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 "Some day you will come to understand the pursuit of power. Perhaps beginning with your training here." Another bonus update, because we can't let our progress in Black get far ahead of Sigma, so this update is going to be a little bit different. Just a write up covering various aspects of gameplay that I have made mention of but never took the time to fully explain, along with some convenient if not crude drawings and diagrams to better explain these concepts. It wouldn't be right to gloss over the little details that make this game great, now would it? Note that this is not a full breakdown of every single specific of the combat system like frame counts on individual moves or insane poo poo like that. I'm not that nuts. But this is a collection of what I think are the most useful techniques and knowledge to have not just for this game, but for future games in the series as well. Though if you really want to see someone go way more in depth in breaking down all these systems, there is the Advanced Combat Guide by aaxe over on Gamefaqs. In fact, some of his stuff in that guide I used to validate and test stuff in game myself before writing this update. Seriously, it is well worth a read if you want to see all the nitty gritty details of this game yourself. Cancelling Compared to many other character action games, Ninja Gaiden allows for surprisingly little cancelling in your moveset. You are committed to your combos once you're in, and there's no obvious means to get out of one without simply pressing nothing to drop the combo and return to neutral. Cancelling exists in this game, but is more balanced in that you can only take advantage of it at specific moments, as opposed to the Platinum style of cancelling where moves can be cancelled at literally any frame of animation in order to react to incoming attacks. The most flexible cancelling technique in this game is known as Shuriken Cancelling.  Simply pressing the B button will fire a shuriken, as we all know. What is less known is that this can be used to interrupt a vast majority of moves, both on ground and airborne. Even running moves. It's easiest with the default shuriken due to its speed and unlimited use. You can even use this technique with the Windmill and Incendiary Shuriken, although the timing and application of this differs. For obvious reasons, the bow does not have this ability, hence why it's just called "Shuriken Cancelling" and not just "Projectile Cancelilng."   That said, it still has its limitations. While it can be used to cancel out of attacks, this only applies to light attacks that are not the last hit of a combo (heavy attacks regardless of stance also apply). Obviously because the game would become too easy if you could break out of the recovery animations and combo enders that put yourself at risk during battle. Another important thing to note is that this only really works with the Dragon Sword and all other katana based weapons (the Wooden Sword and another weapon that we'll get in the future). All other weapons thus far like the Vigoorian Flail and the Lunar are designated as two handed weapons, which is odd considering Ryu's stance is typically holding the Dragon Sword using both hands. But the distinction is that certain animations in his moves imply that his non-dominant hand is actually free during most of them. Every other weapon type requires Ryu hold it with both hands at all times and thus does not have a free hand to quickly fire a shuriken to cancel the attack. There is one exception and that is using a light attack with these weapons in the air, in which case you can fire Shurikens to cancel out of the attack. Still, considering the Flail and Lunar have default combos that hit more times than the Dragon Sword, I say that balances it out considering every Shuriken hit adds to your combo counter anyway. Now, there are two other types of cancelling, though they aren't quite as versatile or practicle as the shuriken. The second cancelling method is done with Ninpo.  It's actually pretty straight forward, as it allows for Ryu to cancel out of the recovery animation for attacks that cannot be done with Shuriken, those being heavy attacks and combo enders. Simply pressing both B and Y at the earliest possible moment in the recovery frames will cancel and use whatever Ninpo Ryu has equipped. Nothing to it, of course you only want to use this if you're really desperate to not die. Not much else to it. The last cancelling method is much more subtle and not quite as necessary as it has an alternative method that is a bit more tricky. This is Block Cancelling.  Now this method is based around dropping your current combo so you can repeat the same one or go into a different attack. The way Ryu's moves work is that each strike in a combo can be delayed to varying degrees, so you can mash it out as fast as possible or time your strikes in order to better catch an enemy off guard. However, because of this you are effectively locked into a combo with no way out other than through a viable branch in the combo tree. So how do you get out of an attack you don't want to commit all the way to? What is done is that during a part of a combo that you want to drop out of, you hold the Left Trigger briefly. At first you may think it doesn't work, but that's because Ryu does not go into a defensive stance immediately. The animation of the last attack still needs to play out through the active frames. What most don't realize behind the scenes is that the combo is already dropped by the system and during the transition to what would be the recovery animation, you can buffer your next input and go straight into a different attack. Here's a visual example.  Let's take the default 3 hit combo of Ryu's Dragon Sword, the Crimson Slash. We want to cancel out of the second attack so we can repeat the first two hits again and again. If we try and hit X again after the second swing has finished, Ryu will still go into the final slash. By holding Block near the end of the second swing, the game now says that Ryu will return to neutral and another combo can be initiated. However, in keeping with the game's rules, the new combo can only start once the active frames of the attack are completely finished (in this case, when Ryu is halfway towards holding the Dragon Sword in both hands again).  This type of cancelling is not the only way to get out of a combo. In fact, it's more or less the same as not pressing anything and letting Ryu return to neutral. The reason why I bring this up though is that it ensures the player can start a new combo at the earliest possible moment. Whether you use Block Cancel or not, the specific frame transition between active and recovery is still largely the same. What's different is you'll be given a chance to buffer the move without risk of it continuing the combo. If you want to challenge yourself you can try and repeat this without the Block Cancel, but the timing requirement will be much more strict. It's a neat trick, and the closest analog to this I can think of is Twitch Cancelling in DMC1, where you rotate the analog stick during an attack to reset Dante's basic Rebellion combo. However unlike in that game I don't use Block Cancelling much if at all when playing normally. It's useful if you're wanting to farm essence with high hit combos (like the Flail/Nunchaku with its high stun rate), but there's no reason to engage in it if you're just trying to get poo poo done as you have more than enough other tools do so. On Landing State Much like with cancelling, there is very little in terms of Just Frame states or moves in Ninja Gaiden compared to other character action games. They largely exist in a state that comes from landing after a jump, and before fully transitioning back into a ground state. This is known as On Landing.  