Ninja Gaiden 2 BLACK

posted on 1 Feb 2025

I almost had my parents return Ninja Gaiden 2 for the Xbox 360 when I was 13. I was going to tell them to say that the game was defective and didn’t work. In reality, my incessant rage quitting had rendered me insecure about my gaming ability, and I’d placed quite a lot of stock in that ability during my teenage years. Surely it had to be that the game was defective and not my inability to navigate around something difficult. My usual supply of copium dioxide seemed to be dwindling.

Up until this point in my gaming career, everything had been easy to figure out and master. It was genuinely the first thing that had provided a challenge, and apparently I didn’t take kindly to that. At some point, the mechanics of what I was doing seemed to click into place, and I’d decided to give one of the beginning bosses I was stuck at a few more tries. Miraculously, I ended up doing it thanks to some counter-attacks with the staff, and what ensued after this point was a spree of gaming mania that had me eventually beat the game on the hardest difficulty.

Greasy and smelling like absolute ass, I emerged from my room that summer break, the Xbox 360 on the verge of overheating, having defeated the archfiend and with 100% of the achievements unlocked. I emerged with a new favorite game before I finally took a shower.

Ninja Gaiden 2 is how action games should be. A blisteringly fast pace laced with gory, dismembered limbs and incessant spatter, the fighting loops never seem to get old. Each of the weapons has its own strengths and is fun to use thanks to each weapon moveset and execution animation being so carefully crafted for all of the individual enemies in the game depending on which of their limbs are missing. NG2 sees you through a multitude of different areas and arenas as you’re drug along by its nonsensical plot with patterns emerging such as your large-breasted companion losing you, only to find you a chapter later and repeat the same tired line of “Ryu…” The plot and the characters are absolute garbage and I love it. In the era of “every video game has to be like a serious book and a movie combined together with minimal gameplay,” I yearn for the days of straight-forward gaming like this.

There’s a time and a place for intricately woven webs of subplots and 6-dimensional characters, but it is not here. Here exists violence and skimpy outfits on Ninja women that jump on the backs of enemies to cut their heads off. Bask in it.

I have no comment on how this game differs from Ninja Gaiden 2 and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. In fact, I don’t give a single shit about this in the slightest. I feel only satisfaction. The game looks incredible and plays well, I get to satisfy my nostalgia, and I get to experience playing as characters other than Ryu which was a nice surprise for me, having played only the Xbox 360 version. Therefore, it’s a thumbs up from me.