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Ninja Gaiden: Black vs Sigma

Guy Legend

Member
So I haven't played any of the Ninja Gaiden games yet (except for a demo) despite being an Xbox owner for so many years. One of the few remaining games I was considering to buy on my Xbox (besides splinter cell chaos theory) is Ninja Gaiden Black....which I assume is far superior than the original xbox outing.

However, I just got a PS3 last week and now have the option to get Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Is this a no brainer choice in favor of Sigma or does Black hold up very well playing on an Xbox in 480p? My main concern is the visual differences....
 
Even at its best Black pales in comparison to Sigma graphically. There are some minor differences in gameplay and features with which Black might be preferred, but other than that Sigma is the definitive version.
 
Well of course Sigma is better looking without a doubt, but I think Black holds up as being a better game when it comes to very high level play and scoring. Sigma has a few bugs which hold it back, unfortunately.
 
ShinAmano said:
I don't even own a PS3 yet but i would say Sigma...more content and better graphics...but dare I say worse controller :)
I kinda agree with this, but its probably due to being conditioned to play NG with an Xbox controller for years. A newcomer like the OP will probably dislike the overly-convex Xbox face buttons as I recall doing at first.
 
Miroku said:
Well of course Sigma is better looking without a doubt, but I think Black holds up as being a better game when it comes to very high level play and scoring. Sigma has a few bugs which hold it back, unfortunately.
I don't believe you. What bugs? The demo was perfect.
 
Miroku said:
Well of course Sigma is better looking without a doubt, but I think Black holds up as being a better game when it comes to very high level play and scoring. Sigma has a few bugs which hold it back, unfortunately.


What bugs? Have you played Sigma?
 
Guy Legend said:
So I haven't played any of the Ninja Gaiden games yet (except for a demo) despite being an Xbox owner for so many years. One of the few remaining games I was considering to buy on my Xbox (besides splinter cell chaos theory) is Ninja Gaiden Black....which I assume is far superior than the original xbox outing.

However, I just got a PS3 last week and now have the option to get Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Is this a no brainer choice in favor of Sigma or does Black hold up very well playing on an Xbox in 480p? My main concern is the visual differences....
First of all, you should be ashamed of yourself you haven't bought this game yet.
2nd, Black still holds up great, but Sigma looks obviously much better.
3rd, Black's difficulty is a bit higher, and some stupid added characters in Sigma (bikers) spoil it a bit, but Sigma adds a lot of nice stuff too.
4th, Black will only cost you €30,- and Sigma €60,-

sooo.
 
Blimblim said:
Sigma has better graphics, Black has no stupid Rachel levels. Tough choice really.
Jesus, those level are abysmal

edit: I'd still recommend Sigma, even with the above mentioned flaw.
 
Doc Evils said:
What bugs? Have you played Sigma?

Yes, I've beaten it a few times.

You can find a big list of complaints about Sigma on www.iberiansngrealm.com
Here's a small taste copied and pasted:

System Wipeout
Player receives message from system that memory has been corrupted. On continuing, all game system data has been erased. Time counters are all reset to zero. All unlocked items have been relocked. Only save files remain but their time counter has also been reset to zero.

Groundhog's Day
In chapter 17, Ryu got the Key of the Lion, and is about to unlock the Lion's Gate. Once unlocked, the player presses Interact and the animation shows him opening and walking through the Gate. However once on the other side, before the player can even gain control of Ryu, Ryu drops through the ground and re-emerges before the Lion's Gate. This bug keeps repeating until Ryu has gone back and forth through a portal.

Smoke Begets No Smoke, Explosion Begets No Explosion
Ryu drops a smoke bomb. He executes the roll, but no smoke comes up and the enemies are unaffected. A smoke bomb is still considered to have been expended. The same goes for Explosive Arrows sometimes. They have no explosions, performing as a normal arrow.

This bug is more likely to be found in Mission Mode at the moment, encountered in Abysmal Lair 3, Descent of the Fiends 2, and Eternal Legend.