The conditions for the On Landing State are such that upon Ryu touching the ground, there is an ~10 frame window with which few, select moves will completely bypass the start up phase of their animation and go straight into their active frames. If you're jumping into a crowd of enemies and have a certain move that can easily disrupt that crowd this is a good technique to master. If you want an easier time getting the OL State to work, try throwing Shuriken in the air. It will leave you airborne for just a bit longer and stop your forward momentum, letting you easily see when you're going to land. In fact, it's what I regularly do for one particular technique that benefits from this.  If you wondered how I was instantly able to perform an Ultimate Technique faster than most players would be able to, even with absorbing essence, this is how. Charging for an Ultimate Technique has a start up phase, regardless of whether there is essence on screen this phase must be completed before the essence can be absorbed. But in an On Landing State, not only will you instantly absorb the essence at that moment, but the Y button doesn't even need to be held. Simply pressing and releasing will absorb the essence and initiate the technique on the spot. When doing Karma Runs or just trying to survive on the higher difficulties this is a crucial skill.  There are still a few moves in the game besides the UT that benefit from On Landing. For instance, forward X with the Dragon Sword has no start up time when used. Another On Landing trick actually involves the moves that Ryu has when he is in a running state. Normally you'd have to start physically moving Ryu before you can initiate one of these attacks. However, when jumping and landing, holding the left stick in a direction is still treated as being in a running state, meaning you can buffer a running attack to initiate the moment you enter an On Landing state. Violent Wind/Gale is an excellent move to use in this example as the move sends Ryu forward in multiple directions and is rarely blocked (like the Thunderclap Kick and other kick moves tend to be). For extra clarity regarding On Landing, this state only applies to Ryu if he lands on the ground normally. Using an airborne attack, be it light or heavy, to quickly land negates this state and instead is treated as a regular attack. Messing up the timing for an instant UT can come from either pressing the button too late after landing, or too early and instead performing a Helmet Splitter or any regular air Y move. iFrame Abuse Well, I say abuse as if it's somehow a bad thing, but it's actually a necessity for a game like this. Knowing when to avoid attacks that are otherwise near impossible is a godsend. As you'd imagine, various moves in Ninja Gaiden have invincibility frames, due to the length of their animations and the context in which they're performed. The most obvious example is the Ultimate Technique. Once the button is released and Ryu dashes forward and connects the hit, he is invulnerable for the entire duration. There are other major techniques that have prolonged invincibility frames such as the Guillotine Throw and Izuna Drop. Naturally many players would prefer to latch onto these techniques early on due to their safe properties. But there are other moves that apply, even though their window of invulnerability varies.  While not 100% consistent across all weapons, airborne Y attacks grant various amounts of iFrames as the animations typically must be completed before an attack can interrupt Ryu. The Lunar's air Y attack is the most obvious and probably safest example of all the early game weapons, as Ryu is still airborne for relatively longer after initiating the attack, before plummeting straight down.  As you'd expect after briefly showing it, taking advantage of invincibility frames is a life saver when dealing with the Black Spider Ninja. Their incendiary shuriken can't be shaken off if you're pegged by one, so you have to take advantage of any moves that allow for protection, regardless of it being big or small. Sometimes a simple Reverse Wind provides enough invulnerability when timed properly. When Ryu is actively rolling he cannot be damaged, but this ends upon entering recovery or going straight into a rolling jump. On a minor note, while there are plenty of moves that cannot be interrupted by enemies, not all of them provide iFrames. A clear example is when using a hold Y move that is neither an ET/UT, such as the Dragon Sword's Haze Straight Slash. When the move is initiated, Ryu will not be knocked out of it, but any enemy attacks that collide with him during this will still deal damage. The reverse of this concept actually applies to plenty of enemies in game, particularly the Gallas and other similiarly large fiends. They have specific attack animations that cannot be interrupted once started, but they can still take damage. The downside is sometimes taking damage from those attacks isn't worth the obvious risk. Something to keep in mind. Targeting System The Ninja Gaiden series I feel is the one standout action series that exclusively uses a soft lock system for targetting enemies, and yet still allows for a large amount of control in how you want to engage in it. Devil May Cry obviously uses a hard lock system extensively as specific moves are tied to it and Dante's orientation to the enemy, and Platinum's brand of character action games gives a choice between both types. But Ninja Gaiden only has one option, and it works so well that the first time going through you don't even realize how much more it helps than it does hinder.  So how does the system work exactly? How does it determine which targets Ryu will automatically track during a combo? If you guessed based on proximity, you would be half right. In fact, it's based on both proximity and the threat level of the particular enemy. Ryu will lock on to an enemy that is in melee range and is about to or in the middle of an attack. No matter which direction the enemy is in, so long as they're in range and you press any attack button, Ryu will automatically turn to face that enemy and strike, and that enemy continues to be the target of the combo. If you want to see a neat detail that informs you of which enemy the game labels as the primary target, look at Ryu's head during a fight. He'll look in the direction of whichever enemy is currently locked on to by the system. And if an enemy is not close enough to hit but still targetted by the system, pressing X and A to do a Wind Run will have Ryu automatically home in on that enemy. But despite being a very automatic system, it is not restrictive on the player's actions. In fact, the moment user control with the left stick is implemented, targeting controls are placed directly in the player's hands from then on.  Ninja Gaiden's combat and combo structure is flexible such that, unlike many action games before it, changing the direction of your attack is easy and intuitive, all with the left analog stick. This is why the only directional input attacks in the game are forward (pushing the stick in any direction) or 360 rotation, because Ryu's orientation prior to attacking has no effect on what takes place. Before even attacking an enemy, if there is a specific one you want to target, simply push in the direction of that enemy then strike. This can be with a light or heavy attack, or even a projectile. Simply tossing a shuriken can be a handy way to confirm which target you'll focus on and the game will assist in making that enemy a priority. And when you're attacking an enemy, if another is in close enough range, you can adjust Ryu's facing direction mid combo to hit both or just the other enemy entirely. The even better part about this feature is how it can be utilized in multiple situations. On ground it's pretty clear how it's useful, but even in a limited capacity you still have control over which enemy you'll target while airborne. Two enemies caught in the air at once can be used to sustain an air combo and you can still choose which of the two you might want to Izuna Drop. And when you use an Ultimate Technique, you still have complete control over who you want to target, making the UTs of weapons like the Vigoorian Flail or Dragon Sword more useful than they'd ever be in another, more restrictive action game.  