#30 - Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden on the NES was something else back in the day as it was the first to use cinematic cutscenes... well, sort of, but besides this innovation in storytelling, the story itself was your typical "save the world" kind of deal and that's it. Still, it was an impressive feat for its day - certainly more impressive than its cheap *bleep*ing bullshit difficulty (Stage 6-2 in the first NES game made me want to kill everyone at Tecmo for how broken it was). But after the travesty that was the third game, it went into hibernation for a few generations... until the sixth generation, when a company by the name of Team Ninja decided "you know, let's branch out into hack and slash games" (as they had made a couple of Dead Or Alive games beforehand). Their first foray into hack and slash...

...was *bleep*ing awesome! I mean it's hard as tits like the NES games, but it utilizes the Xbox's technology to make it a bit fairer - stuff like AI and 3D battlefields helped to flesh things out the NES couldn't do, and due to all of this, I actually found myself having a damn good time regardless of whether I'm *bleep* mother*bleep*ers with my Dragon Sword or getting my ass kicked. Also due to the Xbox's more advanced technology, you can equip multiple weapons (short and long ranged weapons) and have multiple special attacks, meaning if your Dragon Sword isn't good enough, eh, maybe one of your other weapons can do something better? If anything is wrong with this game, it's the *bleep*ing camera that *bleep*s me off - seriously, the right trigger is the only camera control I have? *bleep* off! But surprisingly... I can overlook it and enjoy myself. Weird how things work, huh? But yeah, everything in this game works pretty damn well for an enjoyable time, even if it kicks your ass.

Can't say the sequels did it any better. Ninja Gaiden 2 was fun, but way too cheap. Ninja Gaiden 3 was watered down to focus more on the story and OH GOD QUICK TIME EVENT, making it feel more like the sequel to Ninja Blade than Ninja Gaiden.

Summary - You're a badass ninja. I don't think there's anything else to say... except it's hard as tits, but only to a point that pisses you off enough to make you keep going.
Score - 8/10

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