Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword

I wasn't too interested in this one, partly because I was more into God of War as a game and obviously things look a lot better on the PSP due to its higher processing power and graphics capabilities. I'm talking about Chains of Olympus here. However, now that GoW:CoO is in the past, I decided to get NG:DS.

The first trick the game throws at you is the flipping of the screen to a more N-Gage type vertical system (like Brain Age on the DS). Which sucked in N-Gage. There's a reason human eyes are more accustomed to WIDESCREEN than "VERTICALSCREEN" and it relates to how our eyes are situated on our heads.. Anyway, NG:DS has two screens. One of the first ideas Nintendo gave to developers, when introducing the DS, was that you could have a map on the other screen. I was scared that suddenly the map would become a tool that you couldn't live without and would have to use constantly when past games did fine by having it accessible through a menu (or maybe have no map at all). But it's worked out fine and NG:DS actually needs a map. The static pre-rendered screens are fine and all but with the pre-set camera angles you might sometimes lose your way without the actual map.

The vertical view works fine. All the other buttons work as the same dodge move so you can choose how you want to hold your DS. I have the first model so it works out fine by holding the console from under it with my left hand, thumb on the R key, and controlling the game itself with the stylus. There's an option for left-handed players too, which is done well, just flip the console around.

People have been raving about the great graphics in NG:DS but for some reason, maybe because of GoW:CoO, I really don't get it. They're pre-rendered backgrounds with very few interactive or moving elements (the waterfall doesn't even move in the first scene where you fight Momiji) and the amount of pixels on the DS screens makes it look worse than it should. "Should" meaning what the general standards are nowadays. Then again, Nintendo isn't focusing on graphics during this generation of consoles obviously. Games like Advance Wars and Phantom Hourglass look great on the DS, NG:DS not so much. It doesn't look bad. It's just not that great.

As for the gameplay itself, it's actually quite fun. Controlling Ryu with the stylus is simple (up for jumping, slash at an enemy to hit, touch to do a ranged attack, scribble randomly on the screen to power up a super attack, draw symbols to do magic,..) but somehow entertaining. Your DS screen will probably get a beating worse than WarioWare with this game but it can take the hits. My launch DS touch screen is still working perfectly (albeit with a few marks) even after hundreds of hours of gaming by me and my friends.

Near the beginning of NG:DS I started to wonder if this type of control scheme would hold up as interesting for long enough. The game itself isn't that long but it's not exactly short either. It's not interesting enough to retry again on the harder difficulty like GoW:CoO was, but during the initial play-through it didn't get boring at any point. I can't really put my finger on why though. That's what's so interesting about this game, something so simple being fun.

As for the Ninja Gaiden name, it sure does feel like a Ninja Gaiden game. Almost too much. The playability itself is quite similar with the fast and frantic non-stop action (which is very well done for such a small screen and different control mechanic). Even the same bat-ridden vertical chasms that you have to wall jump to the top are here. I find those a bit weird though, you have to do a slash attack back to the bottom to kill them all and then climb back up to get the next batch. Obviously players want to get them all as long as they repop because of the yellow spheres which equal money. Luckily if done right you can gather up your combo points as well because with speed you can get to the top again before the combo resets. Speaking of repops, there are obviously other situations where you can "farm" the yellow spheres better. Some rooms, after cleared, will repop with the same enemies when you go back one room and then re-enter. This is a nice way to buy the powerups needed, just like in previous Ninja Gaiden games.

The other thing that is similar to the XBOX, PS3 Ninja Gaiden games is the world. The same village, same fire/ice themed worlds, same bosses, similar enemies.. The story is different but I found the world to be too similar. I was hoping for more original bosses.

About the bosses.. They're all extremely simple affairs, which you just dodge around and strike a few times. The only annoying bosses come at the very end which are only annoying because they hit you for loads of health. But this applies to the whole game as well, the enemies are simple and you get boxed in to certain areas with pop-up walls (just like in God of War as well) and they won't open until you kill all the enemies. There's a certain amount of baddies and once they've all spawned (and died) you get to move onwards. The enemies don't follow you to the next screen so you can skip some fights like this, but then you're not getting the yellow spheres.. Anyway, I think difficulty is a bit iffy for a few reasons. This is a Ninja Gaiden game so I was expecting something harder but then again the control scheme is fairly limited and you can't make the enemies too difficult or the player will start feeling frustrated because you can't do anything, due to the stylus control mechanic, to avoid the damage. The enemies who cast a spell that makes an area under you that you have to move away from were a good idea, more of those types of ideas would've been good. But mostly the game is filled with enemies that just run at you and you won't get hit even once by just bouncing all over the screen and attacking from the air, followed by a few ground attacks. You get high combo scores and good Karma (which can be sent online and compared to others, but that feature wasn't too interesting) too so it's not exactly a "cheap tactic".

More variety to the enemies would've been good since this whole game is basically about fighting. The puzzles there are aren't exactly hard and they're few and far between. Blow into the mic, shoot the blue spheres,.. actually I can't think of any others, just those two. The fighting is easy so they could've implemented more hazards that you need to steer clear of.

The levels themselves are quite linear. The map helps because, as said above, the camera angles change a lot. I was hoping for a bit more open paths and panning camera moments. There are a some screens where the camera pans a bit to follow Ryu but mostly it's just one screen and once you run to the edge (maybe with a tiny bit of panning) it loads the next screen. Maybe a DS limitation, I don't know, but I never really liked the Resident Evil 1 way of doing things (although in that game it was annoying because you knew the character could see the monster but you couldn't because of a game mechanic, the camera, not showing it). In NG:DS you don't jump up on ledges a lot either (except the vertical chasms) and all the screens seem rather flat. There's no swimming or quick sand or anything interesting in the terrain really. Not even levers you have to move crates on! There are breakable icicles in one level but no breakable crates like every other game.

The cut-scenes are very simple with pictures and almost no animation whatsoever. But, I liked them. Especially the ones with the old woman. She seemed scary! It's very well done to portray such emotion through simple pictures.

Overall, I liked the game but it's not really good enough for a second play-through. It really does feel like a Ninja Gaiden game though and it's fun to complete once. I would've added more variety but this seems like a small release for the team in between bigger ones (Ninja Gaiden 2) so I don't know what their budget was or how much resources they had to develop it. Fun game nonetheless.