Even so, it's important to remember that once you're current target is either killed, crumpled, knocked out of range, or in the case of the imps burrowed, not continuing to input with the left stick will revert targeting control back to the game itself. Ryu will return to fighting the closest, most offensive enemy in the battle (if no enemy is close enough, he'll attack in the direction he was last facing). It's important to remember this especially if you want to finish an enemy with a down attack. Simply pressing Y despite the enemy's body being very close does not result in the attack if another enemy has been deemed a higher priority. The auto targeting is a very useful system though it is not 100% full-proof, so it still requires skill and various inputs from the player themselves to be used effectively. Relying on just one targeting method is not enough, utilizing both modes will ensure that every attack hits where you want it. Essence Breakdown Essence is a crucial part of the Ninja Gaiden experience, serving as either currency to buy items and weapon upgrades, or a means to unleash devastating Ultimate Techniques. But you never really see how much essence you actually get until you pause the game and check your total. Depending on how an enemy is killed and how many hits it took, the amount of essence released will vary. Here's a breakdown of Essence as it applies to ET/UT.  Enemies release a set amount of essence once they are killed. Besides the obvious reason of killing them with an Ultimate Technique (doing it fast and flashy), doing so will actually multiply the amount of released essence. So take a normal early game enemy that releases 100 essence upon death. If that enemy is killed by an Essence Technqiue, the essence released is 300% that of its original value. Kill 'em with an Ultimate Technique and the payout is 700%. But it actually doesn't stop there. Essence released is also determined by how high your combo counter is at the time of an enemy's death. If you're just playing with the Dragon Sword you may not notice the effects because combos that are less than 20 hits will release the default amount of essence (or have a chance of releasing blue or red essence depending on the situation). Once you pass the 20 hit mark, the essence amount begins to multiply incrementally. Eventually the multiplier bonus caps out once the combo counter exceeds 50 hits. But because of how rare it is normally to get to that high of a combo, it is a very satisfying reward for skillful play when it occurs. Even better is that this multiplier gets combined with the ET/UT essence multiplier which really leads to a massive payout. Here's a chart that lays out all the percentages: pre:Combo Normal ET Kill UT Kill 00-19 100% 300% 700% 20-24 300% 500% 900% 25-29 350% 550% 950% 30-34 400% 600% 1000% 35-39 450% 650% 1050% 40-44 500% 700% 1100% 45-49 550% 750% 1150% 50+ 600% 800% 1200% Essence Control Getting large amounts of Essence is all well in good, but getting those 20+ hit Ultimate Technique finishes won't mean anything if the released essence is then immediately absorbed to start another UT. You see, the game penalizes for essenced harnessed for these techniques by not giving you nothing, but instead only 20%, but that trade off should not be encouraged if you're still in need of getting items and upgrades from Muramasa in a timely manner. That is where Essence Control comes into play. The way the player interacts with Essence can be described as the opposite of how the player interacted with orbs in the Onimusha series. As opposed to holding a button to absorb them all at once, Ninja Gaiden lets you hold block to stop the absorbtion. And even then, the proximity for triggering essence absorption is a lot shorter than one would think at first. But so long as you are holding the block button during any action, be it actual defense or just holding it during the end of a combo, the essence will stay where it is until the game decides to unload it from the world after a set time.  Thankfully, much like the targeting system for enemies, the game will always absorb the first piece of essence that is closest to Ryu, followed by the second closest and so on. If a lot of enemies have released a ton of essence of multiple types (mostly yellow and some blue as a common example), a good tactic is to stand close to the group of Yellow, then release the block button and hold again to absorb the first piece. This is the safest means to control essence absorbtion as once the first orb gets pulled in, the others start to react in quick succession, making it hard to stop the flow exactly where you want. Then once you've got all the yellow you want, you can take the remaining blue or small yellow essence for an Ultimate Technique and repeat the cycle. By the time we get to Chapter 10 in Ninja Gaiden Black (12 in Sigma) you'll see a very clear example of this in action.  Now, because you have to be fairly close to naturally absorb essence, there are many encounters in the game where the safest approach is to kill enemies from a large distance (like the Middle Cabin on the airship, shooting the SAT soldiers on the other side with the arrow). In these situations, there is no need to harness that essence for a UT, but it is sometimes handy to absorb it regardless. You might get some extra health out of it and that's always beneficial. The main way to pull far away essence towards yourself in this situation is to begin a charge for an Ultimate Technique, and then quickly start. Note that compared to the strategy for controlling essence absorption listed earlier, this one is a lot more challenging because the essence gets pulled in much faster and from much farther that many times you'll hold the button for too long and it will instantly charge. Thankfully, if you're in this situation where you want to pull essence to you with a charge move, don't worry if it screws up. It's not a big of a loss considering most released essence in this situation is typically small in value. Karma Breakdown The crux of high level score play in Ninja Gaiden. Playing for score and rankings has been a strong motivator for many in character action games, myself included, and Ninja Gaiden's no exception. Though compared to its stylish, more over the top brethren, Ninja Gaiden uses a scoring system that perfectly emphasizes what it's all about : Getting poo poo done.  I've demonstrated this system exclusively during the Sigma playthrough, but all the same principles apply to Black since that game provides the base for everything the future updates were based on. Basically, each chapter of the game can be easily split up into a series of ranked encounters where the player will be able to increase their overall Karma score. This score does not change anywhere outside of these battles, as a means to deter certain players from grinding repeat encounters ad infinitum and instead encourage players to get the most out of each new encounter on the first go. By now you've seen that the Karma Counter during battles tracks three categories: Combo, Kills, and Time. Those all seem pretty easy to figure out on there own, but there are specifics to the Karma score payout that isn't readily obvious:
 Now, that scoring is only for each individual encounter in a chapter. The score you see at the very end of each chapter works on a different set of rules. There are the four categories of time, kills, essence, and ninpo, but what are all of those categories looking for specifically and how can you get the max score on each of them?
