Ninja Gaiden

[Ookii]

How many of you out there are playing Ninja Gaiden?  I am finding this game fantasticallyfuckingmagically hard (on the normal setting of course).  In fact, I don't even remember a time when I've played a game this hard, but that said, it's really really fun.  It has the Jedi Knight fun-factor in it; which I define as walking into a room filled with guys, and subconsciously choosing how each enemy will die.  

Anyway, I want to see how far everyone is in the game, and how many hours you have put into it.

[Pig Destroyer]

I've gotten as far as the first boss and I am already convinced that this game is a winner.  I kept going in the room where all the little ninjas pop out of the walls just so I could beat more and more ass ninja style.

Fucking Great Game.

P.S. - How the hell do you beat the boss?  He hits very much hard!

[MrHat]

I beat him by running around till he ran up to me then wall chopping him.

Wait till you get to the horse boss, that guy took me like 3 days to beat.  

I'm only about 8 hours into it, but it's so much fun.  Although, I find that I might throw the controller everynow and then, but the frustration makes the winning so much better.

[Alluvian]

GREAT game, but it is hardly THAT hard.  At least not at level 10 where I am.  So far the worst I had to do was retry a boss/section 3 times and that was when crawling up the pit with the sketon archers on the ledges in level 6.  That was annoying but on try three I just decimated them with explosive shuriken.  Bow would have worked as well.  And I almost got past them on try 2 without shooting at them at all.

Only 2 bosses have actually managed to kill me, the rest just did damage.  Usually a LOT the first time I meet them and then I reload my save and do better.

The suggestion to use wall attacks is a good one.  The wall attack is one of your strongest moves.  The one where you run stright up the wall, do that backflip and then hit Y to SLAM down.  It stuns enemies and is area effect.  I use it a LOT to make normally hard enemies like the spider clan into ways to gain health.

The running, jumping towards target Y attack is probably the best move in the game.  Decapitates nicely, and can singlehandedly defeat a few bosses without a scratch on ryu.

I have not played the game in about a week and a half.  I got distracted with one of those free time destroying projects and once I start those I am compulsive till I am done.

I probably wont remember how to play the game when I return.  Starting over would be a blast though.  Oddly enough I am impatient to beat the game so I can immediately start over.  Thats never happened before.

Incredible game.  Best action game I have ever played.  Definately not the hardest.  The original ninja gaidens were all tougher.  I had to leave my NES on for DAYS to beat the first one.  Die at the boss, redo the hardest parts of the level where one tiny mistake is instant death.  Compared to recent games I will agree that it is a lot harder than most.  Gun Valkarye is still harder though.

So far all bosses but the chapter 5 boss had saves almost right on top of them.  And the chapter 5 boss is a pushover.

One thing I would have changed about the bosses is that I think a death on the boss should allow instant restart at the boss again.  You would also have to make the bosses harder then, but really hard bosses are fun if you don't have to do a bunch of repetitive tasks to get back to them.  I beat chapter 7 boss on the second try, but used a ton of elixers so redid that boss about 6 more times before I was happy with my result, that boss didn't have much in front of it, but it was a few dull repetitive tasks that really grated on me (found out you could do the tasks and then return to the savegame to keep from having to redo them though, after that it was fun again).

Another thing is that the game really needs more than 10 save spots for my tastes.  I would like to have saves at the start of every level and saves at every boss for future fun / short 'show off my xbox' demos.  A boss mode would have been fun as well.  At least you can re-view the cinematics when you beat the game.  Some of those were great fun.  I like the silly over the top one at the end of level 3.

[hectorvictorious]

The female demon with the wings-head was kicking my ass hardcore as I had no heath items left, so I decided to scrap it and start over again.  The first time through it took me 7 hours to get that far, the second only 2 hours.  

I remember banging my head against the wall on the first boss battle, took me about seven tries to finally down him.  This time, though...cake.  I guess the enemies get more difficult so gradually I didn't realize how much I had improved.  Or, dealing with those fucking Spider clan, exploding dagger on my body, PIGFUCKING ninjas toughened me up.

And yes, that bit where you have to scale the pit with the undead archers knocking you down threw me in to fits of rage.

Fun, though.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

Never use any potions until you get to the end boss. Spend all your money on health potions anytime you can buy them.


