Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 leaves me feeling conflicted. Most people that don't recommend this game are usually people that find the changes and tweaks to be too egregious to the original release; I can't really blame some of the complaints.
The biggest issue is the huge reduction of enemies that appear on screen, along with the removal of the gore. NGII is a very bloody and gory game, to the point that it becomes hilarious at how absurd the violence is. NGS2 tones this completely down and censors most blood with green/purple mist and body dismemberment being removed in some cases.
NGS2 improves certain fights by toning down the amount of enemies that NGII had, the improved bow controls makes some fights fun now, and the tweaks to some encounters are more balanced. It overall feels less cheap and frustrating, but you can tell that the game wasn't originally designed with some of these changes.
Its apparent that there are two directors, with different visions on how the flow of gameplay/combat should be, and I think this game suffers from that. Some bosses changed/removed, Tests of Valor removed, upgrade system is a downgrade, levels don't accommodate fewer enemies, additional chapters with 3 characters that ruin the pace, etc.
There are legitimate aspects of NGS2 that are better and make for a better game. I can see the team behind NGS2 having good reasons to why some changes happened; however there are certainly aspects of NGII that should have been kept.
Neither game truly reaches its full potential, especially Sigma 2. I would say that I enjoyed NGII more for how good the dopamine hits were and how cathartic every encounter ended up; despite NGII being a rather flawed and sometimes very unbalanced game.
I can tell the director of NGII wanted me to suffer and even punish me, but the director of NGS2 wanted the player to enjoy the game more and make it feel more consistent.
NGS2 is still good fun, and worth playing despite the changes.
The biggest issue is the huge reduction of enemies that appear on screen, along with the removal of the gore. NGII is a very bloody and gory game, to the point that it becomes hilarious at how absurd the violence is. NGS2 tones this completely down and censors most blood with green/purple mist and body dismemberment being removed in some cases.
NGS2 improves certain fights by toning down the amount of enemies that NGII had, the improved bow controls makes some fights fun now, and the tweaks to some encounters are more balanced. It overall feels less cheap and frustrating, but you can tell that the game wasn't originally designed with some of these changes.
Its apparent that there are two directors, with different visions on how the flow of gameplay/combat should be, and I think this game suffers from that. Some bosses changed/removed, Tests of Valor removed, upgrade system is a downgrade, levels don't accommodate fewer enemies, additional chapters with 3 characters that ruin the pace, etc.
There are legitimate aspects of NGS2 that are better and make for a better game. I can see the team behind NGS2 having good reasons to why some changes happened; however there are certainly aspects of NGII that should have been kept.
Neither game truly reaches its full potential, especially Sigma 2. I would say that I enjoyed NGII more for how good the dopamine hits were and how cathartic every encounter ended up; despite NGII being a rather flawed and sometimes very unbalanced game.
I can tell the director of NGII wanted me to suffer and even punish me, but the director of NGS2 wanted the player to enjoy the game more and make it feel more consistent.
NGS2 is still good fun, and worth playing despite the changes.