Gameitall The Ninja Gaiden games have been known to be soul crushing difficult and pretty much nothing else. The tradition started back on the NES, arguably one of the best games on the platform, it had 2 awesome sequels until it was relaunched for the original Xbox. Ninja Gaiden was a success with both fans of the series and critics alike, porting over to the PS3 with Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and following up with a even more difficult, and extra bloody sequel which added dismemberment into the mix of hacking and slashing.
Why the lecture about the series, it’s simple, if you had the patience to even make it the end of any of the Ninja Gaiden games, you were the man, you had the patience do anything…
However that is not the case with Ninja Gaiden 3.
Unlike it’s previous versions, Ninja Gaiden 3 is more focused on the story this time around, not saying the other ones didn’t have a good story, it was just on the back burner to the gameplay. Anyways the story is focused on Ryu Hayabusa travelling to London in response to a Terrorist attack, after a fight with the leader, Ryu is cursed with “The Grip of Murder” which the souls of everyone that he had killed rotting his arm from the inside and deteriorating the Dragon Sword into his body.
The main theme seems to be about the difference between a Murderer and a Hero, yet Ryu never seemed to worry about it until the last levels of the game, the theme seems to be lost throughout the game.
Ninja Gaiden 3 has several difficulty modes, one that would beneficial to those who never played an action game, something Team Ninja wanted to do to get more people into the series. However trying to grab new fans has made the game so easy that a monkey could beat it. In previous Ninja Gaiden, you needed to know your combos to defeat all your opponents, this one you can tap light attack 5 times and let Ryu cut them all up.
To put it simply, by the time Ninja Gaiden 3 starts to feel like a Ninja Gaiden game, your already 3/4 through the game. Sure the basic combos are there, but the game feels like such a departure from the series that it will turn away long time fans. With the addition of Quick Time Events for EVERYTHING you do, it just feels like the game dropped the ball.
There are some good things I can say about the combat, specifically the new feature of the blade on bone. Getting rid of the dismemberment may have been something that most would say is a bad idea, but the replacement of having your blade slowly rip though flesh is a cool experience, with the extra quick kill moves of sneaking up on your opponents or preforming the upgraded falcon dive.
The boss battles start to become really awesome after second level, fighting more insane enemies like Chimera’s, giant Spider gods, even a T-Rex. There are some “Holy S**t” moments that makes you forget how lackluster the game actually is, however it does seem by the end of it that they’re all the same, jump here, dodge this and glide down in front of this helicopter and slice it half for the 7th time in a row.
This brings me up to the Multiplayer, which is not bad surprisingly, taking everything you learn off the main gameplay and adding in some customization to your ninjas, you can do contract kills to level up your characters more, which includes everything from doing a falcon dive kill, stunning with knives, bow and arrow kills, to a invisible sneak kill. It’s a fun system, but after 30 minutes you’ve pretty much experienced everything your going to get out of the multiplayer.
Ninja Gaiden 3 isn’t the sequel we hoped for, the formula has been changed so drastically. I find it difficult even to recommend to even long term fans of the series, it’s not an amazing game, it’s not a good game, it’s just “okay.”
Ninja Gaiden 3 – 4 out of 10
Pros – Great boss battles, Steel to Bone mechanic is disturbingly fun, decent multiplayer
Cons – Lackluster story, Too Easy, Repetitive and short, Over use of Quick Time Events.
