Devil May Cry [PS2] + R2VKMF: Polygonal Action Daishingeki

[Wooph]

I just played DMC 1 and 3 back to back, because I never played 1 and I also wanted to reflect on the differences between the first entry and the later ones. 1 is a refreshingly straightforward game that presents its challenge straight up. It's short and sweet, with even the more annoying parts never overstaying their welcome. It's origins as a Resident Evil game gives it a charm and ambience that is entirely missing in later games. It may actually be my favorite DMC game, despite the janky targeting system. It's too bad that it has such a bad final boss.

I haven't played DMC 3 in a really, really long time. I basically played it at launch and that was it. It's not as fun as I remember. Coming straight out of DMC 1 I could feel how this is more of a combo sandbox game, which I was never really into. The game is longer overall and has some seriously tedious combat encounters with some really boring enemies. The mid to late stages of the game can really drag. It does have a much stronger finish than 1 though, with the Vergil fight.

[Sima Tuna]

I haven't played DMC 3 in a really, really long time. I basically played it at launch and that was it. It's not as fun as I remember.

Exactly my impression too. I lost patience with the constant need to unlock shit that should be available at default. I was planning to play through the entire game again, but I got bored and dropped it. 5-6 levels before Devil Trigger unlocks... It's the core mechanic of the series.

DMC3 has the same problem as all the Kamiya Platinum games. They are fun games after you've unlocked everything. But imo not usually very fun until that point.

[Lander]

1 is really special; the Itsuno games are mechanically excellent, but they've never recovered the total-package devil hunter feel of that first foray into mallet island.
The enemy codex is my favourite part - the way every baddie has a bunch of interesting behaviours that get written down for reference, but only after you figure out and exploit them.
It adds to the overarching sense that you're dealing with weird unknown shit, which makes for a finer contrast with Dante's cool 'tude. They kind of lost that after he became a walking Crazy Party, likeable as the later incarnations are.

3 also becomes a completely different beast once you smash your way through to Dante Must Die. It's weird in that sense; you get five difficulties of relatively breezy air tourism, and then a massive jump to SSS IF YOU WANT TO LIVE.

Definitely a series where fighting the urge to play a fresh save is in order; I get not wanting to freak out new players with a huge pile of movesets, but the skill ceiling is so high that there's no real need to put an artificial barrier in front of it.

[BIL]

Mikiri Finds A Way (｀w´メ)

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'M POPPING A BONER LIKE I'M GYNOUG DICKMAN HIMSELF

I am so here for dinosaurs with giant swords. I didn't realize he was actually working on an action game and not just "haha I'm animating dinosaurs with swords". Amazing time to be alive.

[Lander]

Ohh, Lugaru and Overgrowth were merely the beginning

Diverse pool of dinos too; Cloudosaur, Dante-o-don, Vergilopagus. Though my edgemaster acumen is having trouble placing that trident...

[BIL]

Though my edgemaster acumen is having trouble placing that trident...

Only thing that comes to mind is DS1's Channelers, but I'd have to see an accompanying Compy horde armed with broken swords to be sure. He could get his dino dance on and make them go apeshit like you're that poor kid at the start of JP3.

[Lander]

Wise fwom you gwave, Vanishing Point thwead!

I played a bit of...
 
◉ Maximo
 
...recently, and what better excuse for a bump than some 3D GnG?
 
    ○ Difficulty - Boxers and Briefs
 
For Advanced Kid, this one - I have memories of playing it at a friend's house BITD, and being utterly paralysed by its seemingly-punitive punishment mechanics. 100 KOIN for a memory card save?! The price for an extra credit goes up?!? In this economy? Carnie-ass reaper...

Contrast that with now, and... Man, it's really not a big deal. Swept World 1 on no save, 4UP, 6 tokens to spare, 200 bucks in hand, and a canny FREE GIFT - WORTH 400 KOINS!! max armor to see me through the transition stage to the second hub. In contrast to the posturing, it's a shockingly generous game when played thoroughly and carefully.

Which isn't to say that it's all mouth and no trousers; the moment-to-moment holds nicely to its ghoulish heritage, with plenty of surprises. Max is very much an Arthur for the console generation; slightly more durable, but no less at risk.
 
