Five minutes.

That’s all it took for me to realize how much I sucked at Ninja Gaiden II. It doesn’t matter how many excuses I could think of to justify dying so quickly and so embarrassingly. “Well, it has been a while since I last played the Xbox original,” I muttered to myself. Right, that was soothing. I should also go on and mention how the sun was in my eye, the check was in the mail, and how the ninja dogs ate my homework. Whatever. Bottom line was, Team Ninja’s grand follow-up to one of the best Action games of 2004 was standing in front of my face, every bit as punishing as it’s predecessor ever was to newcomers and softies. And really, no self-respecting fan would have it any other way.

When Microsoft India’s Sanjoy John gave us the OK to come on over to his office in Gurgaon to give us our Ninja Re-Education Classes, two things became quickly apparent to myself and Reggie. Firstly, nothing was going to get in our way of experiencing Mr. Itagaki’s latest hacker-slasher. Not over-priced shady parking lot “services”, not the blazing heat beating our foreheads like an engineered oven-bazooka, nadda. We had to get our hands dirty, no matter the cost and humiliation. The second thing that became quickly apparent was the fact that we needed someone who was more than experienced in the ways of the Hayabusa clan. Fortunately, we had just the right person: Ren Miranda, Reggie’s younger brother. The pieces were in place and it was go-time.

To start off, there were two available difficulties for us to choose from: “Path of the Acolyte” and “Path of the Warrior” - from top to bottom, in that exact order. We reasoned that the last selection meant for the hardest available mode, so Ren went ahead and selected Warrior. Seconds later, the title of the first chapter appeared (“Sky City Tokyo”) and we were treated with a real-time cutscene of what looked like a very modern day city, set at night. Then two funky airships came about and then the screen faded back to black. Perspective now changes to one of the game’s new characters, the appropriately scantily leather-clad Sonia, chatting with the returning shopkeeper, old-man Muramasa. Seems Sonia is looking for main-character and professional bad-ass Ryu Hayabusa. Muramasa doesn’t sound like he has a clue where to start and exclaims, “He is a ninja, afterall.” Dude’s got a point there, babe. If only Sonia was in a compromising situation which would actually require Ryu to come out of ninja-hiding, and save her sweet butt cheeks. Ah, perfect. The cutscene shows just that: Black Spider Clan makes their dramatic introduction, and try to adduct our sultry huntress. Not if Ryu Hayabusa’s got a dramatic introduction of his own to say about it! Anyway, long story short: Sonia gets captured, and you’re assigned to go save her, killing whatevers in your way. Oh, this one Black Spider dude totally disses Ryu. It’s dramatic story-telling such as this that makes you wonder why Ninja Gaiden II hasn’t already been nominated for an Emmy.

Getting into the meat of things, Ren was quick to point out the number of differences right from the minute you begin cutting down the Spider posse. Much of the control mappings have remained the same, so veterans will have little to no time in adjusting. You no longer roll towards the direction of the thumbstick after performing a block, but instead pull off a short dash. However, Ryu’s health bar has been significantly upped from his last third-dimensional romp, though that’s likely to change with the higher difficulty modes. Dragon Statue save points return and will now recover your entire health meter, but can’t be used indefinitely after the first save. You might think these additions hinder the challenge level just a bit, but they merely make situations all that more accommodating. Save point placements still feel quite far from crucial moments in the game, the most obvious being a major boss fight. Don’t get your knickers in a bunch if a boss just so happens to be strolling down the aisle, because most likely you won’t be entirely prepared for what’s coming.

Combat? In a word, exhilarating. In two words, effin’ tight. Once again, the main attraction to the Ninja Gaiden series has been the grueling, sometimes endless, enemy encounters of which you’ll be tasked to dispose of in the quickest way possible. NG II is not any different in that regard, and introduces a few things to the core mechanics while tweaking existing ones. Thanks to the increased hardware capability, the playing field is much larger in both size and scope, with more enemies displayed on-screen at any given time. In fact, overwhelming would be a better description to your first few bouts. When you have a game this fast, keep tracking of every nonce and movement made becomes a necessity. As many of you might be aware, enemies can now be dismembered - in a fantastically, satisfying gory way, might we add. Looks aren’t always for show though, as even opponents clinging to their last limb will try to take you down in a suicide-bomber attempt that would make Al Queda give a whoop and a hollering for. This is where Obliteration Techniques come into play. After severing an arm or a leg from an enemy, you’ll have the option to permanently execute them right on the spot. Just press Y at the right moment, and that’ll be one less nuisance out of your fancy ninja garbs.

