Games

[icycalm]

From the guys who brought you Metroid: Other M!

Ninja Gaiden 3 announced

Tecmo Koei revealed Ninja Gaiden 3 during a behind-closed door event today (in conjunction with TGS), reports VideoGamer.com. The announcement was accompanied by a teaser image showing blood-soaked franchise protagonist Ryu Hayabusa removing his mask.

According to VideoGamer, the image represents themes that will be explored in the new sequel: both the "human side" of Ryu and a "more violent and bloody experience" (if you can believe it). Neither platforms nor further release information was given.

Shortly before E3 last year, Team Ninja boss Yosuke Hayashi talked up his studio's commitment to furthering the Ninja Gaiden series. Today's reveal is the first hard evidence of Ninja Gaiden 3 since that time.

Update: GamePro confirms the reveal went down at a private event hosted by Team Ninja, and adds that Ninja Gaiden 3 "is so early in development, the developer only showed journalists a piece of concept art" (above; see a bigger version after the break).

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/15/ninja ... announced/

[icycalm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKHdvuDxh44

[El Chaos]

Via http://www.the-magicbox.com/1105/game110526b.shtml

[El Chaos]

Debut trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-20 ... den/714760

Some footage: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-20 ... den/714949

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-20 ... den/714951

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-20 ... den/714953

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-20 ... den/714955

And an interview: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-20 ... den/715035

[El Chaos]

Just watched the first two parts of the walkthrough. Enemies that are too busy shooting at the clouds to fight you, you can't dismember them, there are quick time events up the ass, blocking is pointless, navigational aids, stealth kills... it may be just a training mission, but man... it's Ninja Gaiden: Arkham Asylum.

The blood-red effect when executing an ultimate technique looks cool, though.

[icycalm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dysMcib52t8

Onigaiden Ninjamusha 3.

But the trailer Chaos posted above is awesome. Up there with the trailers for GTAIII and the first Ninja Gaiden.

Crappy-ass screenshots here:

http://videogamerx.gamedonga.co.kr/zbxe/1664108

[icycalm]

Oh and I forgot, lol. It's also coming out for the NO WII U!

[El Chaos]

Official website: http://teamninja-studio.com/ng3/

More footage of the same mission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5GrNesvNAQ

And a "consequences" trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlWkVPPE6gE

'Cause killing bad guys is wrong. Also, is it me or the blind guy looks like Joe?

[keelhaul]

Icy, your youtube video is a DOA5 trailer. I guess since it had Ryu in it, it only felt natural.

[icycalm]

Copy-pasted the wrong link, fixed now.

And I think you ought to stop posting dude, because you really do seem to be dumb. "Natural", lol.

[icycalm]

More bloody close-ups, and a new girl:

http://videogamerx.gamedonga.co.kr/inde ... rl=1864635

[icycalm]

The introduction of the ‘Sword On Bone’ mechanic is the culprit behind enraging so many serious Gaiden players, a feature that arguably panders to the cinematic at the expense of gameplay fluidity. Hayabusa’s blade will sometimes get lodged in an enemy mid-combo, a button prompt (which apparently only appear during the early stages, which should delight all those worried about some kind of QTE takeover) asking you to repeat the last button of your combo in order to force the sword through as the camera zooms in on the eruption of bodily fluid. The problems with this should already be clear – randomly triggered kill events completely break the flow of combat and crush any kind of combo planning, with the extreme close-up also making it difficult to plan your next move with such a reduced view of the battlefield. The worst part, however, is the utter lack of payoff. NG2’s most powerful attacks would leave the arena carpeted in limbs and gallons of blood, so the explosion of claret that accompanies Steel On Bone looks strange by comparison when forcing a katana all the way through an enemy in slow-motion leaves them visually unscarred as they bleed out or crawl away. It’s the Soul Blade to its predecessor’s Bushido Blade and for a game so keen to place emphasis on the might and wonder of its main weapon, Ninja Gaiden 3’s leading blade just doesn’t cut the mustard – or anything, for that matter – at this stage. Disappointing.

http://www.gamestm.co.uk/features/yosuk ... direction/

Personally, I'd like some way to keep both features, if one can be found.