    ○ Tone - Secretly Survival Horror
 
And so the 'rich get richer' surface design a fascinating curio: The player is more survivable, but the game slams the needle back in the other direction by hanging a Sword of Damocles over the entire campaign. Cling to progress, die by attrition. Keep up your armor maintenance, and risk losing hours of progress should you actually manage to bottom out the stash of 1UPs and Kill Coins.

It's a fascinating bit of psychology; enough to put the fear of Death into weak players, and - while clearly surmountable - still an effective source of tension for the experienced. Perhaps there was some design bleed-over from adjacency to Resident Evil, since the story there is similar: Seemingly-limited resources that are in reality plentiful, dangerous-yet-exploitable enemies, and an atmosphere of tension upheld by the threat of significant lost progress.

Though in contrast to this, I note a lighter-hearted tone than GnG's more direct Knight: Death of the Devil aesthetic. Funny skeletons marching their idle route with a chippy HUP Two Three Four... or calling you out as a Scurvy Lubber in the pirate levels. Arr!
 
    ○ Mechanics - Funny Bones
 
The game is propped up by a lot of smart design as well; core combat is Capcom-tight, demanding knowledge of neutral bait-and-punish within the first couple of stages: Wholly consistent, but wilfully tricksy in the way it mixes up different threats and tells. As per tradition, birds are a menace.

The short-term item economy is really good too; being able to lock a set of powerups to keep on death is similarly devious, with many items being comfort blankets, or interacting costily with spendable resources:

Having a two-hit combo is nice, but unnecessary if you know how to execute the built-in spinning followup. A frontal stab is also nice, but is it that much better than an overhead swing? Throwing your shield is good for cheating weak melee enemies, but chips away at a durability meter that will leave you defenseless if abused. Magic projectiles and AoE are rare and powerful, but how often do you actually have the requisite sword enchantment in the early game, let alone something tanky enough to justify the MP spend? A Long Sword, however - this, you can trust

The game is crammed with those kinds of short-term decisions, which gradually open up as later levels ratchet up the item density and bar boosts. It's a supremely clever system once you get past "my souls though" syndrome and learn to accept loss, echoing some of the good bits of modern rougelites without any of the generative baggage.
 
    ○ Critique - Rough Diamond
 
I'd have liked to see the game double down on the item system, and include even more interesting options to build around. There are some really cool cases where a rare powerup will show up early, stashed somewhere that requires arcane platforming or chest-hunting to get; it'd have been super cool if some of them were one-offs that could only be had by exploring a specific elaborate secret, and could be electively locked in as pseudo-Metroid upgrades.

Platforming is probably the weakest part, but perfectly serviceable once you accustom to recentering the camera with a button instead of a stick. It's a bit floaty and lacks a blob shadow, but has a consistent 'whoa' stumble at death-pit ledges to avoid cheapness, and enough Coyote Time that you could call it a hidden triple-jump. Loose 1UPs are frequently positioned over fatal drops, but are by nature a low-risk proposition since all you have to lose is your un-locked items and checkpoint progress - and restoring a lost shield is a silver lining.

It would have been interesting to see it keep the Chomakaimura locomotion around; fixed jump arcs are nice and predictable, though reviewers probably would have skewered them for it.
 
    ○ Conclusion - Gold Armor
 
On the whole, the game has jumped in my estimation from interesting higher-dimensional GnG dabbling, to something legitimately great on its own merits. It captures the series' feel while being substantially different, and is quintessentially PS2; cracking stuff, but presently slumbering in Capcom's cavernous vault.

I hear the sequel adds combos, launchers, weapon switching, persistent upgrades, and Death Trigger, which - while well within the R2VP wheelhouse - don't sound like things that'd play to the series' biggest strengths. Still, I'm interested to try it out and see what I've been missing out on.

[XoPachi]

https://x.com/VinciusMedeiro6/status/18 ... DL2hw&s=19

[BIL]

I'm banned from my own thread, unless I want fapping_hard.gif to be my avatar for the rest of 2025. :[

But!