It's Raining Ninjas, Hallelujah
After starting off chapter 2, the player goes back down the shaft leading up to the Ninja Fortress and moves to the start of the tunnels. He turns back to find ninjas appearing and dying immediately without any action. Proceeding back to the shaft, ninjas are seen dropping down and dying of unknown reasons. These dead ninjas all yield essences as if normally killed and are factored into the player's end of chapter kills.

Timed or Non-Timed, Can the System Make Up Its Mind?
A Story Mode's timed encounter can become a non-timed encounter for one player while for another player it remains timed. Resetting or installing the game on the hard drive sometimes solves the problem for the first player but it comes back again and again.

No Score for You!!
The player sometimes never get the kill bonus from defeating a boss. Known cases so far involve the Vigoor Emperor's First Form, Awakened Alma, and the Helicopter.

Ridiculous Encounter Time Limits
In NG/NGB, all time limits are possible. Just some of them were so tight, you require the right timing and a bit of luck ( for positioning ) to meet them exactly ( the Fore Cabin encounter on chapter 3 comes to mind readily, and again the encounter just at the top of the stairs in the Gas Compartments, and the Drawbridge Square encounters in chapter 5 ). However, to reiterate, they are all possible and many have met the time limits.

Now with these time limits in NGS, are they really possible for certain encounters? Especially the Archive Fiend Challenge on Master Ninja, where you are expected to kill 60 Greater Basts and 60 Red Ninjas in 370 seconds. The Basts only appear at a maximum of 2 at a time, while at any time, only 1 Red Ninja comes on screen. This means you only have 6 seconds to kill each Red Ninja while also taking care of the Basts.
 
Miroku said:
You can find a big list of complaints about Sigma on www.iberiansngrealm.com
Here's a small taste copied and pasted:

I totally think that a buggy product is unacceptable, but I played through the entirety of Sigma and didn't encounter one bug. I don't know about high level play, etc. but you can absolutely play through the game.

FiRez said:
I agree, Sigma looks more like a port than a remake

The resolution change alone is worth the cost of admission.
 
I don't know about Black, but I can attest to the fact that Sigma loads in the middle of fights even after the lengthy install process. It threw me off of my game a few times, but it's not completely broken. Also, there's a wee bit of screen tearing here and there.
 
KTallguy said:
I totally think that a buggy product is unacceptable, but I played through the entirety of Sigma and didn't encounter one bug. I don't know about high level play, etc. but you can absolutely play through the game.



The resolution change alone is worth the cost of admission.


exactly.
 
DangerStepp said:
I don't know about Black, but I can attest to the fact that Sigma loads in the middle of fights and it throws off my game. It's a minor hitch, but it's there. Also, there's a wee bit of screen tearing here and there.
Black suffers from screen tear too
 
ZeroTolerance said:
Might wanna check THIS as well.
Sorry, but Black never looked that good. Sigma's not the best looking game around, sure, but those Black shots are so blatantly doctored up. They look like the PR shots off the back of the box.
 
Zophar said:
Sorry, but Black never looked that good. Sigma's not the best looking game around, sure, but those Black shots are so blatantly doctored up. They look like the PR shots off the back of the box.
Sigma ones are AA'd bullshots too. Not to mention the LOD/Blur.
 
Sigma in every way. Sigma even streamlined the annoying, frustrating platforming elements that were in Black. (underground temple, i'm looking at you)
 
I was thinking about getting this with my new PS3 but was surprised to see it still at $60. I'm pretty sure the game sold like a turd. This thread makes me want to pick it up anyway though.
 
Raw64life said:
I was thinking about getting this with my new PS3 but was surprised to see it still at $60. I'm pretty sure the game sold like a turd. This thread makes me want to pick it up anyway though.
Unfortunately it didn't sell very well. The PS3 rehash was another chance at grabbing a large audience, but it wasn't successful. I guess it's sub-par performance can be attributed to its summer release. I'll vouch that it's quite excellent. As far as price is concerned, I picked it up on eBay for $10 cheaper the week after it dropped. Maybe you'll luck up there.
 
Sorta OT, but I gave my nephew my Xbox, but he doesn't know how to play NGB, citing that it's too hard. If I were to tempt him somehow into beating the first boss with $10, would that be too cruel?
 
