QCF: Ninja Gaiden 3

In the madness of the Shibuya skyline, a towering colossus wreaks havoc in the metropolis all around her, and one man dares to face her on a rooftop’s edge. Enter Team Ninja’s newest chapter to their action franchise, Ninja Gaiden 3. Team Ninja had quite a bit of pressure applied with the absence of Tomonobu Itagaki, the man who has helmed the director chair on every major game within the series, has left the dubious position with the mastermind behind the Sigma remakes, Yosuke Hayashi. So what we have here is a bigger departure in the design than one would expect, but has it done any harm to the franchise? Well…

Where to start? The presentation has definitely improved in subtle ways that still retain the charm of being pulpy. The characterization for the tenured Ryu Hyabusa portrays a different focus, one that fleshes out all of his colder traits in being a merciless killer and still holding on to his humanity. This shift of narrative is pretty refreshing and has moved away from the shallow filler approach previous entries have taken and it’s all thanks in part to Masato Kato (the man behind the stories for the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy on the NES), who handled the writing four our present day Ninja Gaiden 3. The action, though, is the meat of the franchise; it’s noticeably moved forward from its more traditional design, and it’s a mixed mess of failure and success.

The combat was promised to retain the depth the franchise it has been praised, but tweaked to be accessible to any action fan who was turned off by the difficulty and skill its mechanics demand. While the effort is admirable, it simply pans out into a Ninja Gaiden/Dynasty Warrior hybrid…this is not a good thing. There’s a philosophy to the tension you feel from Ninja Gaiden’s combat. One that trains you to analyze the closed quarters of your current setting (and where you’ll see yourself evading), which leads you to assess the enemies you’re facing as quickly as possible to avoid those all too few fatal swipes against your surprisingly fragile health meter; alternating between weapons and projectile weapons between again, the type of mob you’re facing and stage setting you’re in is all taken accounted with an item management mechanic on top of your recovery items for health and Ninpo magic. This is all needlessly thrown away.

Ninja Gaiden 3 retains very basic combos with very little emphasis, and virtually no identity even (a bland list of button combinations within a very lazy list will await you for your efforts). Other than the Izuna Drop or Crane flip, the fighting is mostly button mashing with very little complexity, it creates accessibility through hindrance, and ultimately breaking the formula. The fluidity is slowed to a crawl, and Ryu is not only slower but the evasive roll is now a sliding move -- a slide that can actually be used as an attack, which will not break you out mid-combo. So when you’re in a combo, you’re now committing to this combo, completely hindering you in a match of numbers -- and that’s not even what makes this game feel the most flawed. In fact, the flaws won’t even effect your success in fighting simply because you’re given two game breaking advantages.

The first one is your right arm, your arm (which doubles as a plot device) will start glowing, and when it does, you can lightly (keyword, lightly charge your strong attack and it will launch a chain of auto kills against your current mob of opponents and the end result will completely refill your health). Just to pause for a second and again explain what I’m empathizing, I’m fully aware that this isn’t exactly a new technique, but previously it demanded you to charge it for a certain amount of time and created a tension of application as you’re willingly making yourself vulnerable in order to launch this attack. This is gone, and instead this is your method of refilling your ki, which compliments the next offensive component to the combat.

The second game breaking advantage is how you’re single screen killing Ninpo, capable of use after a certain amount of time fighting in which after you fill up your ki meter and launch it, will annihilate everything on screen through the same repetitive cut scene that you'll slowly grow hatred for in the repetitive demand in its use through the game. That’s it -- no essence to collect, no upgrades (unless you count a few plot driven upgrades which again add very little) to anticipate, and in taking away so much of the tense action in where you would fight for your life, you’re instead treated to hordes and hordes of enemies which simply creates a numbers game, a technique that liberally lifts a lot from the Dynasty Warriors formula and Ninja Gaiden is the wrong game to do that. All the varied weapons are also missing and instead will be available as post-launch DLC for the game, you’re only weapons will always be a katana,  a bow that will mostly focus on auto-targeting, and your shurikens if you even see a need to use them at this point.

I will say that the movement of the game has new welcomed approaches in which there are certain cinematic sequences using a quick-time dynamic that substitutes a one button command with evasive commands in certain direction. Alongside the sequences are stages section that will have you move slowly and stealthily to kill enemies quietly in order to move forward. Those these moments are few and far between, and were very much welcomed to change up the repetitive pace of the combat. The story is the shortest in the modern franchise, and only has eight stages in where previous entries had 16, making it all the more streamlined; it’s just linear in all of the wrong ways in its efforts towards accessibility. The multiplayer is refreshing, but still retains the same flawed combat in which you can see how broken it is through human exploitation. The trials that allow you to customize have the most replayability as again there are no rating, no incentive of bragging rights derived from the campaign with the lack of Ninja rankings or essence.

Ironically, Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom for the NES, was changed for Western audiences to accommodate challenge by only giving you three continues, and Ninja Gaiden 3 was changed with western influence to make it more accessible but ultimately made the game disgustingly easy. They both share a common truth that these changes weren’t needed and it just ended up hurting the experience for returning fans and possibly turning away potential new ones. It’s a competent action game, but an awful Ninja Gaiden game which is more that can be said about Metroid: Other M which wasn’t a competent action game or anything remotely near being a good Metroid game. Rent it at your own risk.