[icycalm]

But you know what, this is ridiculous:

randomly triggered kill events completely break the flow of combat and crush any kind of combo planning

You might as well complain to God for "breaking the flow of combat" next time you are fighting someone in real life and your sword gets stuck in them. I mean it's not like this will happen EVERY time you cut someone -- it adds to the "realism", if anything.

So if the feature is kept in despite the asinine shrieking of "the fans", which I hope it will be, the success of the whole thing will hinge on how common these events are. Once in a while is okay, every five seconds isn't.

[El Chaos]

It'd be a good compromise to have the sword get stuck less frequently on weaker enemies as you upgrade it, so that players would crowd control an area by slaying the vermin first, and go for the bigger dudes/ demons/ robots later because of the higher risk of getting your weapon stuck in them.

[JoshF]

It sounds like a potentially great mechanic to me. It could force you to always be prepared for the possibility that things aren't going to go exactly as planned, kind of like the semi-random enemies in Contra. I enjoy little things like this that can give each play a slightly different feel while consistently giving you what you want and expect from the game. It's thoughtful randomness, unlike the Spelunky approach. Where it could become stupid though is the cutscene aspect, depending on how intrusive it is.

[icycalm]

Just a quick debunking of Chaos's bullshit earlier in this thread:

Just watched the first two parts of the walkthrough. Enemies that are too busy shooting at the clouds to fight you,

Here he dreams up shit in order to slander the game.

you can't dismember them

No idea what that even means.

there are quick time events up the ass

Here he equates button prompts (and REVOLUTIONARY button prompts, that give you various choices no less!) with QTEs, demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of what that very simple term means.

blocking is pointless

Another utterly baseless claim, something he simply dreamt up, once again, in order to better slander the game, since the player in the demonstration barely even attempts to block.

navigational aids

Again, no idea what he's talking about.

stealth kills...

Ditto. Perhaps he watched a Hitman video by mistake?

it may be just a training mission, but man... it's Ninja Gaiden: Arkham Asylum.

And an utterly farcical comparison to top it all off.

So, basically, in order to avoid having to do this again, I am asking Chaos to please stop posting in the news forum. And my advice to him would be to even take a break from games for a while, because the only way such a behavior could be justified is if he's sick to death of them. At any rate it is impossible for both of us to keep posting in the news forum, and since without me there IS no news forum, he is going to be the one who has to go. At the end of the day neither of us is gaining anything from this (him posting bile, me debunking it), and we both end up wasting a lot of good energy that we could put towards, oh I don't know, finishing our books and our Spanish translations perhaps? I mean look at this fucking post for christsake. Is there any reason at all to have to ENDURE the sight of posts like this in our daily browsing for game news? We are supposed to be ENJOYING ourselves goddamn it!

And because I do not want my morning to be ruined by yet another of Chaos's stupid replies that I'll be forced to delete (as I did earlier from the DmC thread), I am locking this thread so I can have a good night's sleep, thankyouverymuch. And to everyone else reading this, pay heed if you care about your posting privileges: POSING IN THIS FORUM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. If you hate games stop playing them; if you feel like impressing someone, impress someone with a vagina whom you can then perhaps get to fuck -- trying to impress nameless strangers on a videogame forum is so pathetic someone should put you down out simply out of pity for fuck's sakes. So, once more, pay heed: I am not going to be debunking any more bullshit of this nature in the future -- I am just going to be deleting posts and banning people. If no one is capable of posting a couple of decent links and decent comments, then just FUCKING SIT BACK AND LET ME DO IT ALL BY MYSELF -- forcing me to make such posts is obviously far worse than not trying to help at all.

[icycalm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIchYieqYig

Almost an hour long. Just skimmed through it for now, and it appears the button prompts are gone.