So that's the breakdown. Doing a Karma Run is an interesting way to approach a game that many people struggled to survive through the first time, but the neat thing when you look at the specifics is how little room there is for exploiting the system. Limiting the score increases to ranked encounters and setting a limit on end of chapter bonuses ensures players have to fight to make the most out of every moment to earn every finite Karma point possible. There is no glitch or exploit in the game to break the score and push it up to impossible amounts (Unlike a later Team Ninja game where the response to a Karma score glitch was to shut down the leaderboards. loving Razor's Edge...), and while OG Xbox Live and all its leaderboards are now banished to the void, some of the high scores I've seen for Karma Runs on Master Ninja are in the 25 million range. Which is incidentally only slightly less than half of what my final score was when I completed my Master Ninja run for the first time.
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Feb 19, 2017 00:15
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Finally caught up with the LP, great work so far. I've only ever really played the NES Ninja Gaiden games and about an hour of Black years and years ago, but this LP and Nioh kind of made me want to check the newer games out. I hear 3 and Yaiba are terrible but how does Sigma 2 fare? I hear it takes about as many things out of 2 as it does add new features to 2.
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Feb 22, 2017 19:56
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While Sigma 1 attempted to stay extremely true to the original with some tweaks here and there, Sigma 2 fared too far into the new director's artistic liberty and watered down the game's violence a lot. There's basically no blood in the game at all, everything briefly 'bleeds' this weird green/purple mist now. The dismemberments have been almost entire eliminated and limbs disappear almost instantly :\ I think it probably plays better but I didn't really like that change, vanilla NG2 was brutal and it was great. It was really fun playing as Momiji, Rachel and Ayane and I think they changed the upgrade system in that you get free upgrades instead of spending your money on it. It's been a very long time since I've played it though but I remember coming off the experience thinking "man this is really great to play with the new features but the rampant censorship took away from the experience". Oh yeah all the vanilla NG2 achievements SUCKED and they were smart to completely redo all of them for Sigma 2.
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Feb 22, 2017 23:25
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Sigma 2 was the only NG game I've played all the way through so that was pretty good. I agree the purple mist blood was very disappointing.
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Feb 23, 2017 00:30
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beep by grandpa posted:While Sigma 1 attempted to stay extremely true to the original with some tweaks here and there, Sigma 2 fared too far into the new director's artistic liberty and watered down the game's violence a lot. There's basically no blood in the game at all, everything briefly 'bleeds' this weird green/purple mist now. The dismemberments have been almost entire eliminated and limbs disappear almost instantly :\ I loved Sigma to death, as it was one of the first games I bought on the PS3. To this day it still feels really well-tuned and designed to reward your increasing skill in a way that most games can't come close to. On top of that, the story (although a little stupid) was also fairly tight, and the locale was well done and enjoyable without being stupid. Sigma 2 was just kind of more of everything. On top of the unnecessary censorship, the story is incredibly stupid to the point of being painful, and the locales are so varied that they're boring and stiff. (Oh I'm in Tokyo! Now I'm in Venice! Now I'm in a Volcano! Oh wait these all feel the same) It also struggled to throw in all the side characters - I mean, did we really need to see Rachels' boob physics again that badly? I think it really wanted to be "more" than just a Ninja Gaiden game, but it kind of failed at the message. The health system wasn't bad, but between that and the free weapon upgrades, it made the essence system pretty useless, negating some of the thrill you get from rocking a particular fight. I spend most of the game full up on essence points with nothing to spend them on. I did like the amount of weapons, but they were so imbalanced that I just ended up using the scythe the whole game. It's still better than most games out there, but I really was kind of disappointing after loving NGS so damned much... I didn't bother with 3 or Yaiba, because the press was just awful. Let's remember Ninja Gaiden the way it was supposed to be, and not as the monster it became....
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Feb 23, 2017 02:35
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There's a lot I have to say about NG2/Sigma 2 that I either want to save for the eventual LP of both games or a segment during the Sigma playthrough (maybe during Chapter 12 where barely anything noteworthy happens). Because I have a loving laundry list of issues to cover on it that extends to the rest of the series and my beef with Yosuke Hayashi. But in short, Sigma 2 can be summarized as a massive over correction of issues with a game that only needed an extra three months of optimization and balancing that it was never afforded due to its director being ousted by corporate bullshit. Anyway, next video will be up this Saturday, I pushed it back from this past weekend since I've been pressed for time with major school assignments, and I didn't want to keep posting updates without someone commenting in the thread. Hope you're ready for more bullshit with Rachel.
