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Banned
(11-18-2007,
01:50 AM)
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Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword demo impressions
#1
 A rare shot of Ryu without his mask, and the new girl Since I'm all but useless today after a night without sleep (chalk it up to my usual semesterly bout of insomnia), I decided to hit up my local EB and see if the new DS demos were out. Sure enough, they were, and Ninja Gaiden DS is one of them. I didn't check out what else was there--see, when something new regarding Ninja Gaiden comes out, I get tunnel vision and shut out the rest of the world. In any case, check your local Nintendo Wi-fi hotspot place, they may have it. Long story short, I've played it a bunch of times today and I'm extremely happy with what I've experienced. Just a little background for those who may not have seen anything about it yet-- it's a full 3D Ninja Gaiden game, played entirely with the stylus (besides blocking, which is done with any button on the DS), and with the DS held book style.  The second of the two areas in the demo Now, this demo is tiny, maybe not even 5 minutes long, but a lot is accomplished in that time. Some quick house cleaning: the graphics are excellent and surprisingly detailed for the DS. the game plays fast and the frame rate is perfect. the sound and music are practically cut and pasted from the other games in the series. the production of the sound is particularly good. I played with my Sennheiser HD-555s and besides being quieter, it sounds like any other 3D Ninja Gaiden game. Clangs, ryu's grunts and yells, enemy grunts, slashes, kicks, and all. The million dollar question-- how are the controls? Like most people who have read about the all stylus control, my initial reaction was to cringe, but I eventually put my faith in Itagaki, and rightfully so-- the controls are damn near perfect. Zelda certainly proved it could be done, but Ninja Gaiden's input is more varied, due to Ryu having a much fuller move set than Link. In fact, all of Ryu's basic dragon sword move set is here, which fans of NG will notice. The game doesn't tell you how to do much more than block, jump, slash, and Izuna drop, but within minutes, all the extra moves came to me as if I already knew how to do them: rolling is done by holding block and tapping where you want to go, the flying swallow is done by jumping then swiftly crossing the stylus over the enemy you want to hit, that 2 hit lunge that's normally done by running towards an enemy, hitting X, then pulling back + X again for another hit is done by drawing a long line over the enemy, then immediately pulling back. Basically, it's all very intuitive. I was surprised by how many moves were in there and I suspect they didn't explain how to do them so that the player could discover them on his/her own. They're not a secret though-- anyone who gives the demo more than one go will find new moves. Only thing I couldn't figure out was how to wall run, but I suspect it's not in this game. The responsiveness of the game to the input is amazing as well-- in fact, it's almost too good. Instead of wrestling with the game to get it to do what you want, you'll need to control your taps so you don't have Ryu attacking and running all over the screen. It's loose, but precise if you get control over it, just the like the console games.  A random stage not found in the demo The only downside to the demo, besides being very short, is that the enemies are incredibly easy and Ryu has a ton of energy, so you're never in danger. There's a boss fight at the end, but the thing goes down with no effort. To it's credit, it does have three different "modes" of attack. Still, it's a laughable mini-boss at best. I fully expect this game to be easier to appeal to teens and kids, but I do hope it's not this easy on release (or at least have a hard mode of some sort.) The enemies showed signs of intelligence here or there, but in general, the demo plays like a proof of concept for the control style. Which is fine by me. I wasn't expecting the full experience in the demo, and I'm in on day one even if the game is a tin foil-wrapped turd with the words "Ninja Gaiden DS" written with a sharpie marker on the front of it. Okay, maybe not that far. those are my impressions. I think it'll be a legit entry to the series, not just a portable afterthought like most console to handheld translations of popular games. To sum it up: I'm floored by how little is lost in the process--it still felt like Ninja Gaiden, albeit easy as hell. Like a lot of delayed Team Ninja games, it'll be worth the wait. post script: oh yeah, there's ninpo. You trace the sanskrit letter, which is really easy, and it kills every thing in sight. It's a big fireball you can move around with your stylus. current release date: 2/4/08  This is the guy who is the head of the team that makes this game. They're called Team Ninja. He's so controversial that a bunch of posters will come into this thread with the purpose of saying they hate him. He's like the Cool Hand Luke of Japan. |
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The Azure Palace
(11-18-2007,
02:22 AM)
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#9
Originally Posted by Vic:
Yup. This game is that good. Here's my impressions from E4All that he's talking about.
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Lucky that you got to demo it in English. Looks like I'll be stopping by gamestop sometime soon for some NG action.  |
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for whom the Bell trolls
(11-18-2007,
06:42 AM)
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#23
Very nice preview.
Originally Posted by Frester:
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Member
(11-18-2007,
06:57 AM)
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#25
Originally Posted by a Master Ninja:
'Cause I'm sure a lot more people can read Sanskrit characters than kanji  In all seriousness I understand what they're trying to do, but it seems like kind of a moot point :-\ |
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(11-18-2007,
10:48 AM)
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#30
Pre-rendered backgrounds... does so much for crappy 3D systems.
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Banned
(11-18-2007,
03:07 PM)
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#31
Originally Posted by Hunter D:
hmmm...standards of femininity must have skewed towards the butch overnight: *removed pics for the sake of the thread* just go google the other names and let me know if you think bayman, leon, and brad wong are fem. ANYWAY-- figured out how to do UTs last night as well-- you have to "scratch" ryu and keep scratching to charge it. then it automatically kills everything on the screen
Originally Posted by Thunder Monkey:
yep, they look really nice and clean. Last edited by Mamesj : 11-18-2007 at 03:10 PM. |
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Member
(11-19-2007,
04:42 AM)
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#35
Originally Posted by beat:
It's probably the same demo that's been shown at various shows. |
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Junior Member
(11-19-2007,
04:55 AM)
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#37
Oh, I didn't see this thread before... Great, short demo. Shows the game mechanic works well, moves are well defined from each other, throwing of ninja stars is great and special moves work. Solid game, looks pretty good too. Looking forward to the full game!
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Banned
(11-19-2007,
05:18 AM)
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#39
Originally Posted by BudokaiMR2:
there probably isn't much platforming in this one, so there wouldn't be a need for it.
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yep. almost as bad as MGS 4's "Coming |