[icycalm]

Multiplayer video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muFw2z2tEEY

Not sure how that's going to work out, nor do I care, but the jumping/flying/slowmo move seems to have been integrated into the basic mechanics (i.e. it does not seem to be context- or QTE-based), and that's awesome.

And some new screens:

http://videogamerx.gamedonga.co.kr/1901190 (more here)


And the shitload of swag that's launching with the game:

[icycalm]

Looks like an entire stage's worth of footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS-5owiNyAE

No button-prompts or QTEs in sight, and they make it look like the entire thing is 100% action, but I find that hard to believe for many of the scenes. At any rate, the thing is very fast and visceral and dynamic, if not quite so impressive thematically... WTF fighting helicopters and spider-style mechas on top of battleships and Titanic-sinking moments? What is this, EDF with ninjas?

Still love the Just Cause 2-inspired gliding feature, though (if it was indeed inspired by Just Cause 2, but I can't think of any other game with a comparable and comparably exaggerated feature...)

[Daniel Lancaster]

Even several popular journalists are calling out this installment as a sellout to the discipline that Ninja Gaiden has always been about, for a sloppier, more cinematic game. It may not be God of War yet, but it's another step back from what made Ninja Gaiden great.

[icycalm]

This requires discipline:



Pressing some buttons for a couple of evenings in front of your TV does not require discipline. At most, it requires a lack of serious brain damage.

Just sayin'. I know you think that shit like this makes you look cool, but in reality all it does is reveal the fact that you've lived your entire life inside your bedroom. So if you can't keep stuff like this out of your posts, stop posting, because when I see it I get depressed.

[Magnum Apex]

I beat Ninja Gaiden 3 on Hard, and I'm currently getting my ass kicked in Ultimate Ninja difficulty, which just became available this past Tuesday. What follows is the best review of the game I've read so far, which is to say, it's the only review that accurately exposes the issues of NG3 (while taking a well-earned jab at the horrid IGN review):

The problem isn’t lack of difficulty but rather that so much of it comes from bullshit sources. Primarily, this game is different in that you can’t dodge cancel out of most attacks or combos, meaning that you have to wait for the animation to end before you can even dodge at all. Meaning that even if you see an attack coming, if you’re in the middle of an attack animation you might not be able to avoid it! This is especially a problem because there are SO MANY enemies, that you can be attacking one but the other 5 behind you will probably ass rape you while your pants are down. But hell, sometimes even the very SAME enemy that you’re attacking might not get stunned by your attacks and then grab you for half of your health while you can’t do anything about it because you were in the middle of hitting him. This simple fact greatly influences the overall gameplay[sic], and not in a good way, because it basically forces you to be really niggardly and cheesy with your offense. Most attacks and combos are too unsafe and risky, making hit-and-run tactics and only relying on a very limited amount of moves the most effective if you don’t want to make all that grab spam unavoidable.

http://scathingaccuracy.com/reviews/319-ngtree


Basically, in addition to an increase in enemy health and attack damage, higher difficulty settings will just increase the frequency by which enemies will use their most devastating attacks, which 99% of the time are unblockable, quick start-up frame grabs that deal a ton of damage. I find myself abusing slide->Izuna Drop, and then backing out so I can repeat the move at another enemy, since doing ground combos for more than a couple of seconds gets me instantly punished with a grab. For enemies that can't be launched for an Izuna Drop, I stick with the tedious process of hitting them a couple of times and then backing out. Anything else is a death sentence since most of the damage comes from offscreen enemies.

Still, I can't help but play the game regularly to try and overcome the enemies' broken, dirty tricks.

[El Chaos]

Here's a list of some new features for the Wii U version, Razor's Edge: http://e3.nintendo.com/games/#/wiiu/ninja-gaiden

• Unique Wii U controls – During single-player mode, players can enjoy faster and more fluid action by using the touch screen of the Wii U GamePad controller to select weapons, execute Ninpo, see in-game information and much more.
• New Weapons and Ninpo Types – Exclusive to the Wii U version, the game includes six weapon types and three Ninpo types, allowing for greater game-play variation and deeper strategy.
• Character/Weapon Progression System – Using the Karma points earned during game play, a player can upgrade his weapons and Ninpo and increase the character HP level.
• Faster, More Intense Battles – Improved enemy AI, the return of dismemberment, as well as new enemy types and battle areas have been added for greater variety in battles and increased replay value.