I dont know style names, but there is one where you jump at your opponent, and by hitting Y, you flip over him,grab his neck, and then vault him past you by about 30 feet. Then you can follow that with a jump and a Y/X move that makes you Blue Blur at him and lop his head off. It kills almost everything with this combo. I've taken out packs of 15+ opponents just leaping and hopping with these two moves.

speaking of moves: can anyone explain how you do the XYXXXX moves? Each time I try by starting out with X, he does a slash move - is he supposed to stand there until the XYXXXX sequence is done, or does that XYXXXX represent a slash-jump-slash-slash-slash-slash- style type of thing?


SPOILER POTENTIAL












I'm trying to kill the skeletal gigantasaurous inside the catecombs. Looks like I need to shatter-smash each leg but the thing is just insane hard. If you're not at this stage yet, and you think the end boss you're playing now is hard - believe me, you're fighting against the biggest guppie in the fishbowl. Just wait till you hit the open waters. Holy thumb-numbing blood boil. No game has ever made me throw a controller across a room before. This one made me break one.[/b]

[Rei]

Thank god they gave the XB controllers breakaway cables, huh?

[Arcadian Del Sol]

Thank god they gave the XB controllers breakaway cables, huh?

Mine come with breakaway left joysticks. :/

[Aslan]

Yeah, I love this game.  That level five boss was only really hard for me because I screwed up and used all my potions and only had one left.  It took me a while to beat him, but eventually I did.  I am up to like Chapter 8 now, but haven't played in a couple of days cause I got BF: V and UT2k4 and today I am probably going to be getting Far Cry, but I do plan on going back soon and finishing Gaiden, it's an awesome game...

[Arcadian Del Sol]

okay pointers please on killing the big monster I referenced in my spoiler section. I pwns me in like 20 seconds everytime. On a good try, I get one leg badly hit but never do a dent on the 2nd.

I use 2 flame powers to burn up the 1st leg.

[Alluvian]

The skeleton you are fighting I found pretty easy actually and kicked his ass the first time.  Pointer here... DO NOT jump down the pit after you kill him.  You will DIE.  Instead, go back down to the save the way you came up.

So I had to kill him a second time.  The second time he killed me a few times because I messed up timing on the tailswing.

Anyway, tips:

**You are right.  You have to destroy each leg he puts down.
**The back bones he shoots at you don't do much damage but they can easily stun you for bigger attacks.  They are blockable and dodgeable if you keep moving.  I prefer to keep moving to I can avoid other attacks as well
**His bit is hard for me to see coming and will KICK YOUR ASS if he gets you.  I find when I don't stand still at all he almost never tries this move.  If you see it coming just jump as far off screen to either side as you can.  He can't get you at the edges.
**The tail I can usually see coming pretty easily.  It will usually swing by twice.  Jump it and watch for the second swing.  It may or may not always happen though.
**When the leg goes down I usually wait about 2 seconds and then leap towards it and hit Y.  This is the flying sparrow or flying swallow or something like that.  GREAT move.  Easy hit on the claw.  I will often follow this up with ->YY.  This is the move that drags the sword through the ground, leaps up and then slams down.  I like it because the leaping component is enough movement to dodge the bonechips usually.  I can sometimes get a second or third of these off but it is risky as he likes to move and swap with the tail after the leg is hit hard.
**The reason I said wait two seconds above is that I find when I charge a foot too early he will almost always lift it up to swipe at me.  This is easily dodgeable by leaping back but it also accomplishes nothing and he will often switch poses after a claw swipe wasting the attack opportunity and usually having him swipe with the tail again.

The tail attack was the only real problem I had with him except for times when I decided to block the bonechips.  He liked chomping me when I stood still too long.  So KEEP MOVING.  He won't chomp you when you are by his foot so you can stand still there to attack as long as you can avoid the chips and as long as he stays there.

Good luck, next boss is tougher for most but if you get stuck there I have some more useful tips on that boss.  Easy to give tips on a boss that kicked your ass but then you overcame diversity by learning the best attacks... Harder to give tips when you whoop the bosses ass the first try.

This is not to say I am in anyway better than you, but some bosses are just easier for some people.  That is why I love to play these kinds of games tag team.  Beginners luck also has a tendency to work sometimes vs bosses.


