I've known about the NG series for a while now, and after beating Black, I regret not getting around to playing it sooner since this is easily one of the best action games I've ever played.
To start with, the story is fine, it's not any more complex than the NES games and most of it feels underdeveloped but who cares about that. The real meat is in the combat and Black's combat is amazing. It took some getting used to, but once it clicked with me, I just couldn't put the game down. It's quick and responsive, and the weapon variety is great too. They mostly feel distinct from one another and each one is fun to experiment with, my favourite being the lunar staff and vigoorian flail since I found their multi-hitting attacks to be great at stunning enemies. The thing that elevates the already great combat is the perfect difficulty curve the game has. Every chapter introduces a few new enemies, gradually pushing you to get better at the game and it's challenging while never feeling overwhelming since there's usually only 3-4 enemies on the screen at most.
Special mention has to be given to the essence mechanic. You can absorb essence dropped from enemies to charge your Ultimate Techniques faster and it creates this neat dichotomy which has you decide between gaining resources like health and ninpo or unleashing a powerful, visually stimulating attack. Heading into the game, I thought I wouldn't utilize it too much since throwing away resources seemed too risky, but as I grew in confidence, I ended up using it more and more and it was a great feeling.
The combat never feels monotonous either since long battling segments are broken up by moments of platforming or RE style exploration. The latter is another high point of the game for me since I just love the design philosophy of being put into a huge area and slowly growing familiar with it as you explore every place possible. The platforming, atleast when it's strictly wall jumping and wall running is enjoyable enough, but this is overshadowed by moments in which you'll need Ryu to jump from one platform to another and it sucks. Ryu feels extremely rigid when jumping, and if you dare to tap a wall while jumping then Ryu will start wall running past the platform and end up falling off completely. There's thankfully not many examples of this throughout the game, but when it does pop up, it really made me groan.
Some other gripes would be that switching weapons and using items is pretty slow since you have to open up the menu for it, grabs do way too much damage, the bosses seem to let you hit them whenever they feel like it and in general they're just not very memorable. Ultimately though, I can overlook the flaws I have with the game since Black lands a bullseye in every area it needs to from combat, to graphics, to music to exploration and it results in a game that's incredibly tightly designed.
To start with, the story is fine, it's not any more complex than the NES games and most of it feels underdeveloped but who cares about that. The real meat is in the combat and Black's combat is amazing. It took some getting used to, but once it clicked with me, I just couldn't put the game down. It's quick and responsive, and the weapon variety is great too. They mostly feel distinct from one another and each one is fun to experiment with, my favourite being the lunar staff and vigoorian flail since I found their multi-hitting attacks to be great at stunning enemies. The thing that elevates the already great combat is the perfect difficulty curve the game has. Every chapter introduces a few new enemies, gradually pushing you to get better at the game and it's challenging while never feeling overwhelming since there's usually only 3-4 enemies on the screen at most.
Special mention has to be given to the essence mechanic. You can absorb essence dropped from enemies to charge your Ultimate Techniques faster and it creates this neat dichotomy which has you decide between gaining resources like health and ninpo or unleashing a powerful, visually stimulating attack. Heading into the game, I thought I wouldn't utilize it too much since throwing away resources seemed too risky, but as I grew in confidence, I ended up using it more and more and it was a great feeling.
The combat never feels monotonous either since long battling segments are broken up by moments of platforming or RE style exploration. The latter is another high point of the game for me since I just love the design philosophy of being put into a huge area and slowly growing familiar with it as you explore every place possible. The platforming, atleast when it's strictly wall jumping and wall running is enjoyable enough, but this is overshadowed by moments in which you'll need Ryu to jump from one platform to another and it sucks. Ryu feels extremely rigid when jumping, and if you dare to tap a wall while jumping then Ryu will start wall running past the platform and end up falling off completely. There's thankfully not many examples of this throughout the game, but when it does pop up, it really made me groan.
Some other gripes would be that switching weapons and using items is pretty slow since you have to open up the menu for it, grabs do way too much damage, the bosses seem to let you hit them whenever they feel like it and in general they're just not very memorable. Ultimately though, I can overlook the flaws I have with the game since Black lands a bullseye in every area it needs to from combat, to graphics, to music to exploration and it results in a game that's incredibly tightly designed.