GordonJAGReview Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Review

Ah, 2008. Such an innocent, wholesome time for video games. Back when EA could publish more than a single good game every 5 years. Back when Call of Duty could still seriously call itself a worthwhile franchise in the gaming landscape. Back when Assassin’s Creed could only go up with the sky as its limit. Back before Microsoft started its 10-year campaign to make the Xbox brand commit suicide in front of the entire world. And back when a developer could combine extreme violence being played completely straight with half-naked teenage girls walking around being the most visible ninjas on the planet. Truly, it’s Team Ninja in its element. In all seriousness, getting the chance to try Ninja Gaiden II with the fresh coat of paint this remastered version offers was fun. The original was a game I never picked up, mostly because it released around the time of the Youngest Toba eruption, but also a little bit because I just didn’t care much for Ninja Gaiden as a series. It seemed neat, but in terms of spectacle fighters, it never inherently appealed to me like some of the other prominent games in the genre. And getting out of the game, I kind of get why I felt that way. NG2B isn’t a bad game by any means, but it’s one of those remasters that really did just dip the game in a fresh coat of paint, so while it looks like something that belongs in 2025, it still feels like a game from 2008. I know that’s intentional and likely keeps the spirit of the original intact (no, I do not care about 2 Sigma enemy spawns or whatever, that’s not worth my time to care about), but it really does show how many quality of life improvements we’ve gotten in video games since it was first released. First, hoo boy, the camera is the first enemy you encounter. If nothing else will do it, the camera will really take you back to 2008. Fortunately, it’s not downright horrendous, but unlike a good camera, it’s one that you have to wrestle with and adapt to somewhat. In the somewhat rare larger combat areas, it’s mostly functional. It may occasionally get stuck behind some demon or fiend, obscuring the view of your character, but the camera typically works well enough in larger areas to not be a major issue. When fighting in tighter corridors that NG2B absolutely adores, that’s when the camera starts to revolt against you, and that’s when it starts to get on my nerves. While never reaching dealbreaker territory, the camera’s love of suddenly spinning behind you when you’re in a corner, making it impossible to tell what’s going on, does get annoying. Its constant swinging around also makes it so you can’t see which enemies are about to perform an emergency vasectomy on Ryu or an emergency hysterectomy on Momiji, Ayane, or Rachel. Unwanted destruction of their reproductive organs, thanks to an uncooperative camera aside, I do like that there are 4 playable characters in the main story. While Ryu and the girls all have the same function of killing bad guys, they do have some slight variations on how they play, so when the game switches your playable character, it feels refreshing enough without completely slamming the brakes on the game’s continued flow. Plus, it’s fun to explore their movesets in the game’s tag missions, which allow you to spend a little more time with everyone but Ryu. Speaking of the 4 playable characters, I can’t help but laugh at how they look. I know the 3D Ninja Gaiden games have some...interesting designs, but most of these are downright silly. Ryu looks basically fine, if a bit generic, but the cinematic shots zoom in on his mask-covered face, so moments that are clearly supposed to express some kind of motion told through his face look extremely goofy thanks to only his blank, empty eyes being exposed. At the very least, his outfit does a lot for his extremely clappable cheeks. Rachel looks like her domme outfit lost a fight to a rowdy group of lawnmowers. I suppose I should be grateful that the lawnmowers at least left her domme outfit conveniently in the shape of underwear with some boots. As funny as her demon/fiend hunting outfit is, Rachel was probably my favorite character to play as. Her hammer had some serious weight behind its attacks, and it felt a little more varied compared to the other bladed weapons available. Ayane is probably the only one that’s actually problematic, considering she’s 15 in NG2B with a neckline that’s running down to her ankles. I don’t even care about her massive hooters since those things don’t just magically pop in on a girl the day she turns 18, but I really don’t think the developers needed to make a 15-year-old girl look like she’s about to flash everyone if a stiff breeze rolls through. There isn’t a whole lot of justification for that, no matter what year the game came out in. Her gameplay also felt the weakest of the 4, but I do think the purple they used for the shreds of clothing she calls an outfit is nice. A+ for colors, if nothing else. Momiji looks and feels like the most normal character. Outside of some sideboob, she’s hardly sexualized in her design. I’d even put her below Ryu and his beautiful, gorgeous, lovely clappable cheeks on that list. Unsurprisingly, she’s my favorite visually, with a unique look and distinct style that strikes a good balance between fitting and cool. It’s a bit of a shame I didn’t find her more fun to play as, but I enjoyed playing as her about as much as I did Ryu. And it’s through these 4 mediocre characters that you get to experience a nonsense story with little connectivity. Sadly, clappable cheeks and giant tatas seem to have taken the place of any exciting personality these characters had, since none of them are particularly interesting, despite being people who get to slaughter their way through monsters on the regular. There’s just nothing in the story that makes me care about the characters’ stakes in the plot, and I don’t even really care about the plot overall. It’s just the thinnest excuse to put together strings of bad guys to slice up with glorious amounts of blood and limb dismemberment, and to be fair, that is pretty exceptional in this game. It’s just that having a good story and good characters to create context around all the blood and gore would have gone a long way to making the game feel like more than a flash in the pan. But, hey, the gameplay is pretty good. It has enough variance between the characters and weapons that it’s easy enough to avoid boredom. Slicing through all the enemies in the world has a great, visceral look and feel to everything. Say what you want about UE5 as an engine, it does make visual spectacles like NG2B look great. One of my main gripes with the gameplay is that it just loves its corridors too much. It makes all the fighting feel claustrophobic, and those camera issues I mentioned earlier sure aren't helping things. It never feels like there’s enough room for the combat to breathe and really open up, which is a shame, because there is some primal part of me that enjoys watching a monster with more limbs than sense lose those limbs thanks to a flashy combo I managed to pull off. It also doesn’t feel like making parts of the game akin to being squeezed out of a toothpaste tube is getting the most out of the ninja movement abilities. Another gripe is that the boss fights are way too easy. I had a harder time melting butter than I did against the bosses in this game, and that was a huge disappointment. I expected to get a little pounded into paste during those fights, but I cruised through them without much trouble. Heck, those glowing fish were worse. Still, despite the obsession with bouncing boobies and buckets of blood making the game feel a touch juvenile at times, a little uneven gameplay doesn’t change how much fun it is to turn my brain off to shred ninjas, demons, and fiends to ribbons for a few hours.