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Developer: Team Ninja
Publisher: Microsoft
Release Date: June 3, 2008
System: Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: M
Official Web site
0:00 My exposure to this series is limited pretty much exclusively to
the Ninja Gaiden Sigma demo I played for lunch almost exactly a year ago.
0:01 A shot of a rumbling sea before the camera shoots up through the clouds. The Team Ninja logo sits at the top of a mountain. Awesome!
0:02 Straight to the title screen, with a field with swords punched into the ground. That's it? Where's my long-winded opening cinematic?
0:03 My difficulty choices are "Path of the Acolyte" and "Path of the Warrior." I'm a definitely an acolyte, especially considering how hard Team Ninja makes its games.
0:04 Chapter 1: Sky City Tokyo. The loading screen displays text of a story about Sonia searching for Ryu in a sword shop. The Black Spider Ninja Clan is taking over the city. That would be a good name for a rock band.
0:05 Cherry blossoms over a small creek. Japanese temples mixed in with skyscrapers. An MGS-style jet copter thing makes the controller rumble as it buzzes by the camera. "So, let me get this straight, you don't have a clue where I can find Ryu Hayabusa?" asks the sexy Sonia. The swordmaker she's talking to says Ryu "could be half way around the world" for all he knows. Her business concerns the Archfiend, and that's all she'll say. She has a silky smooth voice, body and outfit, but her eyes look dead.
0:07 Ninjas attack! Sonia puts up a valiant defense with some guns, but she gets wrapped up by a chain-bolo thing. As she struggles on the ground, the adolescent males of the world thank their lucky stars! Ryu swoops in from a nearby rooftop and kills some of the attacking ninjas, but more come in and distract him with flying axes "We have the woman," says one of the larger ninjas. "I expected more Ryu Hyabusa." Everyone says his name so meaningfully!
0:08 "A simple tutorial appears unobtrusively on the bottom of the screen: strong attack, weak attack and blocking. That last one is important, as I'm getting hit left and right with shurikens already.
0:09 I slice a guy's leg clean off, but he crawls along and nips at my heels with his clawed hand. OK, that's pretty cool.
0:10 Inside, the swordmaker is trapped under boxes. "Why, if it isn't Ryu," he says. "They were minions of the Black Spider Clan," Ryu answers back. Tell me something I don't know! Ryu doesn't know who Sonia was. They say "Archfiend" a few more times to stress how important he is, I guess.
0:11 I use a "legendary statue of the Earth dragon" to save and heal. What a name! Then it's off to more baddies. Limb removal seems to be the name of the game here. Lots of blood, and even a decapitation. How did I do that?
0:13 These guys are ruthless. I'm constantly blocking and trying to reposition myself so I don't get blindsided. Interestingly, I gain back most of my health after each wave of enemies. But not all of it -- my max health is going down slowly as I get hit.