June 8th, 2009 at 3:38 pm - by Fallback



Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360 was both loved for its intense action and also chastised for lacking the polish of the first Ninja Gaiden game. The original Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360 was devleoped under Tomonobu Itagaki. Well now Itagaki is gone and the new and remanding team Ninja Members make an attempt to improve the game for the release as Sigma 2 on the Playstation 3. I was a huge fan of both prior 3D Ninja Gaiden games having completed both so I played Sigma 2 with those games as points of reference.

Immediately upon starting Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 I noticed the graphical upgrade that was present. The characters looked less shiny (as in minus the china doll look of the 360 version) and the game looked more vivid, detailed and refined. The one thing that was a red flag though is that the game felt slower overall as compared to the Xbox 360 version. I played as Ryu and the combat felt slower and more sluggish than the original Xbox 360 release of Ninja Gaiden II. Surely this is a huge concern though it seems like many other graphical bugs present in the original have been fixed. Also worth noting is that the camera seems to have been refined which is a huge win. I will reserve final judgment until I play the final build because the combat slowdown seems like it could be a deal breaker for me.