Let's talk about character action games. While not the most niche of genres, they never reached a mainstream audience until perhaps the release of Devil May Cry 5. However, these types of games always found their audience, with each different one bringing something to the table. Whenever character action games are a subject of discussion, the so called "Big 3" of the genre (DMC, Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden) will always end up being mentioned one way or another. Today, I wanted to share my take on the Sigma version of the original Ninja Gaiden.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma is, in a lot of ways, a product of it's time, a time when game design philosophy prioritized a fun experience, a time when the devs thought of the player as a person capable of performing complex actions and didn't need their hand held to reach the finish line.
While this is in a lot of ways a positive, it can also sometimes reflect negatively on the outdated design.
To put it bluntly, Ninja Gaiden is a hard game, and many times it threads the fine line between challenging and unfair.
To elaborate a bit on that thought, I'd like to present my biggest complaint when playing the game: The punish windows on some of the enemies and the outdated (and sometimes unfair) boss mechanics.
Frankly, the punish windows on some bosses straight up feel random. For example, when fighting Gamov, he has a very clear window to be attacked at the end of his combo. On the other hand, bosses like Spirit Doku and Awakened Alma have very strict windows where they can be attacked, almost frame perfect, making it seem like it has a random nature to it when it looks like you clearly punished the attack of the boss, just for you sword to bounce off them as the block VFX plays.
About the enemy design...Well, while most of them are fine, some just look downright goofy and out of place in the game, like the Red Dinosaur Fiends or the Catgirl Fiends.
As for enemy mechanics, most of them have a varied moveset with clear counters and tells, except for one common thing that most enemies share and that I've seen quite a few people complain about in this game: the grabs.
Since this game has more of an emphasis on good positioning and decision-making, a lot of Ryu's moves have different recovery frames, which makes some options like Flying Swallow very unsafe if not correctly performed. And by virtue of that more tactical combat, there comes the problem with grabs.
A lot of the aforementioned grabs are really fast, some of them pretty much unreactable, and can catch Ryu during any animation of his that has no Invincibility Frames, making it so the player takes a punish that most of the times they couldn't avoid, either because they were animation locked, or in recovery from an animation. Hell, some enemies can even armor through Ryu's combos to grab him, which while I understand comes as a warning to not spam attacks, due to the animation lock I mentioned before, it just feels like an unfair punish (and don't even get me started on the fucking Ghost Fish, contender for Worst Enemy in Gaming History right there).
While the combat does have these minor issues of animation locking and not having animation cancel for dodging, it's hardly ever a problem when the player starts to get familiar with the moveset of the enemies and his own, understanding what attacks have I-frames, what attacks have too much recovery, and what attacks can easily be cancelled into a block.
This formula coupled with the usually good enemy design makes for fun and engaging combat, with just the right touch of challenge, and with plenty of room for the players most familiar with the game to perform stylish and crazy combos, making Ryu look like a superhero at times.
However, there is one thing greatly holding back the combat in this game: the camera.
While not an issue most of the time, whenever it shows it's problems, it really shows them.
While the player has minimum control of the camera, it's turn speed is sluggish, making it a chore to control during combat. If it weren't for the button that centers the camera on whatever direction Ryu is looking at, it would doom the combat.
You can especially see this problem on some of the faster enemies, that require the player to constantly chase them as they evade.
A bit smaller gripe I have with the combat mechanics, is the lack of a hard lock-on.
While not as big a problem as the camera and a lot less common, it becomes a nuisance when it happens.
To explain further, this game has a soft lock on system, which means that Ryu's attacks will go towards the enemy in the general direction the player is poiting their attack towards, and it mostly works, but sometimes I saw my character attacking a completely different enemy than the one I wanted to target, which did bring me some frustration during the playthrough.
These are the few things holding back the combat of this game from being truly amazing, but I chalked it up mostly to the limitations of it's time and hardware.
Moving on to the story, there's not much to say about it. It's a pretty subpar story about searching for the MacGuffin the evil bad guys plan on using to dominate the world. As for the characters, well... Calling them "shallow" at most would be saying too much. Most of them only exist to give plot exposition, and barely interact with Ryu at all. This is especially noticeable on the game's main love interest, Rachel, who has the personality of a dried up newspaper left at the front porch for a week during summertime. Hell, even Ryu himself seems not to care about the characters, which could sometimes be interpreted as funny, due to how overly serious Ryu is about his mission, showing no interest in anything or anyone besides it.
As for graphics, I think Sigma did a good job of fixing the original's aesthethic, which had those "2000's game" aesthetic where the color palette is made only of browns and grays. This version of the game adds some much needed color and graphical improvements, which are not bad on the eye at all, considering just how old it is.
As for the world design, it feels pretty generic. Tairon doesn't really stand-out as far as videogame locations go, and besides a couple of outliers like the entrance to the Vigoorian Palace or the Monastery, most locations are really generic.
As for level design, it's decent for it's time I guess. The game has a semi-open world structure, with every few chapters the player returning to Tairon to backtrack in search of a door he can open with whatever new key he obtained at that moment. While the level design isn't anything to write home about, it doesn't distract from the game by being bad, so decent is really the word to describe, since it's after all just a stage for the action, and not a main selling point of the game.
The soundtrack also isn't anything to give a standing ovation for, but it complements whatever mood the game is currently going for at the moment (especially the combat tracks), and that's about enough to be considered good.