Ninja Gaiden 4 (PS5/XSX/PC)
Published by XBOX Games Studios, developed by Platinum Games + Team Ninja

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black REMAKE (PS5/XSX/PC)
by Team Ninja, the game is already available

[Lander]

I'll have it known that it's just about 3AM at time of writing. But on the honour of one whose entry to this thread involved several dead ninjas, I'm going to sit down and have it out anyway

Blimey, I thought Master Collection had cleanly severed the series' head and left it gurning on a floor somewhere!

This turn of events should bring profound joy, but truth be told, Battered Fan Syndrome has me flinching at what may lie inside those links...

Ninja Gaiden 4 (PS5/XSX/PC)
Published by XBOX Games Studios, developed by Platinum Games + Team Ninja

Oofah. That TN intro is up there with the PS1 noise for vibes a veritable Evangelion OP text-flash tagcloud of emotions - including but not limited to:

Shit, not Platinum (feat. How did it come to this?)
Hell of a lot of goodwill to pull back after what they did to Bayo.
New talking guy hell nah.
Could this be their break from Platinum Soup back to the relative originality of Metal-Gear-Rising-2-ish?
Oh look it's NieR.
One snifter of [CURSE OF BACON ARM] and it's over.

BUT WAIT

I'll come clean: I marked out a little bit seeing Ryu still around and back to something resembling the immaculate savagery of NG2. If New Boy exists to serve double-duty as angry youngblood and container for any dodgy, moveset-implied, NG3-derived, blood magic lore - so Old Boy can shine again - so be it. Looks pretty fun so far.

Mechanically, the favourites are there - your Flying Swallow, Dragon Claw & Tiger Fang -esque dual swords, Steel on Bone (actually an alright thing from [UNEXISTED THIRD GAME],) Obliterations. Izuna Drop. Shuriken hover into On-Landing Ultimate Technique. And some bits resembling Sekiro and Wukong.

Maybe they can pull it off. Even following an overall downturn and recent loss of a rockstar designer, Platinum have done most all of the individual bits that made 3D NG excellent before now. I just hope they know what they're working with, and can resist the urge to fill it with safe and crufty RPG progression mechanics.

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black REMAKE (PS5/XSX/PC)
by Team Ninja, the game is already available

My god It's the holy grail wet dream of hardcore 3D NG grognards the world over. The masterpiece-that-wasn't, and then wasn't again, and again, in all of its claret-spraying limb-lopping downright unreasonable enemy count having glo-

Wait wait, check R2RKMF, check Steam... It's Sigma 2 in mufti with a subset of the smears corrected.



In some sense, this one-ups the Modern Team Ninja Worst Timeline of the series being dead, and partial-branches off a new Modern Team Ninja Worser Timeline where the loaded-for-bear meaning of Black has been forgotten completely, if not wilfully rubbed out. I said they didn't know what they had, and now they know even less! Fack!

And yes, there's the now-crushingly-standard at least the thing I like is still alive angle, but I'm getting a bit sick of having to tag it on the end whenever a beloved series gets an alright-but-come-on-now comeback.

I suppose we've nought but to wait for Ninja Gaiden 2: BLACKER, if not Ninja Gaiden 2: BLACKEST. Enough iterations, and they might just figure out that they already had it on the first go, give or take a few months!

Perhaps they'll patch it, but the amiably-recognizable grumpy old motherfuckers complaining about it seem few and far between in the sea of positive Steam reviews. KT aren't known for patching their shit even when it's being pilloried to fuck, so that's probably invariant in the face of good overall reception. At least UE5 gives it a relatively bright outlook for modders.

Ah well. I'm sure I'll play it and enjoy it anyway, then go back to the dusty old Xbox One archive of the real version for TRVE HNIC ONLY

Something like that

[BIL]

Such a versatile little smiley, that one...

[Sima Tuna]

I just hate, hate, hate, hate the idea of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 with a few shitty patches being called the "Ninja Gaiden Black 2" or whatever. Complete trash. Nobody at Team Ninja ever understood NG2. Itagaki was the only one. Yeah, OG Xbox 360 NG2 has some problems. But you know what? Itagaki knew it. He knew at the time he made the game that there were problems. He was rushed and then went into litigation against Namco for not paying him bonuses that had been promised to the whole team. So Itagaki probably knew years ago what changes he would have made to NG2 if he was given license to make NG2 Black.