It always pisses me off when someone says "DMC controls better on PS pad" and now vice versa. Just because you're 'used' to a controller for a game doesn't make it better or worse, really. The truth is the 360 and PS3 controllers are both very well suited for these types of action games.

And Sigma is the correct answer. You get to control the Sythe-wielding chick with big boobs! #1 reason right there.
 
Brannon said:
Sorta OT, but I gave my nephew my Xbox, but he doesn't know how to play NGB, citing that it's too hard. If I were to tempt him somehow into beating the first boss with $10, would that be too cruel?
Kinda. The first two bosses are way too hard way too soon, especially compared to the next few bosses right after them. The first boss can be cheesed through fairly easily...tell him about the importance of wall-jump-attacking him

I still think that fighting the first boss, without being able to counter his attacks, is bad game design.
 
KTallguy said:
I totally think that a buggy product is unacceptable, but I played through the entirety of Sigma and didn't encounter one bug. I don't know about high level play, etc. but you can absolutely play through the game.

Yes you can, thats why in my original post I suggested that the bugs only affect high level play. The bugs that could affect anyone right out of the box, like the system wipe and other save game bugs, are extremely rare.
I wouldnt make an argument that Sigma is somehow unplayable due to bugs. I would make an argument that if you dont care about graphics, and only care about the ultimate hardcore level of play, that Black is the superior game.
 
I was able to locate my demo for the original Ninja Gaiden on an OXM xbox demo disc. I'm also downloading the Sigma demo off of PSN. No better way to do a comparison than that...
 
The dual katanas in sigma are awesome to use.

You want better graphics. Sigma has some annoyances, but overall it is the version to get.
 
Sigma has every feature from Black plus more weapons and on-line DLC.

It looks better, has additional levels, Rachel as a playable character, and most stores have it for $40. My favorite PS3 title so far.
 
I personally found most of the additions to sigma to be quite dissapointing. I gamefly rented it with the intent to purchase it (I'm a HUGE NG fan), but decided about 2/3rd of the way through that I hated the rachel missions and new bad guys enough that it made the game less fun to play then black for me, despite the new weapon and better graphics. If you've never played NG before, they did add alot of minor things to balance the difficulty out a bit (they added some shops in, decreased the number of enemies in some areas, etc), especially early in the game (the shop placed before the second boss fight is a huge boon to people that get stuck there...of which there are many).
 
When I finally played through Sigma recently I was a little disappointed that it wasn't hands down superior to Black. The placement of save points was greatly improved, but the more frequent loading, and SD FMV (they even cut an FMV out from Black and replaced it with a game sequence) were disappointing. I also absolutely abhor the fact that Team Ninja still refuses to allow difficulty selection from the start. I shouldn't have to beat a game to choose that!

Obivously, Sigma's graphics are way better than Black's. But I think for the time Black was the better package.
 
Well, I played both demos and found that there was really no comparison. The PS3's version looked so much better that it's not worth even debating which version to get (although Ninja Gaiden looks great for an Xbox game). The games were played on PS3 at 720p via HDMI and my Xbox at 480p on component.

Also one really annoying thing about the xbox demo was that if you traversed through areas you've already explored, the same enemies would reappear. I'm not sure if Black corrected that, but it wasn't a problem in the Sigma demo.
 
I stuck with Black as it seems like the superior version.

-Better camera in Black (VERY VERY IMPORTANT)
-Better fighting angle in Black (more zoomed in and makes everything look cooler. Big characters, etc...)
-No Rachael
-Harder(?)

Whereas Sigma had:

-Better graphics
-More weapons
 
Bebpo said:
I stuck with Black as it seems like the superior version.

-Better camera in Black (VERY VERY IMPORTANT)
-Better fighting angle in Black (more zoomed in and makes everything look cooler. Big characters, etc...)
-No Rachael
-Harder(?)

Whereas Sigma had:

-Better graphics
-More weapons

yes, Black is harder and the extra missions are better.

and you can add tearing/framedrops to Sigma.
 
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