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Feb 23, 2017 03:32
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The last I'll say of it is one thing that it could never beat NG1 in, and what prob my favorite thing about NG1, is how "complete" the game world feels. That you can always return to old areas and not miss anything (except for the airship obviously) is so loving cool and seamless. Just curious, for 2 do you plan on doing a dual-playthrough like this? Ninja Gaiden 2 on 360 / Sigma 2 on PS3 to go along with it? I haven't done LPs here in a long time and there isn't a better LP I can think of to come back to. Your videos are great, extremely knowledgeable and even tho we're halfway through I'm already looking forward to Sigma 2. I'm much, much, much more familiar with NG1 /NGB/NGS1 than I am 2 so it'll be interesting to see a thorough deconstruction of it.
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Feb 23, 2017 04:01
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I would love to see an LP of NG2, mainly because I don't want to play it myself. I really don't like the changes that happened from NGB->NG2.
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Feb 23, 2017 04:46
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ArclightBorealis posted:There's a lot I have to say about NG2/Sigma 2 that I either want to save for the eventual LP of both games or a segment during the Sigma playthrough (maybe during Chapter 12 where barely anything noteworthy happens). Because I have a loving laundry list of issues to cover on it that extends to the rest of the series and my beef with Yosuke Hayashi. But in short, Sigma 2 can be summarized as a massive over correction of issues with a game that only needed an extra three months of optimization and balancing that it was never afforded due to its director being ousted by corporate bullshit. Bitching about NG2S aside, I'm loving the LP. I've been dying to see someone else play NGS for a long time, and this is perfect. I hope you guys do NG2 on top of this, because no way in hell I'm buying a 360 just to play it...
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Feb 24, 2017 06:20
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A Ninja Gaiden II/Sigma 2 dual LP will happen. This is guaranteed.
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Feb 24, 2017 18:15
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Will Sigma 2 LP prominently feature the gently caress-off sword? Probably the only reason I could beat it on the lowest setting.
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Feb 24, 2017 19:02
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  Another filler chapter people never asked Team Ninja for, we talk about scoring and how Rachel is ranked differently from Ryu, memories of DDR, and possibly the worst boss fight to ever be conceived in any version of Ninja Gaiden 1.   Blades of Ouroboros This spell fuses the powers of flame and lightning to create rays of light that cut through enemies like blades. This is Rachel's equivalent to Ninpo, though because she isn't a ninja it's more like regular sorcery. Either way, it's an AoE blast that does decent enough damage and is different from the Ice Strom ninpo that Ryu has because the effect is instant regardless of range. In fact, Ryu gets one last ninpo later on in the game that is similar to this, though I'd say is a bit more potent in that regard.   Earrings of Fortune Increases the wearer's Ki power build-up These are designed to not only give a slight buff to Ninpo attacks, but also increase the chances of enemies dropping red essence. Even so, both effects are barely noticeable, and I don't make a habit of using Ninpo during most encounters on Normal so it's kinda useless for my purposes.  Earrings of the Sun Increases the wearer's attack power. Just like the armlet that Ryu gets, however the difference is that the attack buff is %15 instead of 5. Don't know why they decided to make it more for Rachel, considering her War Hammer is already pretty lethal. But, whatever.  Machine  Machinegun Drone Sigma decided to add some small variants to the laser drones that technically don't show up in Black until a few chapters from now. But compared to the laser versions, these are much more manageable to deal with due to it firing machineguns that can only stun you in place, versus a laser that sends you flying back if hit and cannot be dodged through. Bosses  Gamov This boss is poo poo. Period. Of all the new content and changes made to this game over Black, the only thing I could say that is worse than the Rachel chapters are fighting the new boss battles. Unfortunately, this chapter decides to combine two of those things. Gamov is a human sized opponent, and doesn't really move or behave like the other fights in Ninja Gaiden 1. Going back to the Dual Swords briefly, their inclusion was designed as something of a precursor to the kind of action Ninja Gaiden II would focus on, and Gamov feels the same way. He is hyper aggressive, designed for you to get quick hits inbetween his combos and be able to counter his hits when possible. That's all fine, except that everything including player control is much faster in NGII, so fighting a boss like that here under Ninja Gaiden 1 rules is incredibly jarring and unfun. And if you think it comes down to the fact I don't like playing as Rachel, this game has a mission mode with remixed encounters, and one of them has you fight Gamov as Ryu. And the same strategy here applies to that version as well. It's just not fun. Basically, Gamov has three attacks. At long range, he fires his guns at a very consistent rate. At close range, he whips out a pair of knives that will do either a full light attack combo, or a heavy attack that breaks your guard. Getting caught in either will result in getting launched and juggled in the air by his guns. Lastly, he has a grab attack that he'll throw inbetween his regular melee strikes, and is hard to react to. So how do you end this fight effectively? Block and hit square or triangle to counter. That's it. It trivializes it, but it's also necessary because you can't get a decent regular combo in due to his rate of recovery and speed. It's a fight that does not fit with the rules of the game. gently caress Gamov.
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Feb 25, 2017 18:45
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Man, the hit/miss ratio on all of the original content this director added to the Sigma series, was anyone surprised NG3 blew rear end?
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Feb 25, 2017 18:52
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Yeah, Gamov is a total bastard and should not have been in this game.
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Feb 25, 2017 21:12
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oh yes oh god yes form the head FORM THE HEAD unghhhh...