The current Team Ninja doesn't know. Oh hey, is Gigadeath still in NG2 Sigma-Black Edition?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwgNg_0TP9Y

Oh look, he is. Do you think there's any, ANY fucking chance an Itagaki "Black" version of NG2 would leave Gigadeath in this fucking game? Itagaki has openly acknowledged this boss is just SHIT. The texture work on Gigadeath is even worse in this version.

Water Dragon is still there too. Another shit boss. Shit in both versions but for different reasons. It's actually better in the xbox 360 imo because they don't lock you into a tiny arena with invisible walls, for all that water running is fiddly while fighting ghost fish.

Shitty-ass Marbus Rachel fight... I bet Ninja Gaiden 2 BLACK also has the ass-tastic double tengus from Momiji's chapter in Sigma 2.

Godomof, another boss that should have been cut. Fiend Witch sucks too... Another Sigma 2 chapter boss that sucks. What a shock! Almost like most of the Sigma 2 content sucks.

I don't trust Platinum Games to make a good Ninja Gaiden game. They make Kamiya games and Kamiya character action game design is almost diametrically opposed to Ninja Gaiden character action game design. Ninja Gaiden is all balanced around NEW GAME content. It's not some giant-ass save file you create where you play 100 hours before the game finally gives you all the tools and becomes fun in the post-game.

[Lander]

Yeah, it's inane how much budget and effort has been spent maintaining the farce over this many versions. The mea culpa appears to be 'we lost the source code', but last I checked TN still had eyes, hands and minds sufficient to reverse engineer by eye. That would have done.

Watching through trusted source JayTB's first go, and it's a Sigma 2 re-remaster. Pretty within expected margins (quality assets, particles galore, and nasty-ass TAA artefacting in trade) but the same underlying game; the blood and flying limbs are spectacular, but that was always the low-hanging fruit on the "I don't get it you OG fans are so unreasonable" / "Begone filthy casual" scuttlebutt tree that's now been replanted for a third cycle.

It seems the Buddha boss got the axe, but again, that was always more of a why though addition than an untenable change to finely-crafted systems. And lol, Gigadeath - prime example of how the tightly-provisioned iframe balance can go deep south without proper refinement. If anything I'd have liked to see it redeemed, out-of-place and ridiculous of a boss as it is. And that stupid skeleton worm thing from the jungle level in vanilla - this was an opportunity to make them both legitimate instead of requiring fucked up system exploits that didn't always work.

Tests of Valor are still absent too, so no more adrenaline-soaked 20 minute endurance fights at the edge of reason. Though that brings up the question of the balance being able to support such a thing in the first place - can the more dangerous Van Gelf variants still grab-instakill on Master Ninja, given their buffed stats? Being instantly pincushioned by 15 incendiary ninjas is almost preferable for its relative predictability.

Buying upgrades for money is back, so a gold star for being able to get everything in one run again. Spiders was right, progress is a myth

I'm more or less ready to hang Platinum out to dry after their recent output, but MGR and NieR 2 were both cases where the IP they were given put reasonable constraints on the bloated Kamiya-isms (RPG stuff and related subversions notwithstanding in NieR's case) so there's some chance that having oversight could produce a similar effect here. Oversight from TN, granted, but it's a departure from the self-indulgent free reign of their Switch-era output.

[Squire Grooktook]

I highly, highly doubt Platinum is taking charge on this one. Given how the studio is almost dead, it's more likely that they're doing some desperate contract work and will just be helping here and there with visuals / programming / production / etc.

I'd also suggest everyone keep in mind that these studios are amorphous. Team Ninja ain't the same Team Ninja from 15 years ago, and probably not from 8 years ago. I'm kind of cautiously optimistic that - cutting their teeth on Nioh 1 & 2 - whoever's currently employed there might have enough action game experience to make a competent derivative of the first two games. We'll see.

