RIP Tomonobu Itagaki

[Tron 2.0]

Person behind DOA and Ninja Gaiden 2004 has passed away.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/legend...-2004-has-died

[Spartacus]

The man sure seemed to have a thing for jiggly physics. I don't care for fighting games, so the most memorable experience I have with Dead or Alive is searching through countless copies of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball for the Xbox to collect all 6 special promotional lenticular cards that was included with some copies of the game. A rare and sought-after item for collectors.
I found the 2004 Ninja Gaiden too difficult and as a result, stayed away from to series . It wasn't until Ninja Gaiden Ragebound for me to get interested Ninja Gaiden again. But since then I've played and enjoyed all of the Souls games, which are notoriously difficult as well, so maybe I should give Team Ninja's Ninja Gaiden another chance. Frankly, we currently seemed to be inundated with Ninja games.
Well, rest in peace San Itagaki! I wonder if they buried him with his sunglasses on.

[kupomogli]

The letter he left to provide to his fans was pretty nice. Not a huge fan of his games as I like the games but not a huge fan, but then again I do like the DOA series more than most fighting games because it's a great series that is also simple to play, very similar in desig to the Virtua Fighter games which is where he got the inspiration from. I actually didn't like Virtua Fighter 2 or Fighting Vipers while I did like DOA2 and later, and when playing Virtua Fighter 4 the additions to the game made it far better than earlier the earlier games, so maybe Sega took some inspiration from Itagaki afterwards? Itagaki wasn't part of DOA5 but Jackie, Sarah, and Akira are all in the game and feel like their Virtua Fighter 4 counterparts.

@Spartacus

I think you'll like Ninja Gaiden 2. The first Ninja Gaiden is also level based, but it's got an explorable world that is much more like DMC3 in a way. Ninja Gaiden 2 is more linear and I feel like this is a better design for this game.

Based on an interview from Itagaki, he wanted the enemies to be more relentless, he felt like the AI to a lot of these games like DMC, etc were dumb, so enemy AI while come at you on Ninja Gaiden, but they don't take turns, they'll just constantly attack, throw stuff at you, circle around to get a better position on you, and on the second game if you delimb enemies you can then execute them for invincibility frames, but if you're not paying attention they'll drag themselves to you and if they grab you they'll do a desperation attack to take massive damage.

You could always pick up the PS4 version of the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection, import at Play Asia for $45, or the games themselves may be backwards compatible with the Xbox Series X or Xbox One. Should fix the framerate issues on Ninja Gaiden 2 for the 360. The two games are different, the PS3 version reduces the amount of enemies but increases the damage, on master ninja you will die in a single hit if you're grabbed, while the 360 version has many more enemies at once but they are easier to cut limbs and execute. The core game is the same but they play different. I'd recommend watching this review from The Electric Underground or atleast listen to it, it's a pretty long review. This is one of the few Youtube reviewers that isn't a complete shill when new games release(check out his Ninja Gaiden 4 review for example, the one that everyone else praises.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEsbgi-G-0Q

[Spartacus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEsbgi-G-0Q
Thanks for the link. Ninja Gaiden 2 seems to have a large group of fans who consider it one of the greatest action games of all time. It's good to know that Ninja Gaidens 1-3 are backwards compatible with the Xbox X. I say that because it appears Sony has censored content on it's versions of the series. Blood and gore is replaced with purple smoke, removed decapitations, censored dismemberments? I love PlayStation, but God sometimes Sony makes me hang my head in shame!
I found a link explaining various versions of the series and was astonished to find how many there are:
https://stinger-magazine.com/side-st...inja-gaiden-ii
I'm currently between a rock and a hard spot with the Xbox X as I only own a limited edition Halo console I am loath to open. Microsoft recently jacked up the price of the Xbox X console exorbitantly, in my opinion, and now getting my hands on console to play with is a financially painful process. I'm not even informed enough about the consoles reliability to consider a used one. Still, it seems to be the purest way I should tackle the series. Perhaps from Tomonobu Itagaki's standpoint anyway.
Anyway, I took your advise and purchased the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection which was cheapest at Play Asia, but not in stock. My experience with placing orders for not in stock items at Play Asia has been disappointing, so I paid more on eBay for immediate delivery. Did purchase Ninja Gaiden 2 Black from Play Asia though, as it was in stock and the lowest price. I am perplexed as to why both games only saw an Asian release. Perhaps it was thought that the west would be bored with yet another version on Ninja Gaiden?
These last two copies will mean that I own every version of Ninja Gaidens 1-3 on every console possible including the DS and Vita. Whether or not I like playing the games or not is still up in the air, but the collector in me is quite pleased with this fact.
During this entire Tomonobu Itagaki's Ninja Gaiden learning experience I also found out the he had also directed Devil's Third, one of the few Wii-U console exclusives I own. I remember paying $100 for that game new on eBay and wondering if I was took. Looking at prices for the game today, I think not.
One last note: in watching the video you linked I watched in astonishment at the number of times the player gets mobbed. Not saying Ninja Gaiden is Musou, but wondered if that aspect of the action difficulty would be more than I would enjoy. And speaking of Musou, I just discovered that Sony had censored Warriors Orochi 4 as well, forcing me to purchase a Switch edition just today. Damn you Sony! It's not even Black Friday yet and I'm already starting to go broke!

[kupomogli]

So Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is basically Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 which is included on Ninja Gaiden Master Collection. The graphics and the blood are probably the biggest differences but it's still the PS3 version of the game instead of the Xbox version.

Now I myself like the PS3 version of the game because while there are less enemies on screen they take significantly more damage and have more HP than the enemies on the 360. But aside from the amount of enemies, I don't really agree with the reasons people dislike Ninja Gaiden Sigma 1 or 2. Sigma 1 has you play as Rachel and she is less enjoyable than playing as Ryu, but it only slightly ruins the games pacing. Sigma 2 has you play as the other three ninja in sort of remastered levels that you've already played previously, and in all cases you only get to use one weapon and one ranged weapon so if you don't like those weapons then yeah it's not as good, as in the case of Ryu's weapons they don't have as much available that you can do. They don't ruin the game though.

Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge is the same on both Xbox 360 and PS3, so the master edition version of the game you're getting the same game. This one was made after Itagaki left and it's not a worse game because he had nothing to do with it, it's a worse game because it's got a lot of bad design.

I'd like to say though that while I like Ninja Gaiden 2, I wouldn't say I like it as much as The Electric Underground and I certainly don't think it's worth buying an Xbox Series X just to play it, but if you do play it on XSX it fixes up all the framerate issues(and I'm not sure if I'm getting correct information but Google AI is saying 120fps.) If you have an Xbox One or can get an Xbox One for cheap it should run 60fps on that console.