shmups.system11.org

All the potions in the world aren't going to save you if you refuse to learn how to play the game well. Some bosses will straight up murder you if you don't position yourself well and play defense.

I was almost finished with my Lunar Staff only playthrough on Mentor, when my 360 hard drive decided to shit the bed. So now I have to go through both difficulties again before I can finally play 360 NGII on Master Ninja.

I don't think I will ever play Sigma 2 again. I beat it on the hardest difficulty available without clearing the game and it was easier than 360 NGII on Warrior.

Uh, the NG bosses difficult? Not on the default difficulty setting at least. I kind of fell out of love with the game for being too easy, just at the end of it (that, and also because the stage designs toward the end weren't as good as in the first half of the game -- which I absolutely loved), and stopped playing, but I will definitely try Black and Master Ninja mode next time I'm in the mood for 3D ninja action.

You definitely need to play on higher difficulties lol. Otherwise, you will not appreciate why the game is how it is. I cleared NGB on Master Ninja years ago and it changed how I see 3D action games.

Especially in the case of NGII do you need to play on higher difficulties, because the levels are designed around having more enemies on screen than most games do.

Great, looking forward to it!

Spartan Total Warriors is not in the same league as NG.... I mean not even close, remotely, in any way. Well in a joking way it could.

Look, see how Sam Fisher is animated in Splinter Cell, as old as the first one (2002, best-sampled on PC where 60 fps should be possible), as he grabs onto and climbs along ledges, then see the analogous animation in Ninja Gaiden and think how much it would hurt the latter if Ryu Hayabusa moved more gracefully at least in that specific situation.

P.S. Nowhere near 60 fps I'm afraid but there you have it. I found it pretty benchmark in its time.

...............

So, how bad sigma versions are? 30 fps, cutted down enemy count?

Ninja Gaiden Sigma is great, actually. It looks a lot better than Black and has a bunch of bonus content.

Sigma 2, on the other hand, is a cut-down version of NG2 with far less enemies and a strange approach to rebalancing the game around it. There's more one hit death situations than NG2, but they're also pretty easy to avoid once you know what to look for. It does have a few stages with different playable characters, but past that it is really hard to make a case for it over the original.

I read Sigma 2's framerates (on PS3) are better and online co-op can be fun.

Sigma 2 also reportedly has less graphical effects.

To be quite honest, I find the huge mobs in NG II to be somewhat tiresome to fight, so I'll end up picking up the Sigma editions someday. But the original NG II is still a thing of beauty, I need to get back to it.

...and some effects absent from 2 as well, I read.
Funny how some of those PS3 stills resemble Valkyrie Profile 2 I've been revisiting of late (on a 15'' RGB CRT, no less) to me. Soft light galore upon luxury doll models...

Haha, the PS3 version of the Venice intro cutscene is just sad. Not just in number of characters, but in lighting as well.

I actually though the lighting overall looked better in the PS3 version.

But they removed reflective floors?