Ninja Gaiden II is a staggering disappointment that fails to live up to the hype in almost every regard.
The story in Ninja Gaiden II makes little sense, but essentially sees lead character Ryu Hyabusa trying to stop The Spider Clan ninjas and their fiend partners from resurrecting the arch fiend and bringing about the end of the world. There is almost no character development, and the plot is paper-thin. It's mostly an excuse to let Ryu travel around the world defeating each of the Greater Fiends. It's not that the story is hard to follow, it's just that it fails so incredibly in making you care about the characters involved. Other than Ryu all the characters are easy throwaways you could find in any action game. The cutscenes using the in game engine aren't as impressive as those in the Xbox game, and the female characters are all so well endowed that they become more of a joke than any real dramatic foil.
The action fares much better. Unlike the useless weapon selection in the first game, almost every weapon is fun and useful in any situation. They all feature an amazingly deep move set that puts similar games to shame. In fact the combat in Ninja Gaiden 2 I closer to a fighting game than an action game, and, when it isn't running at 5 FPS, it is truly is beautiful. Ryu slices or smashes enemies to bits, tearing off arms and legs with massive sprays of blood and guts. But be warned, losing an arm doesn't mean much to a fiend, it only makes him more bloodthirsty. Therefore wounded enemies must be finished using obliteration techniques. These violent and flashy finishers are the visual highlight of the game and add even more strategy to an already deep combat system.
The combat's depth, and the intelligence of the enemies you face means melee combat stays enjoyable from the beginning of the game to the end. The same can't be said about ranged combat which gets old before it even starts. For some reason Team Ninja felt the need to include flying enemies and bosses that can only be killed by Ryu's bow. Now I'm just as big a fan of shooters as anyone, but not of those that don't let me move and shoot at the same time. Note this isn't Resident Evil where you are fighting slow zombies and have plenty of time to aim and then reposition yourself. No, almost all enemies in NG2 have ranged attacks and almost all of those attacks knock you back. One sequence was enough to make me literally scream obscenities at the screen in frustration. In a Moscow themed level Ryu is attacked by hordes of Rocket Launching enemies. Whoever thought putting rockets into a game where you play as a Ninja needs to get shot. Every time Ryu stops moving five rockets hit him and knock him down. By the time he gets back up five more have hit him back down again, eventually leading to a death that not even the most skilled player can get out of. The glory of Ninja Gaiden has always been that a skilled player can easily beat any situation. Such is not the case with the rocket launching enemies, who are beat mostly by luck and trial and error. After all, a duel between a bow and arrow and thirty rocketeers holed up in a fortified building can only be beaten with a healthy helping of pure luck.
If the ranged combat was the only problem with the game I could possibly recommend it to more patient players, but the framerate and glitches just ruin the game for anyone. Unlike the nearly glitch free NG1, this game broke on me several times. Once a boss glitched out of a level forcing me to load a previous save. Another time an enemy spawned behind a wall and I could not move forward until killing it. Again I had to restart. Another time my Ninpo magic refused to fire, and Ryu became stuck in the animation, again forcing a restart. The game also crashed and froze several times throughout my playtime. Finally, at least one level is completely ruined by the framerate. This level, which would have easily been the most impressive had the framerate been steady, moves along at about 15 FPS until one segment in which the game moves like a slideshow for about 20 minutes worth of game. This is especially unacceptable because the game is using an engine built for the Xbox and uses almost no advanced lighting or shading effects.
The game has even more flaws. The pacing of the game is terrible. Unlike the first game, which broke up the combat with the occasional puzzle or platforming segment, Ninja Gaiden II is combat from the first moment until you beat the final boss. As great as the combat is it really gets boring after playing for 20+ hours. A simple puzzle here and there would have really alleviated this. Finally, the game just looks and sounds bad. The voice acting is terrible, the music is uninspired, the levels are largely dull and mundane, and the enemy design is formulaic.
While I may be wailing on this game, it should be noted that NG2 is still tons of fun when things are working. When the framrate is high, and the glitches are absent, NG2 still manages to entertain like no action game since its predecessor. It's combat is also simply the deepest in any action game bar none. The animation is also top notch, and at times the game runs so blisteringly fast you can barely keep up. It's just a shame that the game eventually collapses under its own ambition, disappointing in almost every regard.
Many may wonder about the difficulty in NG2. I would say that this game is more aggravating than the first game but no harder. If you couldn't beat the first game you wont have any more luck this time around, but Master Ninjas should have no issues finishing off the game without getting the 100 continues achievement.
An average player should have no problem beating this game in under 20 hours, and while that may seem like a long time for an action game, so few players will reach the end credits that it really doesn't matter. If they aren't discouraged by the plethora of bugs or crappy framerate they will surrender to the game's incredibly cheap and frustrating difficulty.
Because of those reasons Ninja Gaiden II is a staggering disappointment that drops a bomb of Devil May Cry 2 proportions. Not since that game has a series gone from so great to so bad in just one iteration. Hopefully Ninja Gaiden will continue to follow the pattern and the third game will be by far the best in the series. Here's to hope.