Ninja Gaiden 3 review

...Hi, I'm Johnny "John" Johnson trying to be an internet critic with yet another review...

One of my biggest concerns starting this blog was that I was going to give everything I review a good score.  Lets face it, 60 bucks per game can really ware out your debit card, and spending it on a game that you may not like may not be worth it.  I don't plan on treating this blog too seriously and if there is a game or movie that I'm not interested in, or is getting terrible reviews, I'll pass on it.  But this was an interesting case for me.  See, Ninja Gaiden for the original Xbox is my favorite game on that console and one of my all time favorite games in general.  For me it's the perfect action game and the game I judge all other modern action games based on.  I played Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and while I thought it was an enjoyable game, it just didn't have the same "magic" NG1 had.

So now, about four years have passed since NG2 and Team Ninja has finally put out a squeal... meant with some pretty harsh reviews with IGN giving it (appropriately?) a 3 out of 10 with simular reviews following after.  So here's an interesting chance for me, ether I disagree with all the negative reviews and say that this is the most underrated game of the year (so far) or I show how much of a drone I am by agreeing with the main stream media... I agree with the main stream media.

This will not end well...

Lets start with the graphics.  If there's one thing I've notice about the reviews it's that the game has some decent graphics with good detail and great frame rate.  I guess I agree with the frame rate, though I swear it did slowed down at some parts, but everything else I have no idea what anyone is talking about.  The game looks old to put it simply.  It doesn't look bad, but I've seen some much better looking games over the last couple of years.  Were it really shows it's age is the environment.  Everything just looks plan and empty, none of the levels are interesting to look at and it's mostly standard stuff for NG game (the city, the forest, the caves, all stuff we've seen in this series before).  Character models is were the graphic look their best.  Ryu looks cool, and he's well detailed, the other cast members look fine and so do the enemies.  At the same time, they too look like they're from an older game.

The music... Um... eh?  Outside of a few tunes, I don't really remember the music.  It maybe just me, but I found the music forgettable and given the fast paced nature of the game play, I probably just didn't noticed that it was really there.  The only time the music caught me was when in the 2 level they started playing Muramasa theme and that was about it.

Muramasa for those of you who haven't played NG before

Speaking of game play... lets see now, what word would I best described this game while also looking like I have an actual vocabulary?... Monotonous.  You only get 3 weapons, your sword, a bow with arrows, and ninja stars.  That's it.  Oh but you do get different swords over the course of the game, that play exactly the same except for a few new moves.  For those of you who have played pasted NG games, and in fact are reading this, would you mind remembering how many weapons you got in those games.  I'll help, you had a sword, a bow, ninja stars just like this game, then you had a hammer, twin swords, Wolverine claws, a bow staff, a gun, bombs, an oar, nunchucks, a boomerang and I'm sure everyone's personal favorite, the light saber.  Tell me if I missed anything.

The main problem isn't the weapons themselves though, it what you do with them, fighting.  The game never lets up.  I swear that you can't take a minute in this game without fighting something.  You are always fighting soldiers, monsters, robots, whatever, and when you're not doing that you're doing a quick time event, or watching the story (oh, I'll get to that in a sec).  The game is also linear to a tee.  NG1, while it is also linear, there was an element of exploration to it were you're looking for potions, hidden weapons, hidden items, etc, and games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta do similar things.  This game has none of that, it's go to point A to point B and fight 100 enemies along the way.

Good action games allow you to mess around a little bit.  DMC3 lets you have up to 3 or 4 weapons at a time and you have 10 up gradable weapons, along with 7 different fighting styles to choices from.  Games like DMC3 are good because they're about experimentation, figuring out what weapons you like to play with, and how you like to play even though it's pretty much all fighting demons and monsters.  Because NG3 sticks to 3 weapons plus the fact that you do nothing but fighting, the game gets old really quickly.

Not only that, but the game is easy, at least on normal diffecutly.  The major problem I found wasn't with the AI, but with Ryu's super attacks.  He has two of them, a ninpo magic attack were he summons a dragon, and a rage attack that can instantly kills up to 5 enemies.  The dragon is the worst, because not only is it the only spell Ryu has through out the game, seeing the same dragon again and again, when ever he uses it, it kill every enemy on screen and you can get all of your health back if it kills enough enemies.  Whenever I couldn't get the dragon right away, I found the game was somewhat harder, but it's easy enough to get meter for your magic, that you'll breeze through the hordes of enemies.