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  We continue exploring the underground and fail to find a path into Zarkhan. But we manage to end things on a boss fight that means a whole lot to Ninja Gaiden players. Mostly memories of pain and frustration.   Dragon Sword Lvl. 3 Moveset The last upgrade we'll need for this thing for a while. The biggest addition to the level 3 Dragon Sword is the 360 Heavy attacks it has in the form of the Gleaming Blade (and its ET/UT variations), which gives the weapon extra options in crowd control. This also means it is the first weapon in the game to gain two types of Ultimate Techniques. Learning to buffer these 360 inputs at the right time will lay waste to surrounding enemies.  Vigoorian Flail Lvl. 2 Moveset Not very long after getting the Flail is the second upgrade available. Not much is added but the new moves help in making the flails a more useful tool than the Nunchaku. Of the included moves, there is one that I've consistently struggled to get off which is the Runaway Lightning. It is a throw designed for human sized enemies, and compared to most moves in the game the timing for this is extremely precise. Every other time I've tried it I just got the normal attack followed by the upward kick. Maybe down the line as I experiment in this LP I'll get it down.  Art of the Ice Storm Allows Ryu to quickly change the atmosphere around him, creating a whirlwind containing shards of ice. Arguably my least favorite ninpo below even the Fire Wheels. This ninpo creates a vortex around Ryu that damages everything in its vicinity. That's all fine and good, but functionally it is basically the same as the Lvl 3 Dragon Sword's Gleaming Blade, which obviously requires extra input but is worth using that then wasting a ninpo slot. Not to mention that as far as crowd control goes, there's one last Ninpo Art later in the game that is better at that than the Ice Storm. Underwhelming overall I'd say.  Bosses  Alma After getting over the first major roadblock in the game that is Murai, the player gets more accustomed to how the game plays over time and the challenge increases at a steady yet manageable pace. Then along comes Alma, the other infamous boss fight of this game that gives the difficulty curve a swift kick that had some players labeling this fight as the most difficult in the entire game. While I'll disagree to that notion, she is definitely an incredibly challenging fight regardless that, much like Murai, is very rewarding to play once you know what to look for.
 Hidden Underground   
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Mar 4, 2017 19:18
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I basically abused the poo poo out of Flying Swallow to get through the majority of this game. I wasn't very good at it. 
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Mar 4, 2017 20:41
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Wow I haven't been paying as much to this as I thought I would. Haven't watched the video yet but here we are. Alma. Alma is a very tough cookie your first time through and whom I started to love the firewheels with. Ninpo in general has a varied used, varying either being extremely destructive or very limited as the extremes. The firewheels are limited in a very unique way. Bosses don't avoid them. All bosses in this game will evade and try to stay out of harms reach when you use Ninpo but not with the firewheels. They do a remarkable amount of added damage when you have them active when you're wailing on a boss.
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Mar 4, 2017 23:29
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Alma, the boss that launched a thousand GameFAQs threads. I always thought I was doing this fight wrong, but I guess "Flying Swallow and hope for the best" really is the strat. I can't remember if this got shown in the video or not but the followup window after you knock her down really is very small -- just a couple seconds before she's back up flitting about wrecking your poo poo with contemptuous ease. It's a long and painful fight if you can't fully capitalize on those opportunities.
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Mar 5, 2017 05:13
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So having watched the video now. I believe that falling from death portion at the start of the video is actually just a kill floor, which would kill you regardless of the height you jump from. Remembering my own fights with Alma, I would always try to get her on the divekick since that does open up a window of a couple seconds to attack her. Despite my own flying swallow spams, it was still pretty unreliable and I tried to take whatever I could get. I also didn't use the Blade of Niriti technique and instead used the Blade of the Dragon's Tail combo more often instead. edit: I don't remember the weapon move names. Going back to watch Chapter 6. A whip in video games that's been used for platforming, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. It is sadly underused. Futhermore, that flying bug fight, I'm pretty sure they're guaranteed to never spawn in that room in that chapter. Throughout all of my playthroughs, that room never spawn enemies until after chapter completion. edit2: edited for redundancy InfinityComplex fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Mar 5, 2017 |
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Mar 5, 2017 06:35
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 Same enemies, same moves, same boss, some new tricks. Still better than what we had to do as Rachel last time, at least.  Hidden Underground
 Kunai Scrolls  
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Mar 5, 2017 19:45
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God I forgot I hated that Sigma changed the bgms for the boss fights. Also neat. If I ever get a working tv for my og xbox, I can experiment which bosses have specific windows for ninpo usage. InfinityComplex fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Mar 7, 2017 |
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Mar 7, 2017 00:23