On a side note have I mentioned I started playing Razor's Edge last year and fucking hate it? "Nice hit-confirm focused combo system you got there, would be a shame if enemies just started rolling out of your combos mid-game". The Ryu clone fight is cool though.

Tests of Valor are still absent too, so no more adrenaline-soaked 20 minute endurance fights at the edge of reason. Though that brings up the question of the balance being able to support such a thing in the first place - can the more dangerous Van Gelf variants still grab-instakill on Master Ninja, given their buffed stats? Being instantly pincushioned by 15 incendiary ninjas is almost preferable for its relative predictability.

Tests of Valor are an odd aspect of the games charm in that objectively they're pretty shitty "fight the same 2 fucking enemies for TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES while using dumb exploits to make it manageable", but it's something you'll find nowhere else but the cracked out product of itagaki's deranged mind combined with a troubled production. Drink the pain in, they don't make 'em like this anymore.

[NYN]

And yes, there's the now-crushingly-standard at least the thing I like is still alive angle, but I'm getting a bit sick of having to tag it on the end whenever a beloved series gets an alright-but-come-on-now comeback.

In so many words.

It's all supposed to be fun and games, yet with the knowledge that not only will this be created, people lacking proper personal hygiene will touch that. If their only motivation is to complain about it, for shame.
Playing this kind of action since it was fresh, I am not miffed by the announcements, feeling that this effort(?) comes already a full decade too late to make any significant splash. I am not waiting to leave the hermit hut, much less coming down the mountain to this: it is the way of tengu...

[Lander]

The official (and now seemingly mandatory) How To Buy This Game chart is a sight to behold. You guys like selectively-picked numbers? We got selectively-picked numbers.
They're smaller in some cases please understand.

And news from the modding trenches: Not only is it Sigma 2 again, it appears to be very similar to the MC codebase, but with UE5 porcelain'd around it to handle presentation. One step forward, one step back!

On a side note have I mentioned I started playing Razor's Edge last year and fucking hate it? "Nice hit-confirm focused combo system you got there, would be a shame if enemies just started rolling out of your combos mid-game". The Ryu clone fight is cool though.

'Acquired taste' might be the term? I found it had things to appreciate once I discarded notions of it being an NG game, though really it just devolves into a different flavour of system abuse once the difficulty escalates. Grab the Kusari-Gama, fish for cheap as fuck ranged SoB all day, and instakill chain through most every encounter. Sorted.

I recall Kasumi being quite fun, though that's also because of brokenness. Built in Windmill Shuriken, even better tele-bamf, and an easy command grab that can instant kill for free. Someone on the dev team was clearly a fan.

Tests of Valor are an odd aspect of the games charm in that objectively they're pretty shitty "fight the same 2 fucking enemies for TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES while using dumb exploits to make it manageable", but it's something you'll find nowhere else but the cracked out product of itagaki's deranged mind combined with a troubled production. Drink the pain in, they don't make 'em like this anymore.

They're pretty riduculous from a design standpoint; like the team looked at the optional stadium challenges from Black (use the Musashi Oar AoE and camera manipulation to scoop and loop endless tanky dudes for up to an hour lmao) and decided they should engage the player more directly.

But I think they speak to the strengths of NG2's raggedy-fine 'kill it before it kills you' balance, forcing each enemy's most-safe strat and related weird exploit to be derived and stored; a less-gimmicky version of the DMC secret missions that force you to press into mechanical corners like unlimited jump canceling.

It's all supposed to be fun and games, yet with the knowledge that not only will this be created, people lacking proper personal hygiene will touch that. If their only motivation is to complain about it, for shame.
Playing this kind of action since it was fresh, I am not miffed by the announcements, feeling that this effort(?) comes already a full decade too late to make any significant splash. I am not waiting to leave the hermit hut, much less coming down the mountain to this: it is the way of tengu...

Ah, I try to practice Mu where possible, but sometimes they hit you where it hurts perhaps some training in Iron Egg Technique is in order.

TN have definitely been behind the mark this last decade - I caught myself wondering what the tone would be if this suite of 4 / Sigma Sigma 2 / Ragebound had been the offering instead of Master Collection, but they were playing catch-up back then as well.

[NYN]

perhaps some training in Iron Egg Technique is in order.

