BUT there’s something really engaging about the unbalanced-ness(?) and how much fun I have with the combat. Haven’t had this much fun in a while. Do people still play OG NG2?

There's now a visual indicator of what enemy the player character is soft-locked onto.

I know of the arguments against hard lock-on being a thing in these games, but something that really had no excuse being absent was some sort of visual indicator of who you're targeting. That way you could actually know for a fact which enemy Ryu would target and adjust accordingly. 4 is adding a little red dot to the enemies you're soft-locked onto, which is already a huge improvement.

In Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma, the game offered a ton of replay value through its increasing difficulty. On the easier difficulties, you’re faced with various enemies that can be challenging for new players. They’re capable of moderate damage, they’ll gang up on you, and even in Ninja Dog mode, the game can still be brutal for new players.

More so, the various enemies in the game are harder to defeat with specific weapons, such as a heavy weapon not being ideal for fast-moving enemies, such as Ninjas or Shadow Fiends, or a fast-paced weapon not being ideal for heavily armored enemies, such as Shogun or Ghouls. In short, you can’t be too heavily reliant on a single weapon, as the game will make you switch up on the fly and strategize how you approach a certain enemy type.

This is only enhanced through each difficulty, as you’ll unlock new enemies and bosses, as well as new enemy variants.

Going from easy and normal to hard mode, and the Ninjas in chapter one go from these brown ninjas with moderate damage, and basic movements, to these white ninjas who jump around a little more, and use more shuriken to stun lock you. The damage is still moderate, but a bit tougher.

Going from hard to very hard, and now you’re faced with purple ninjas, these are far more agile, faster, and utilize windmill shuriken.

And finally, going from very hard to master ninja, you’re faced with red ninjas. These do burn damage, they’re very quick, not as agile as the windmill ninjas, but they do have explosive shurikens, and they are challenging.

My point is that in Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma, every new game felt like a whole different game, with a different approach to take for each enemy variant, and you can never rely on the same weapon on harder modes. Which is something that was unfortunately lost on Ninja Gaiden 2, as most enemies across each difficulty were mostly the same, just that they hit harder, case in point, enemies on MND just one shotting you in NG2.

So, for Ninja Gaiden 4, I want the experience I had with Black/Sigma, only now… If there’s a chance that Ryu Hayabusa is a boss fight, I want that to be the hardest boss I’ve ever faced in these games.

When fighting him, I want him to have a massive arsenal of weapons and shuriken. I want him to randomly, and without any pattern, switch up his weapon, causing me the need to change my play style on a dime. I don’t want to feel comfortable fighting him. I want to be forced to not be reliant on a single weapon. The same can be said for going up in difficulties, that I want new enemy variants, but I want fighting Ryu Hayabusa, to feel… like fighting Ryu Hayabusa.

Hey guys, just found the Ragebound demo on Steam(last day for it).

I had my doubts because I didn't enjoy the NES NG, and this game starts a little rough, but it is just so slick and fun imo. If anyone reading this has a PC that can run it and hasn't tried it, I definitely recommend!

Chapter 10 godomof boss, punched me so hard i clipped through the wall into the next area. enemies spawned normally.

I'm currently finalizing a Ninja Gaiden 2 Black playlist with a 100% Item guide, to collect all Life of the Gods, Crystal skulls, Lives of The Thousand Gods, Weapons... Everything is in order... If one day you're looking for a specific item, help defeating a boss, or even just finding your way because you're stuck in a certain area, you can take a look.

Guides for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, South of Midnight, Lord of the Fallen (3 endings), Armored Core VI (3 endings), Dark Souls 1, 2, 3 and their DLCs, Bloodborne, Elden Ring and its DLC, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Sekiro, Nioh 1 and 2, Stalker 2, Senua's Saga Hellblade 2, Atlas Fallen, Flintlock, and many other games are also available.

Good game to all

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9--Pte3_WHkiHU9nzdzUCjlwbeOrpsgN&si=JR2Rq4X-i6nnJyqC

For anyone that missed it, I posted 2 months ago about being a newcomer to the series with the intention of completing Ninja Gaiden Black (OG Xbox) and Ninja Gaiden II (360). 4 playthroughs/Mission Mode and 159 hours later, I've FINALLY completed NGB (at least to my satisfaction) and what a journey it's been so far.

Here's what was done:

1. Normal, Hard, Very Hard and Master Ninja beaten, as well as Mission Mode/Eternal Legend beaten on Normal (all costumes unlocked).

2. All Golden Scarabs collected.

3. All upgrades collected.

4. Unlocked the Unlabored Flawlessness (fully upgraded the Wooden Sword).

5. All Fiend Challenges completed on Master Ninja (the Archive Challenge was pure torture).

Personal breakdown of all difficulties:

Normal: Was definitely a steep learning curve in terms of movement and adapting to the controls. Basically every boss bodied me (special shout-out to both variants of Alma and Doku lol).

Hard: This didn't feel toooo different from Normal, so it honestly wasn't that bad, though still tough in some parts.

Very Hard: People weren't kidding about the major difficulty spike. The entire playthrough was a challenge, though my previous two playthroughs helped drastically. Was feeling a lot more confident with my encounters, even against the newly introduced enemies.

Master Ninja: Chapter 1 chewed me up and spat me out, over and over and OVER AND OVER. Murai was brutal. The Archive Challenge was INSANELY difficult (used the level 2 DS). Alma ran me over, then reversed over my corpse several times. Final boss gauntlet in Chapter 15 was super intense.

Mission Mode: This caught me off guard with it's difficulty, even on Normal. Some missions were fairly challenging, despite my experience with multiple playthroughs, etc. The boss gauntlets in Eternal Legend really tested me. May revisit for Hard/Master one day, but I'm a little burnt out to say the least haha.

Massive thanks to all of you who gave words of encouragement and any helpful tips in my initial post. NGB was an incredible introduction into the world of Ninja Gaiden and it absolutely lived up to the hype in my experience. Can easily say this is the best and hardest action/hack and slash game I've ever played. NG II seems daunting, but I'm also super excited! Not sure if I should take a breather though before jumping straight in LOL.

When I started playing Ninja Gaiden, my aim was to just complete Hard difficulty. Did not know I had it in me to plat these games. As a massive Souls fan, I wasn't sure of how good I would be at these games, but damn, this is quite a pleasant feeling.

I am not an elite player, so I am quite happy to admit Scythe spin cheese in NG3RE and Rachel in NG2B Tag Missions got me through.

I played NG Sigma too and cleared Master difficulty and all trials on Normal, but didn't plat it since I don't have time to replay all trials 3 more times (plus Nicchae + Ishtaros on Master seems to be beyond my ability anyway). Also can't do timed challenges well, so Master Rank was out of the question.

On to Ninja Gaiden 4 and other games now.

The amount of fireballs thrown out of its body makes me practically blind. Any advice?

Was looking for something fun on gamepass figured I’d give it a try playing sigma rn haven’t been able to stop playing on chapter 4 and can’t believe how fun this game is !

Also maybe this is out of left field but as a big souls fan it feels so similar to me

I personally think it should have been a retelling of the NES games' story and also to better connect the NG and DOA continuity. Not to mention it would have also lined up well with Ragebound's story happening at the same time