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 The military has stepped in to deal with Ryu after the Dworku incident, and so we face against new foes that have some new tools to cause trouble for us.  War Hammer Moveset Rachel's War Hammer. A Fiend Hunter's weapon, it is suitable for taking the heads off of Fiends. My feelings toward this weapon is about the same as the Art of the Ice Storm. Largely useless as we get another weapon that is similar yet much more practical. The combos on the War Hammer are so few that I simply put the full moveset for Lvl 2 in the description (seriously, only two moves are added after leveling it up to max). Also if you've watched the Sigma playthrough thus far, Ryu's moveset is limited compared to what Rachel can do with it (makes sense, it's HER weapon), but even in that version the moves combined with Rachel's handling still doesn't make me like the weapon. This chapter is the first and last you see me use this thing.  Lunar Lvl. 3 Moveset The max level for the Lunar, the Lion's Rage and Black Widow moves get an extra input, a 360 Heavy Attack is added, and most importantly the Izuna Drop technique is made viable with the addition of the awesomely named Lunar Explosion. And extension of the original forward Y attack, Ryu can now launch himself into the air with the second hit, and can either hit Y again to go down, or XY to go straight into an Izuna Drop. So much more useful than trying to catch an enemy mid jump due to the low chance of it happening consistently.  Strongbow A composite bow made in Vigoor in medieval times. It cannot be pulled by people of average strength. A permanent upgrade to our bow that is supremely useful. Aside from the clear increase in power and distance, the arrow no longer drops off after a point. Meaning no matter how far away your foe is the arrow will always hit where you aim. Other than that, it's still the same kind of weapon. Very little application in actual melee combat compared to all the other projectiles. Humans  Vigoorian Soldier With Tairon under alert, the SAT troops aren't enough, so we've stepped up to fighting the Vigoor Military. These Jin-Roh looking motherfuckers are significantly tougher, but it is fortunate that we fight these versions on Normal as opposed to their Very Hard/Master Ninja counterparts. The regular infantry with their bayonets have very strong defense, being able to block head on attacks including the Flying Swallow. Their guns are also automatic, so Ryu will constantly be in a state of hit stun if he doesn't remain mobile. Standing too close or even just landing in front of them from a Wind Path jump will trigger them to immediately grab and throw you to the ground. The approach and breaking their guard is the trickiest part. Well, that and another type of soldier that often accompanies them. There are two varients of these soldiers. There's the Assault Soldier with their machinegun and bayonet, and then there is the RPG Soldier. These are pretty much the genesis of many player's gripes with the series being rockets fired from off screen. And they're hard to react to. Most of the time if they haven't fired yet, they will the moment you land back on the ground. Thankfully, they physically have to reload their rockets each time, making them vulnerable to your attacks during that time. They can't use their RPG to block your hits, so it balances out between the Assault Soldiers and their strong defense, allowing you some easy essence to chain into a UT.  Kunai Scrolls 
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Mar 11, 2017 22:02
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 Guess what? We don't need to be playing as Rachel to experience one of the dumber changes made to the game compared to Black. Tairon
Bosses  Alternator Now while not nearly as awful as Gamov, Alternator is still a pretty lovely fight in that Hayashi looked at Dynamo, decided to do a reskin, add a new move and lovely battlefield condition, then use that as a replacement for what was a rather inocuous and perfectly harmless moment of backtracking in the original game. Alternator fights exactly like Dynamo but the one new trick he has is a dash attack, which has surprisingly huge range no matter what distance you're at, and can be pretty difficult to react to. On top of the extra aggression, the helicopter that you simply had to survive against in Black now aids Alternator by doing a bombing run, much like it did at two points earlier in this chapter. The extra chaos doesn't improve on this kind of fight in any way. There's nothing else to be said. Alternator is lame and that style of boss fight did not need to be revisited.
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Mar 18, 2017 19:56
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I don't remember Alternator. Probably because the Gamov fight made me give up playing Sigma.
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Mar 20, 2017 00:22
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IronSaber posted:I don't remember Alternator. Probably because the Gamov fight made me give up playing Sigma. I remembered him as soon as the boss fight started. Sigma had bad ideas sometimes.
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Mar 21, 2017 04:48
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Oh wow, I didn't even know Sigma had anything new in it besides playable Rachel segments. Doesn't look like I missed anything, though!
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Mar 21, 2017 05:50
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bman in 2288 posted:Sigma had bad ideas sometimes.
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Mar 21, 2017 10:35
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Anime Reference posted:I don't think I've seen a single change I like in Sigma so far. Quick using items without having to go into the menu
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Mar 21, 2017 16:04
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The changes in Sigma that I like are gameplay ones that eventually found their way into Ninja Gaiden 2 (quick item use, water running, firing arrows while airborne, Dragon's Claw and Tiger's Fang), and two chapters in this game that are legit improvements over their original incarnations. The downside is that they were the worst chapters in that game, and are still bad compared to everything else, so it kinda doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Anyway, I'm not gonna be able to post the next update ready for this weekend. I've finished my current classes and the slight frustration getting through them put me behind on finishing all the non video materials I have planned for this LP. Basically, a break is in order just to decompress and the LP will pick back up in April. But hey, we're already halfway through this thing, I've done a hell of a job staving off the LP curse for this long.
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Mar 22, 2017 02:26
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No worries, you're doing a great job and I'm really enjoying how knowledgeable your videos are. Looking forward to their return.