[El Chaos]

Here's a trailer showing Ayane as a playable character, along with the return of dismemberment on the Wii U port: http://youtu.be/PIBw5M6f_YA?hd=1

It'll be published by Nintendo themselves, just like Bayonetta 2.

[dinopoke]

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/02/06/repor ... -and-xbox/

TECMO KOEI ANNOUNCES NINJA GAIDEN 3: RAZOR'S EDGE
FOR PLAYSTATION 3 AND XBOX 360

New Iteration of Famous Action Series from Developer Team NINJA Is Packed with New Features, Brutally Tough Challenges, Additional Playable Characters, and Bonus Content

BURLINGAME, Calif. – FEBRUARY 6, 2013 – TECMO KOEI America today announced that NINJA GAIDEN 3: RAZOR'S EDGE, the latest chapter in the famed action series, is coming to the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. In the Team NINJA-developed title, the enigmatic warrior Ryu Hayabusa must fight to lift a curse that threatens to destroy him. NINJA GAIDEN 3: RAZOR'S EDGE features additional playable characters, a new gameplay mode, a redesigned battle system with enhanced enemy AI, a robust Ninja Skills upgrade system, expanded online features including bonus content, and a host of other features. The game is scheduled to launch both at retail and via digital download on April 2nd 2013.

"NINJA GAIDEN 3: RAZOR'S EDGE is the most action-packed and feature rich NINJA GAIDEN game ever created," said Yosuke Hayashi, Team NINJA leader. "The brutal combat will challenge the hardest of hardcore NINJA GAIDEN fans while also rewarding them with tons of bonus content and new features including three playable female characters, new stages, and three times as many Ninja Trial missions."

NINJA GAIDEN 3: RAZOR'S EDGE was designed from the ground up to satisfy core action fans with a redesigned battle system, improved enemy AI, greatly reduced QTE scenes, and the return of dismemberment. Even with severed arms or legs, enemies will fight on and players will find they have to change attacks on the fly to win brutally tough battles-the challenge level leaves little room for error. The Ninja Skills systems lets players use Karma earned in combat to freely purchase weapon and Ninpo upgrades, feats, and costumes. Adding to the variety of gameplay, Kasumi, Ayane, and Momiji all join Hayabusa as playable characters. Ayane will get her own chapters in story mode while all three female characters can be played in the new Chapter Challenge mode and Ninja Trials co-op play with multiple costume options.

Chapter Challenge mode is available with ten chapters including all-new Ayane stages. In this mode, players will compete for the highest score possible in each chapter of the story. Six brutal weapons are available to Hayabusa throughout the game, including the new Jinran-Maru & Blade of the Archfiend dual swords, Lunar Staff, and Kusari-gama. Additionally, Inferno, Wind Blades, and Piercing Void have been added as deadly new Ninpo. In the new Tests of Valor challenges, players who find Crystal Skulls hidden in each level will be transported to face off in skill-testing battles with familiar bosses from the NINJA GAIDEN series.

The online features in NINJA GAIDEN 3: RAZOR'S EDGE have been greatly expanded, with all the previously paid DLC from NINJA GAIDEN 3 available as a bonus. The Ninja Skills upgrade system works online to let players use Karma to purchase 64 customizable features for the Unknown Ninja used in multiplayer Clan Battles. Supporting up to eight players, five brand new Clan Battle stages have been added. Players can use all of Hayabusa's weapons and Ninpo in Clan Battles, giving them access to their favorite methods of attack. The number of missions in Ninja Trials has been tripled to 100, and all four playable characters-Hayabusa, Ayane, Momiji, and Kasumi-can be used in this co-op mode.