
by Astarus

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Within the first few minutes of Ninja Gaiden 3, I was prompted repeatedly about my controls and given multiple quicktime events. In most other games, this would be completely okay but this is Ninja Gaiden, so its not. When the first game in the series came out, the developer taunted us saying that most people won’t be able to finish it. Oh my, how things have changed.
The game looks better than ever and its always looked amazing but underneath all the polishing gore that we all know and love, the game has gone toothless. It’s not
bad, mind you, but it’s not all that distinguishable from other action fight titles. In the series, the combat used to be about precision and timing and knowing your enemy, and you would use the environment to maximize your combos while collecting enough essence to upgrade your weapon to the point that you could survive the next room.
It’s completely different now. Killing enemies no longer releases essence you can use to buy items and upgrades because there aren’t any items or upgrades. *Sigh* This means there’s no reason to deviate from the main path or explore
the levels and everything is way more linear. There’s also no different weapons to find and use. It’s all been replaced with overly simplified combat and a ton of quicktime events. Just about everything you do triggers some sort of jumping, gliding, sword grinding button mash event.
The focus on easier combat means I no longer have to wonder whether I’m stoked up and ready to jump into a new area. I just go in blind and mash buttons. With the complexity of combat gone, a lot of the tension that made Ninja Gaiden great also disappears.