[edited to add:]

Oh, there is another sort of cheesy way to do this boss.  If you got the windmill shuriken in level 4 or level 5 (in the alley by the bar) you can just keep running around and jumping near the claw and doing continual slivers of damage to him.  Should probably be able to do it with hardly no damage at all this way, but I am not that patient.

[MrHat]

speaking of moves: can anyone explain how you do the XYXXXX moves? Each time I try by starting out with X, he does a slash move - is he supposed to stand there until the XYXXXX sequence is done, or does that XYXXXX represent a slash-jump-slash-slash-slash-slash- style type of thing?

slash-jump-slash-slash-sweetslash kind of thing

This is not to say I am in anyway better than you, but some bosses are just easier for some people. That is why I love to play these kinds of games tag team. Beginners luck also has a tendency to work sometimes vs bosses.

I find that almost all my console games are more fun when I tag them up w/ some friends.  It's weird, I have no motivation to play console unless I have a bud over.  I just play GBA or PC when alone.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

Thanks for the tips.

As far as who is better than whom - thats why we have Xbox Live.

[Train Wreck]

This game has a few bad-ass combos that aren't often talked about.  My fav is when you do a "double-roll" and press x-x-y.  It looks a lot like one of the counter-moves but you don't need a scroll.  The best place to practice it is the aforementioned "ninja room" in lvl 1.  You have to time your roll perfectly to do it, like rolling under an attack instead of parrying it, then push the stick the opposite direction to roll back without stopping (you can only do it when you timed it to dodge an attack, otherwise you will stand up after the first roll).  Sounds complicated but it looks so cool that it's worth it.  It's also easy to do on the first boss because of the nature of his attacks, though you'll want to get it down in the "ninja room" first.

Another neat move is jumping off of an enemy's shoulders by jumping over them, hitting the jump button again when you are over them, pressing the B button in midair to hit them with three shuriken while they are stunned, and hitting Y as soon as you hit the ground to do an essence attack.

One of the simplest combos that you can do without a scroll, kicks major ass, and keeps you in the air so other enemies can't charge you, is to press X-Y-X-Y, then Y after he lands to finish him off.

By the way, how do you unlock the NES Ninja Gaiden games?

[Jain Zar]

The difficulty is keeping me away.  I do not like hard games.  The original NES Ninja Gaiden was unnaceptably hard, so why would I want to pay 50 for a prettier but equally tough game now?  My time is precious and replaying the same section of a game is not what I want to do.  I already have the SNES cart with all 3 NES Ninja Gaiden games on it, so that little bonue doesn't apply to me.  Maybe when it hits the budget racks...

[Alluvian]

The xbox version is nowhere NEAR as hard as the original NES games.  Give it a rental if you are worried.

[Train Wreck]

Hasn't been an issue for me.  I like the action so much that I actually don't mind having to repeat sections.  In fact, I usually start my game from the beginning every time I play.

(BTW, Save points are spread out so you usually don't get moved back further than 5-10 minutes, anyway.)  You would probably like it.  But, yeah, give it a rent before you pay the $50.

[Glamdring]

This game has officially pissed me off like no game has pissed me off in a long fucking time.

ARGH.  What the hell is up with this level 3 robot boss.   Yes, sharing frustration helps.

Okay, I know you all will be thrilled to know that I finally beat down that fucker.  I have no idea why I even play this game.  These kind of games always do nothing but tick me off.

By the way, just in case some of ya didn't know that you could access the original 3, here's how :

(Ripped from EGM)
Give the shopkeeper 50 scarabs to open up NG1
Shoot the clock face in Tairon near Muramasa's shop for #2
In chapter 10's ceremonial room, 'triangle-jump' to the golden scarab on top of the broken pillar for NG3.

Gotta love 4 for the price of 1, eh?

[Rodent]

Ninja Gaiden keeps me comming back just because it's so hard. I keep having the feeling "Ooooooooh!!!!! That damn mutherfucking piece of shit asshole asshat needs to die" and there I am again, and once I beat that particular boss/part of the game I jump around like I just annihilated all thoose who oppose my road to world conquest.

Great game, buy it. Support thoose who dare make games you won't beat in 2 hours if you skip the cutscenes.