Ah! Outstanding breathing technique! Find the hidden in the obvious: it is way to easy to attack the crotch, the weak will aim only at themselves. Instead, consider yourself the monk that you always are, having no use in founding family units. Thus, these balls of steel where never yours to lose!

[Sima Tuna]

Tests of Valor sound like bad game design until you realize the entire point of 3d Ninja Gaiden is to push the player as hard as possible so they player can overcome a seemingly-impossible challenge that looks cool as fuck and feels amazing to pull off. Ninja Gaiden (Black and Vanilla NG2) are all about riding the razor thin line (not the razor's edge, that's a different game) between life and death, and coming out on top no matter what. Tests of Valor are like endurance running. The main game is a sprint, but okay, can you maintain that level of intensity over a longer period? Just how many badass shuriken ninja can you kill before you lose your focus, get sloppy and fall apart? You can kill one Van Gelf, but can you kill thirty? Anybody can do something difficult once, if they know they only have to do it once. But when the fifteenth Ryu clone spawns in, you're going to find out what you are made of.

Some people will call that game design lazy but it's the same engine EDF uses to forge you in fire. It works because pushing the player beyond their limits is the point of both games. If you're able to easily beat every test of valor then you need to turn your difficulty up, just like how you need to bump up the difficulty if you're cruising through missions in EDF.

DMC games have their s-rank system that challenges you to play perfectly. Itagaki character action games aren't interested in perfection. Just survival and efficiency. Can you keep throwing punches for all 10 rounds? Or are you gassed after round 2?

Tests of Valor are great. In another game, yeah they'd be shit. Because another game doesn't have the same goal or core gameplay loop. The point of NG is to be in combat, always on the brink of death. The point isn't to pick up some keycard to open a door and watch a cutscene... That's vestigial shit that was present in NG Black but NG2 proved Itagaki's eventual intent would have been to abandon the zelda-esque stuff for mostly combat and maybe a few platforming challenges.

NG Black and NG2 still have the best 3d combat engine of probably any non-fighting video game. Some people will give it to Razor's Edge but most of what makes NG3 salvageable is just stolen from NG2. Some will nominate a Kamiya game but the "100 hours before it becomes fun" design problem will always sabotage Kamiya game design imo. God Hand is maybe the only competitor who can hold up to Itagaki-era NG.

[Volteccer_Jack]

I'm not surprised that someone who enjoys fighting the exact same enemy 80 times in a row would prefer NG2 over Razor's Edge, lol. Razor's Edge improved on NG2 in every imaginable way, and that includes making better tests of valor.

If you love endurance tests so much you must be a big fan of vanilla NG3

until you realize the entire point of 3d Ninja Gaiden is to push the player as hard as possible so they player can overcome a seemingly-impossible challenge that looks cool as fuck and feels amazing to pull off.

Except no because Scythe UT exists. The entire point of 3D Ninja Gaiden is to chain UTs forever and watch silly cutscenes of Ryu spinning around as all the enemies die. We know that's the point because the scoring system says so. And the scoring system is how we upgrade our weapons, so the devs clearly expected us to do what it says.

most of what makes NG3 salvageable is just stolen from NG2

Factually wrong. Razor's Edge gives a massive overhaul and improvement to the basic weapon movelist. It also overhauls the entire scoring system, the ninpo system, the ranged combat mechanics, even the way your character recovers life. It's a completely different game from NG2, in the same way that NG2 is a completely different game from NG1.

[Squire Grooktook]

'Acquired taste' might be the term? I found it had things to appreciate once I discarded notions of it being an NG game, though really it just devolves into a different flavour of system abuse once the difficulty escalates. Grab the Kusari-Gama, fish for cheap as fuck ranged SoB all day, and instakill chain through most every encounter. Sorted.

I recall Kasumi being quite fun, though that's also because of brokenness. Built in Windmill Shuriken, even better tele-bamf, and an easy command grab that can instant kill for free. Someone on the dev team was clearly a fan.

