, 2 makes numerous structural changes to level design. The small amount of key hunting for progression is outright removed, and either I'm misremembering my time with 2, or some entire sections of levels are cut as a result. Either way, these changes lead to Sigma 2 making for possibly the most linear action game... probably ever. Team Ninja somehow found a way to make Ninja Gaiden 2, a game that was already really linear compared to Black, even more linear than it already was. I'm glad they removed almost all of the game's underwater combat, at least.
But that isn't where issues with Sigma 2 start and stop. The game's enemy count is massively reduced, both in terms of quantity per battle and in terms of enemy types, and the game is massively censored in order to get it released in Germany(?), both massively detracting from the things that make Ninja Gaiden 2 exactly what it is; a gory mess of brutality stuffed to the brim with enemies as lethal as the player. It removes so much of the punch from the satisfying Ultimate and Obliteration Techniques, that allowed Ryu to tear foes apart into gory stains on the floor in a grotesque display of violence and carnage.
In place of the lower enemy numbers, their health gets boosted far more, which also breaks the pace of the game. Ninja Gaiden 2 was a game where you die fast, but you also kill fast. It only made the game even more frantic and enjoyable, even when it was being total bullshit, and now that the very foundations of the core combat are being toyed with, it feels wrong and so, so much worse off as a result. The notorious staircase battle, known for throwing a dizzying amount of enemies at the player all at once and tanking the framerate as a result, is a flaccid joke in Sigma 2, and is just one of numerous examples I actively thought Sigma 2, taking account of both it and NG2's Warrior difficulties, was so much easier of an affair than the original. Not to say NG2 was solely better because it was hard, and it definitely had moments where it went a bit into bullshit territory, but nuking the difficulty to this degree is just too far a step in the opposite direction, to the point the game was actively boring me throughout.
There's a few new bosses, with some outright being replaced. The awful dual-dragon fight gets replaced with a fight against a single, different dragon that isn't too much better, and the terrible worm tunnel, arguably the worst boss in the entire series, is completely gone. But in their place are two fights against a statue of Buddha and the Statue Of Liberty. And they're both the usual "giant boss over a ledge" battle that're stapled onto the end of chapters that already ended with better bosses to go along with them. It's a case of one step forward, and two steps right back. Another thing the game removes is Ryu's ability to use the Windmill and Incendiary Shuriken, for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Is this a trade-off in order to get the big fuck off buster sword or something, because it's only further contributing to the Sigma series' baffling addition-subtraction method.
Much akin to Sigma 1, Rachel returns... and she still isn't too fun to play. Even better, Momiji and Ayane are both playable as well, each getting a single stage that similarly breaks the pace when they pop up in a campaign that wasn't designed with their inclusions in mind. None of them are especially fun and only serve to bloat the campaign in the same way Sigma 1 was bloated by Rachel's 3 stages. Much as I don't care for playing as any of them, I'd at least be more tolerant of the trio if I could just not play them during the main campaign. Having them sit in their own 3-chapter side campaign upon completing the game would be a far more welcome choice, because it wouldn't serve to pad out a game that didn't need this extra content. But alas, that isn't the timeline we live in.
But probably the single biggest complaint I can level with Sigma 2 over the original is its needless change to the upgrade system. In place of the original allowing you to upgrade what you want when you wanted, Sigma 2 now bestows this horrendous limit of only being able to upgrade one weapon at a time, for free, at specific shops throughout the game. This leaves the player with basically zero way to strategize on how to go about spending their currency, since it's now only used to purchase healing items. On top of that, there's an arbitrary cap to the weapon's max level, only allowing you to hit level 3 for each of them at around the second half of the game for zero fucking reason. This upgrade system is dogshit, and has no reason to exist beyond removing player freedom.
And the absolute worst part of it all, the thing that makes me go from simply not liking Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 to outright hating it, is it's seemingly just the version of Ninja Gaiden 2 now. Due no doubt in part to the missing source code of both Ninja Gaiden Black and 2, the Sigma releases are now all we have, which I would hate even if either game was objectively better. But while Sigma 1 is flawed, mostly due to Rachel bogging the pace of the game down, I'd still stand by it being a good way to play Ninja Gaiden Black if you're without an Xbox console. Sigma 2, meanwhile, is almost just Ninja Gaiden 2 in name only, and this has probably given a ton of people the absolute worst idea of what Ninja Gaiden 2 is. It isn't this damage sponge-filled slog with its brutality-focused attacks feeling limp and censored. It's a kinetic, insane shitfest of a game that felt like it was designed with the intention of killing the Xbox 360 you were playing it on as much as it was killing you in game. If you're interested even slightly in Ninja Gaiden, I implore you to consider getting an Xbox One or Series and playing the original version of 2 through there. You can probably find the game physically for the price of a hamburger, so if you're willing to stomach the brunt of purchasing an Xbox One X or Series X, an extra £2 for one of the most batshit loco games of all time shouldn't hurt your wallet too much.
Were it in a vacuum, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 might be fine. But it's not in a vacuum. It's in a world where Ninja Gaiden 2 exists, is directly comparable, and is a much better game in just about every way.
Sigma fucking balls.