Ultimate Techniques now require less charge time, and look stunning when used in a cluster of unsuspecting goons. Further techniques are learned throughout the course of the journey, usually stashed in a wooden box or kept within scrolls from an already dead corpse asking for further observation. Perform techniques that you’re informed of, and you’ll be awarded 5G worth of Achievement Points. Ninpo attacks are present as well, but we were only able to obtain the “Art of the Inferno” - a ninjitsu that lets your hurl fireballs at enemies, of which you’ll be able to manually aim in a new over-the-shoulder perspective. Same goes with shooting arrows, too. In fact, you’ll even be able to charge up arrow strikes, similar in look of that an Ultimate Technique, and take most enemies down in one full shot.

Pacing, combined with quick reflexes and memorization can go a long way in making difficult situations all the less frustrating. Yet, there are times when camera angle positioning could’ve been dealt with much better. For the most part, the camera is able to keep up with the intense on-screen chaos, going as much to give a whole cinematic feel to your actions. But heaven forbid that you find yourself in a narrow corridor! That’s when Mr. Camera Man is on a much well-deserved coffee brake, and shifts into autopilot. Countless times we found our views obstructed, mainly because there was either a foreign object or wall in our way. Yes, stucks do happen, but when you consider the increased number of on-screen enemies, emphasizing again at any given time, well – it’s a bit of an unwanted zit on whats already a glorious-looking landscape.

And speaking of looks, whoa! How about those visuals, eh? While NG II may not be the prettiest pony on the 360 block, it more than makes up for this thanks to the life-by-the-nanosecond speed of everything happening at once. We already stressed on the increased number of on-screen enemies, but them dismemberments could use a bit more attention. A little bit more. Oh, who are we kidding: slicing off body parts has officially become our new holiday past time. Go ahead, take an arm off. Take two arms off. Now finish off your opponent with an Obliteration Technique for a good ol’ fashioned beheading ceremony. Minutes of poetic butchering later, your battle area will look like Satan himself puked all over it. And that’s just the gore, for Christ’s sake. As earlier mentioned, environments are much large in scale, packing all sorts of minute details. While scaling the towers of Sky City Tokyo, from a high distance you can see blurred moving traffic lights on the ground. During fights with enemies surrounded by a river body, blood-drips dissipate realistically with the water flow. While facing in a cramped corridor, weapons will scrape on surfaces and produce a neat-o sound effect.

Sadly, notable performance hiccups reared their unwelcomed heads during our session with Chapter Two - “The Castle of the Dragon.” Out of nowhere, the game’s consistent 60 frames-per-second rate sporadically dropped to a chunky 10. Frankly speaking, it was downright out-of-place and only seemed to happen at specific points in the game. This wasn’t necessarily attributed to what was happening on-screen during the time. When we guided Ryu to a chest box from some red essence, for whatever reason, things just started to chug. For the sake of curiosity (and because we just so happened to die right after this specific incident had flown by), we reloaded our save states to see if we got the same problem, and it very much happened again. It should be heavily noted that this preview build we play-tested was not a complete representation of the most up-to date version known to us. Bugs are to be expected, and we don’t lament NG II’s look any less after experiencing these problems.

Other talked-about features didn’t seem entirely in place, too. Demo Recording wasn’t implemented, the moves-list selectable from the pause menu screen was missing text, weapons couldn’t be upgraded just yet (so much for harvesting yellow essences), doors that said could be opened but wouldn’t, and some awkward sound transitions during cut scenes. Really, though – we can’t complain. After spending roughly three hours with Ninja Gaiden II, we can proudly say that Team Ninja’s got themselves another gem in the making. One could argue that not a whole lot has really changed from what the original or repackagings (Black and Sigma) ever offered, but it’s refining these established aspects that will continue to appease the truly dedicated until the next iteration of the series comes around. There’s still so much of the game left unexplored, and no doubt a number of questions still running around in our heads even now (Example: Why do the villains always resort to burning the Hayabusa Village down? Can’t the local ninjas just nominate a god-damn fire brigade already?).

A demo on XBL will be surfacing soon in the month of May. Start sharpening those kunais, people.

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