The combo thing is such a fucking deal breaker. It literally ruined the game for me honestly. Playing a game like this where enemies frequently block and dodge and you have a hit-confirm and dial-a-combo system and then just making it so even lowly mooks will just casually pop out of your combos? Actually feels like having my balls shoved in a deep freezer. To say nothing of how it actually forces you to play.

There are aspects of the game I do like though. While I think removing essence orbs is really pointless in terms of nerfing UT's (which didn't really need to be nerfed anyway IMO), I actually take a dirty pleasure in the "Blood Rage" and "Blood Rage UT" mechanics. The fact that this power up mode is (sort of, not really) semi-random makes it and the resulting finisher feel more like a "special occasion". Actually not a bad way of representing a character getting emotionally/viscerally heated up and going into hyper mode (imo would've felt even cooler if there was some subtle buff to your normals like a real dragon install, and not just the finisher).

A shame about fucking everything else in the game. Even the stage progression and pacing as I said makes me realize how important the down-time and minor exploration and traversal elements in the first two games were. The game really starts to feel repetitive and exhausting by the end. There's also a profound irony in that the previous two games unironically had better storytelling/writing and a more mature understanding of violence (the notebooks from your enemies do a way better job of humanizing your opponents than any hammy speech about YOU AND I ARE THE SAME in NG3...I shudder to think what the original version of the game was like)

I might be alone but I also somewhat dislike Steel On Bone. While there is visceral pleasure in setting up a chain of crunchy instant kills, it sucks that it turns the series main mix-up (throws/grapples/unblockables) that you were meant to pre-emptively avoid at all costs into slow Platinum-esque call-and-response bait. In fact, this comes close to destroying one of the main appeals of the series for me.

They're pretty riduculous from a design standpoint;

TBH I don't think there is a design to them. I think they were probably intended to be better / more diverse, maybe have more enemy waves and gimmicks for variety but they probably just ran out of dev time resulting in them being sadomasochistic easter eggs locked to the games hard modes. Personally I wouldn't mind them so much if they didn't encourage you to use lots of tedious exploits to complete them ("de-limb all of this one enemy type so that you can kite them crawling around on the floor for the next 5 hours while you focus on eliminating the enemy type that can one hit kill you")

I love NG2 but I think a lot of its design (especially on higher difficulties) has to be viewed behind the double one-two punch of Itagaki being a madman and the game suffering from a troubled development which had the dude ejecting from the company not long after barely reaching completion. If it had more time to cook I think it'd be a very different game, even with Itagaki's IREM-esque retro sadism.

[Sumez]

I don't trust Platinum Games to make a good Ninja Gaiden game. They make Kamiya games and Kamiya character action game design is almost diametrically opposed to Ninja Gaiden character action game design. Ninja Gaiden is all balanced around NEW GAME content. It's not some giant-ass save file you create where you play 100 hours before the game finally gives you all the tools and becomes fun in the post-game.

This is one of my two primary worries about Platinum making NG4.
The other is of it being focused on a Bayo/DMC-like scoring system with a focus on combos, style, or something similar, rather than balancing the game entirely around survival.
Though I do have issues of my own with the NG reboot, it's still a game I love conceptually at least - especially for all the ways it's *not* like Bayonetta, a game I just couldn't click with at all.

I'd also suggest everyone keep in mind that these studios are amorphous. Team Ninja ain't the same Team Ninja from 15 years ago, and probably not from 8 years ago. I'm kind of cautiously optimistic that - cutting their teeth on Nioh 1 & 2 - whoever's currently employed there might have enough action game experience to make a competent derivative of the first two games. We'll see.

I'd say so. Nioh is brilliant and showcases a good understanding of solid 3D action combat, regardless of whatever things I do think could have been better.
I've often seen people worry that a new 3D Ninja Gaiden game could end up becoming "too soulslike" because it's the trend of the time (and the current trend of Team Ninja). But honestly, that's not the worst thing that could happen - The original NG Reboot already had a lot of the qualities that'd also define the Souls series - especially in the boss fights. As long as it's not a straight up Souls clone, I'm fine with adapting some cues.

[BrianC]

Many of the key staff members, including Kamiya, are gone from Platinum now. Have they made anything good after Kamiya left? Aren't they working mostly on mobile games now? My hopes aren't high.