As for closing thoughts, I have some mixed feelings about the game. Sure I enjoyed it, and sure I had some fun with it, but I felt like the things that hold it back, truly hold it back from being a legendary piece of media to be remembered throughout the ages. While it is for sure an anchor of the character action genre and a memorable game, I think it would really benefit from a remake that fixes some of the gaps in the design, so the game can finally realize it's potential and take a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma is, in a lot of ways, a product of it's time, a time when game design philosophy prioritized a fun experience, a time when the devs thought of the player as a person capable of performing complex actions and didn't need their hand held to reach the finish line.
While this is in a lot of ways a positive, it can also sometimes reflect negatively on the outdated design.
To put it bluntly, Ninja Gaiden is a hard game, and many times it threads the fine line between challenging and unfair.
To elaborate a bit on that thought, I'd like to present my biggest complaint when playing the game: The punish windows on some of the enemies and the outdated (and sometimes unfair) boss mechanics.
Frankly, the punish windows on some bosses straight up feel random. For example, when fighting Gamov, he has a very clear window to be attacked at the end of his combo. On the other hand, bosses like Spirit Doku and Awakened Alma have very strict windows where they can be attacked, almost frame perfect, making it seem like it has a random nature to it when it looks like you clearly punished the attack of the boss, just for you sword to bounce off them as the block VFX plays.
About the enemy design...Well, while most of them are fine, some just look downright goofy and out of place in the game, like the Red Dinosaur Fiends or the Catgirl Fiends.
As for enemy mechanics, most of them have a varied moveset with clear counters and tells, except for one common thing that most enemies share and that I've seen quite a few people complain about in this game: the grabs.
Since this game has more of an emphasis on good positioning and decision-making, a lot of Ryu's moves have different recovery frames, which makes some options like Flying Swallow very unsafe if not correctly performed. And by virtue of that more tactical combat, there comes the problem with grabs.
A lot of the aforementioned grabs are really fast, some of them pretty much unreactable, and can catch Ryu during any animation of his that has no Invincibility Frames, making it so the player takes a punish that most of the times they couldn't avoid, either because they were animation locked, or in recovery from an animation. Hell, some enemies can even armor through Ryu's combos to grab him, which while I understand comes as a warning to not spam attacks, due to the animation lock I mentioned before, it just feels like an unfair punish (and don't even get me started on the fucking Ghost Fish, contender for Worst Enemy in Gaming History right there).
While the combat does have these minor issues of animation locking and not having animation cancel for dodging, it's hardly ever a problem when the player starts to get familiar with the moveset of the enemies and his own, understanding what attacks have I-frames, what attacks have too much recovery, and what attacks can easily be cancelled into a block.
This formula coupled with the usually good enemy design makes for fun and engaging combat, with just the right touch of challenge, and with plenty of room for the players most familiar with the game to perform stylish and crazy combos, making Ryu look like a superhero at times.
However, there is one thing greatly holding back the combat in this game: the camera.
While not an issue most of the time, whenever it shows it's problems, it really shows them.
While the player has minimum control of the camera, it's turn speed is sluggish, making it a chore to control during combat. If it weren't for the button that centers the camera on whatever direction Ryu is looking at, it would doom the combat.
You can especially see this problem on some of the faster enemies, that require the player to constantly chase them as they evade.
A bit smaller gripe I have with the combat mechanics, is the lack of a hard lock-on.
While not as big a problem as the camera and a lot less common, it becomes a nuisance when it happens.
To explain further, this game has a soft lock on system, which means that Ryu's attacks will go towards the enemy in the general direction the player is poiting their attack towards, and it mostly works, but sometimes I saw my character attacking a completely different enemy than the one I wanted to target, which did bring me some frustration during the playthrough.
These are the few things holding back the combat of this game from being truly amazing, but I chalked it up mostly to the limitations of it's time and hardware.
Moving on to the story, there's not much to say about it. It's a pretty subpar story about searching for the MacGuffin the evil bad guys plan on using to dominate the world. As for the characters, well... Calling them "shallow" at most would be saying too much. Most of them only exist to give plot exposition, and barely interact with Ryu at all. This is especially noticeable on the game's main love interest, Rachel, who has the personality of a dried up newspaper left at the front porch for a week during summertime. Hell, even Ryu himself seems not to care about the characters, which could sometimes be interpreted as funny, due to how overly serious Ryu is about his mission, showing no interest in anything or anyone besides it.
As for graphics, I think Sigma did a good job of fixing the original's aesthethic, which had those "2000's game" aesthetic where the color palette is made only of browns and grays. This version of the game adds some much needed color and graphical improvements, which are not bad on the eye at all, considering just how old it is.
As for the world design, it feels pretty generic. Tairon doesn't really stand-out as far as videogame locations go, and besides a couple of outliers like the entrance to the Vigoorian Palace or the Monastery, most locations are really generic.
As for level design, it's decent for it's time I guess. The game has a semi-open world structure, with every few chapters the player returning to Tairon to backtrack in search of a door he can open with whatever new key he obtained at that moment. While the level design isn't anything to write home about, it doesn't distract from the game by being bad, so decent is really the word to describe, since it's after all just a stage for the action, and not a main selling point of the game.
The soundtrack also isn't anything to give a standing ovation for, but it complements whatever mood the game is currently going for at the moment (especially the combat tracks), and that's about enough to be considered good.
As for closing thoughts, I have some mixed feelings about the game. Sure I enjoyed it, and sure I had some fun with it, but I felt like the things that hold it back, truly hold it back from being a legendary piece of media to be remembered throughout the ages. While it is for sure an anchor of the character action genre and a memorable game, I think it would really benefit from a remake that fixes some of the gaps in the design, so the game can finally realize it's potential and take a spot in the Hall of Fame.