Ninja Gaiden II Needs to Level Up the Camera Work

The team that brought you one of the more difficult games of all time (according to some) has come back for another round. According to one review Ninja Gaiden II serves up what looks to be an amazing addition to the franchise, at least what you can see of it through the very counter-intuitive camera work. "The hybrid aesthetic - high-tech Technicolor Japan mixed with muted feudalist Japan - might sound dissonant but looks sharply coherent. In fact, in the hands of a skilled player NGII looks nothing less than exhilarating, and occasionally surpasses any martial arts movie you might care to name. And this is why the camera is such a surprisingly big issue. This isn't a problem with it getting caught on a corner occasionally, nor the odd confusing switch of perspective. It is a constant problem: obscuring foes, breaking up combos, losing track of Ryu, and flicking back and forth between positions."

Comments

xbox only

[whtmarker]

It is an XBox 360 game only, so we can only expect it to be 'full featured' and on par with what consumers 'really want'.

In other news, the Wii is about to outsell the xbox, while the xbox360 has been available for twice the time.

thats what I was expecting

[Nyall]

In the previous one whenever you go through a door, once on the other side the camera is no longer behind you. The camera now faces you with the door behind you. Really wonderful if you enter a room full of enemies that you can't see.

Crap like that makes me want to kill a kitten. (new favorite catch phrase)

Re:thats what I was expecting

[Zelos]

Crap like that makes me want to kill a kitten.
Not sure that means what you think it means: definition. Unless camera angles turn you on ;-)

Re:Sounds like

[Pendersempai]

Actually the final boss is comparatively easy, especially if you've saved up some magic bottles. Spamming Ninpo (fire on the first form, lightning on the second) pretty much does it.

The toughest enemy in the game is, oddly enough, tiny little ghostly fish that swim around in mid-air in between serious battles. They are pure evil.

Stop Polluting the Namespace!

[celest]

This is Ninja Gaiden II!

Yeesh. Didn't we learn our lesson over decade ago?

Re:Stop Polluting the Namespace!

[elrous0]

The only lesson that we've learned over the years is that the Japanese can't count worth a fuck.

Re:Sounds like

[bigstrat2003]

Most games nowadays baby everyone. Old-school games were nigh-unbeatable. We have a term for this. It's called "being a fun game", as opposed to "a clusterfuck of difficulty which is there just so that a chosen few can stroke their e-peens". The punishing difficulty of the old days is gone for a very good reason, and good riddance to it. Challenge is fine, but too many games back in the day (and Ninja Gaiden is another example today) cross the line into frustration. That's bad.