Dismemberment, disembowelment - two vital ingredients for any Ninja Gaiden game. Imagine my shock then, when I heard that Ninja Gaiden 3 included neither of these, no gore, blood, limbs getting chopped off. It seems crazy that a game would go so far from its roots to not include these key features. All has thankfully been fixed in the re-release – Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. RE was originally released on Wii U a few months back, and has just been released on the Xbox 360.
Back in the days of the original Xbox, Ninja Gaiden was a game that truly wowed me. It was something completely new to me, I hadn’t experience the exhilaration of speedy hack and slash combo fighting before, and visually for the time it was gorgeous, and the cut scenes blew my mind. It was a very, very tough game aswell, which felt challenging and rewarding when you beat a section and an end of level boss. Now, is the first time since then I have jumped back into the world of Ryu Hayabusa, the Ninja Master who played protagonist in all the games. Has Razor’s Edge rekindled my feelings to a game I once held dear?
In short, no. While there is still stuff here that fills me with some nostalgia, and as such brings a smile to my face, it’s not the same game as I remember, and hasn’t seemed to have evolved with the times. This is still the Ninja Gaiden that I remember in a lot of ways, but that is part of the problem, with there being many iterations of the game since I last played, I think it should have changed a bit more, but in fact I was going through the motions as I would have done back in 2004.
The game begins as terrorists take over London, their demands – Ryu Hayabusa. As Ryu you travel to London to confront the terrorists and immediately get thrown into the fast and frantic action fighting multiple enemies at once, varying from light and heavy infantry, to long range rockets and mini bosses. Two buttons are your main port of call offensively, with a light attack and heavy attack, with some ranged weapons thrown in aswell. Blocking and evading it key though, it was annoying then that I found it to be at times unresponsive and inconsistent and left me at the mercy of the enemies to take chunks off my health bar. This may have been down to player incompetence on my part, but it was infuriating trying to block attacks and seemingly nothing happening. I ended up using the evade manoeuvre a lot more as it seemed a lot more effective. You’ll be quickly leaving enemies in a bloody mess though, and while it is still a challenging game, it feels a bit more forgiving than my previous experience. Early in the game Ryu loses the dragon sword after a battle with “Regent of the Mask” – the leader of the cult “Lords of Alchemy”, and in the process is cursed with the “Grip of Murder”. From here on in it is down to Ryu needs to stop the cult from achieving their true goal, as well as retrieving the dragon sword and ridding himself of the curse.
The storyline isn’t particularly interesting though, unless you are a big Hayabusa fan, but the gameplay barring the blocking issues is smooth, and stringing together combos plays out nicely. At the end of each fight you are scored by health remaining and combos. As with all other NG games there are plenty of ninja techniques for you to master, aswell as spending points to purchase new moves, and can unlock new handheld and ranged weapons. For those who have played NG3 before there is additional story content, and you are able to play a new character in Ayane. And while I haven’t played NG3 I have heard enough to know that this is the version of the game that you should be playing, and that there is plenty more on offer to warrant playing this even if you have completed previously. Graphically, it doesn’t quite hold up with other games released in the last few years, but the frame rate stays smooth throughout the fighting.
Though I tried multiple times I wasn’t able to find a lobby to play any online games in, so I am unable to put my thoughts about the multiplayer part of the game. I would have like to have put my ninja skills up to the test against others, but it wasn’t to be.
I have been left slightly disappointed by this game, while most of what I enjoyed about Ninja Gaiden in the past remains true, it just feels dated in my eyes and I quickly lost interest. Having played the Devil May Cry reboot recently, which was a pleasure to play, Razor’s Edge is missing that special spark. For fans of the series looking for more of the same, I’m sure you’ll be right at home. But for everyone else, there isn’t much here to impress.