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Mar 22, 2017 03:31
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 Ninja Gaiden is a fantastic game, but that does not mean there are a few spots in the game that are noticeably less fun than the rest of it. This chapter is one of those.   Dabilahro Moveset A two-handed sword used by ancient Vigoorian Berserkers. Due to its 100-pound heft it is very powerful. THE heavy weapon of Ninja Gaiden 1. Forget the Warhammer, this monster of a sword makes it obsolete in the very chapter that both weapons can acquired, and around the end of this one does it start to get more use. What makes the Dabilahro better than the Warhammer? More practical and powerful moves, be it a short, decisive slash, or a full multi hit combo. Not versatile or fast like other weapons, but great for players that love to kill things really fast (like me).  Explosive Arrows Arrows with explosive tips. Very destructive. They do what you'd expect. The arrows create an explosion upon impact that has a small area of effect to damage multiple enemies and even launch them in the air. They are in essence arrow versions of the Incendiary Shurikens but without the delayed damage after getting pegged.  APFSDS Core Arrows The core section of tank shells. Made from a heavy tungsten material, they have superb penetration capability. The last arrow type that I still struggle to remember the name off the top of my head consistently, but while these do not have an explosive effect, they are extremely powerful and seem more designed for dealing with enemies that have very tough armor or high health. Naturally they'd be the most practical for fights with the tanks and helicopter, but outside of that, in my experience I always used them as a fallback when I run out of regular arrows. Besides, with the strongbow, things like falloff or accuracy aren't a factor to consider between arrow types. Machine  Laser Drone Unlike in Sigma, there was originally only one type of helicopter drone, and this one was most likely to be the biggest pain. Unlike bullets which can be blocked or dodge rolled through, these things have large sweeping lasers that cannot be blocked, nor rolled through. Trying to fight these things without good use of projectiles and mobility will result in the player getting subjected to huge amounts of knockback, on par with getting hit by a rocket. Bosses  Tank In the time after DMC1's release right up to the vanilla version of DMC3, it was somewhat of a trend for action game designers, for whatever reason, to have the player fight against military vehicles when there wasn't really good reason to. Ninja Gaiden unfortunately is no exception. However, rather than slash or punch at these tanks endlessly, the game requires the use of the bow much like everything else in this chapter. It's not fun, but it goes fairly quickly when you know to keep up the pressure. One of the understated parts about this fight is how the top gunner affects the fight, or rather how you can easily deal with him to put the fight more in your favor. Getting pelted repeatedly with bullets isn't fun, but the gunner will recognize when an arrow is pointed his way and not the tank's, and will duck inside. This gives you a reprieve from the bullets but not the main cannon, which is always set to start turning in Ryu's direction and fire immediately upon gaining line of sight. That part however is very easy to work around as it works on a fixed timer between each tank shell. This is also the first fight that lets you decide which is more useful to use, the explosive arrows or APFSDS cores. While the latter are just mini tank shells with high damage penetration, as you'll see I always go for the explosives due to the blast radius damaging both the tank and the gunner, plus the tank has two separate hitboxes that when caught in the explosion register as two hits instead of one, making up mostly for the lack of power per single shot. It's easier to deal with, and in a fight that is ultimately uninteresting no matter what, there's no point in making it complicated.  Helicopter Yep, two tanks weren't enough, gotta fight a helicopter. Like before, this one is entirely based around the bow, but it's also way more straightforward than the tank. Just take the APFSDS cores, and fire, all while occasionally rolling out of the way to avoid the barrage of missiles. Oh yeah, I guess the gimmick with this one is the blinding headlights, which usually becomes prevalent when it goes under the bridge and back up the other side, as it's so upclose that the headlights should be overwhelming. But it honestly doesn't make it harder to hit the drat thing, and with the piercing shots it goes down arguably faster than a single tank fight. Maps      Kunai Scrolls 
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Apr 11, 2017 21:41
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Oh, it never clicked for me to use the explosive arrows against the tanks. I never realized that there were two hitboxes on them.
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Apr 11, 2017 22:50
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APFSDS: Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot. Additional reading if you are interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_penetrator
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Apr 13, 2017 02:07
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Holy crap it does stand for something.
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Apr 14, 2017 02:53
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 Sigma is nowhere near the overall quality and consistency of Black, as we all know. But sometimes there are changes or additions that actually turn out for the better, including this chapter. A shame it doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, but hey at least it's something. Military Supply Base
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Apr 18, 2017 21:27
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What's old oatmeal-face doing these days?
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Apr 18, 2017 23:19
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So hopefully from next week on I can get back to updating this LP more consistently. Took a bit later than normal to resume it, I had some real life poo poo to deal with near the start of April that took priority.bman in 2288 posted:What's old oatmeal-face doing these days?
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Apr 19, 2017 03:52
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IronSaber posted:APFSDS: Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot. Seconding amazement that the acronym means anything. Shame it's kinda gibberish (why would a bow need sabot rounds??)
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Apr 19, 2017 04:15
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 We head back underneath Tairon into a sewer level that actually is not terrible like many, many other sewer levels in games. Well, technically it's an Aquaduct, but you go in it through a manhole on the street, so I say it counts.  Dabilahro Lvl. 3 Moveset At level 3, the Dabilharo doesn't gain any crazy new moves or things of that nature. Just an extension to the default combos and of course an increase in power, thus making it the most power weapon in our arsenal at this moment, and still one of the more practical to use. Fiend  Imp Fiend A step up from the Lesser Imps fought back at the monastery, they fight largely the same and don't have any new or unique moves. The difference primarily is extra resilience and dodging capability, requiring more thought and precision in landing your hits. Pill Bug These creatures always come in large groups, and are a prime example of deceptively easy enemies in the game. They're small and slow, but they'll pounce at a much farther distance than you'd realize and just letting them hit Ryu knocks him out of anything he's doing. They're also a great source of Yellow Essence using the Dabilahro's UT, as it's wide shockwave will kill almost every single one in the current wave if they're lined up. Bosses  Thunderbolt Worm A pathetic boss in the same vein as the Hydracubus. This one interestingly enough is quite different from how it was fought in the original version of Ninja Gaiden. Due to a difference in core mechanics, UTs originally could only be done if there was essence to be absorbed. In Black and onward, that's no longer the case, so if you want to do these fights fast and easy, just stay in a corner and unleash Dabilahro UTs constantly. Of course, all while dodging out of the way of its electric orb spit, or slamming its body into the ground.  Paz Zuu This giant bird Xenomorph looking fucker is not a super challenging boss, but not a pushover either. An overview of what this thing has to offer.
Maps           Kunai Scrolls  Archives quote:Taro's Diary quote:Sabu's Diary
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Apr 25, 2017 21:08
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| # ? May 3, 2024 18:11 |
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loving GHOST FISH!!!!!
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Apr 26, 2017 05:15
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