Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword Hands-On Update

We've been big fans of Tecmo's upcoming Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword since Team Ninja mastermind Tomonobu Itagaki unveiled the pint-sized action game last year. The game packs impressive visuals and an innovative control scheme into Nintendo's dual-screen handheld. With Dragon Sword's March release coming up, Itagaki-san stopped by our offices to give us some hands-on time with three levels of the game and direct feed of a fourth level, which shows off how creative Team Ninja is getting with the promising game.

The levels we were able to get hands-on time with comprise the first three levels of the game and include the tutorial on the game's slick stylus-driven control scheme. The game's opening finds ninja poster boy Ryu Hayabusa training his protégé Momiji (yes, bit of an odd name but considering she can stab a man dead in two blows we won't dwell) in front of a waterfall. The short sequence serves as a primer for the game's simple control screen.

Once you've gotten a feel for getting around by moving the stylus, the game's story kicks in and you play a chunk of the level as Momiji. The lithe ninja in training handles pretty much like her mentor Ryu, sans ninpo magic, and acquits herself quite well as she makes her way through the forest locale, shanking enemies in search of an unnamed evil. Unfortunately, when she finds said evil, she probably wishes it would have stayed unnamed as she gets smacked down and kidnapped, which is a nifty segue to controlling Ryu who's distressed his star pupil got nabbed. The next two levels, one of which is based in part on the TGS demo we played, find Ryu working his way through different areas and interacting with an array of foes, as well as the residents in Hayabusa Village.

The game sticks closely to the structure we saw in our last few looks at the game. The different areas you'll go through are broken up into screen-sized chunks that you'll progress through by defeating enemies or solving puzzles. The first three levels we tried were basic and had a nice feel of progression in terms of difficulty. The game just threw a few handfuls of enemies at us at varying heights early on, as well as archers stationed on cliffs we couldn't attack that forced us to mix melee and shuriken attacks. The levels we tried had a mix of bosses, flying dragons, and ground-based bone-dragon critters. One interesting wrinkle to the proceedings came at the end of our hands-on portion of the game. We were exploring the village and instructed to find someone whom we found to be napping. After a bit of trial and error, we found that he needed to be literally spoken to via the DS mic to be woken up, which was a cool little twist.

The fourth level we saw was demoed for us and set in Egyptian-themed ruin that offered a more complex challenge by virtue of being further into the game. The basic action of the earlier levels was ramped up and the environment itself provided the challenge, courtesy of moving spikes. The enemies also offered a greater challenge. Thankfully, Ryu was tricked out with a wider array of ninpo magic, such as a lightning attack, as well as some wickedly powered-up physical attacks and extra weapons.

The action we saw demoed and played ourselves worked very well with the stylus control system. In many ways, it feels like the next step up from the Phantom Hourglass system, thanks to its faster pace. The game handles as well as it did the last time we played it, although we noticed Ryu's jump has changed to an upward swipe on the touch screen, which seems to feel better in the middle of all the action.

As far as the overall presentation goes, the game continues to impress us with what it's doing on the DS. The high level of detail, bright color palette, and smooth frame rate for the in-game graphics all make a very positive visual impression. The cutscene stills also stand out, thanks to a clean art style that blends a bit of anime and traditional comic art. Finally, the game's audio is robust with sound effects, music, and some sound samples all ringing out clearly during the action.

So far, Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword appears to be living up to its promising debut. The game looks great and has some very cool gameplay. We're pleased to see Team Ninja flexing its creative 2D muscles and turning out some cool, inventive stuff. If you've mastered Phantom Hourglass and are ready to graduate to some more intense stylus-driven gameplay, you will want to check out Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword when it ships for the DS this March.