He's the only thing you need in this game

There have been a lot of people have been complaining about the camera too, how it doesn't follow the action all that well, how it can be disorienting.  I didn't think it was that bad, though I did run into a small glitch were the camera stopped following Ryu and was focused on a wall for a few seconds, and there was a few annoying parts but I wasn't bothered by it too much.  Another thing everyone seems to complain about is the quick time events and I kind of agree.  They don't add anything expect for some cool looking finishing moves.

And like any action game, there are some bosses.  The boss are... kinda cool, if only because they're completely different from the rest of the game.  You fight a mutant dinosaur, a robot dragon, and don't get me wrong, they're cool fights, but there's no health bar.  It sounds weird, but because of a lack of a bar, there were fights that got annoying because I couldn't tell if I was doing anything to them.  Oh, one dumb thing about one bosses, you fight the same guy four times... he's not even that hard of a fight and he doesn't do anything different from one fight to the next.

Now the part of the review I've been trying to save up, the games story.  The story is that Ryu is asked by Ken Ishigami and his partner Mizuki McCloud (of the Clan McCloud?) to go to London to kill some terrorist.  It turns out to be a trap, were the villain infects Ryu with a curse.  The way the curse works is that Ryu's sword melts into his body, and all the people he's kill with that sword will plague his body until he dies.  Oh, and he also must then save the world, like he did with the last two games.  The story would be okay... if it wasn't stupid.  For me, this is were the game makes me want to break my controller.  This is were Ninja Gaiden 3 falls the hardest.

Literally

The main problem is the games theme.  What they were going for (I think) was to ask if our hero really was a hero or a just a mindless killer.  The beginning of the game starts were Ryu executes a guy whose bagging for his life.  It's dark a start to an interesting story, if the game wasn't a giant hypocrite.  Quick question, what do you to think when you hear the words 'Ninja Gaiden"?... Action.  You fight bad guys and demons in NG and the are just as much trying to kill Ryu as Ryu is trying to kill them.  He's not just going to some random town and killing every human being he sees.  The villains he's fighting are treating to end the world, what do you want him to do?  Ryu isn't Vash the Stampede, he'll kill the terrorist if that's his mission.

Hey reader, you ever see Daredevil the movie, you know the one with Ben Affleck in it?  At the beginning of the movie, DD is chasing down a rapist through a subway.  The guy falls onto the tracks and DD watches him get run over by the train, even though he has a chance to save his life.  Later on in that movie, DD comes across a kid whose afraid of him and DD is trying to comfort the kid, saying that he's the "Good guy".  Take that movie, multiply the death toll by, oh, a thousand and you got this game.  The theme gets lost because all you do in this game is kill.  It wouldn't be so bad if wasn't so rarely touch on.  Ryu doesn't even say anything on the matter, heck if he had quoted the Sniper from TF2, that the difference between an assassin and a serial killer is that "ones a job, and the other is mental sickness" I'd be happy with that, at least we know were he stands.

Ryu is given so little depth to his characters.  All they do to assure us that he really is a good person is that he interacts with a little girl, Canna, McCloud's daughter.  And because he's formed this friendship with this girl, he really a nice guy after all... even though he's killed a quite a few people, he's really a nice guy.  A top of that, the story takes itself way too seriously, so instead of being a cheesy B-movie plot, it comes off as pertinacious and hypocritical.

Not even Momiji can save this game

I didn't play the multi-player, so the grade is solely on the single player game.  From what I heard it's not worth it, so I didn't bother.  And if you think I'm just being lazy instead of actually playing it to effect my overall score... shut up.

The one thing I can say about this game that's a real positive for me was that there were glimpse a good game in here.  There were time were it did feel like a Ninja Gaiden game, but it's so bare, repetitive, and story is just down right terrible.  I really have added nothing and I'm just beating an already long dead horse.  I kinda feel bad for not giving a lot more positives because it's not quite an F and I think if it wasn't for the story, I would've given an average score.  Overall, unless you've played Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 and have to play it, rent it, but even then I doubt anyone would.  I give it... a D-, a shell of much, much better game.

I honestly think I wouldn't have given a D if wasn't for the story.  I haven't disliked a game because of it's story in while.  The last one was...

...you know, there's not too much coming out in April...

Street Fighter X Tekken review

Hello anyone reading this, I'm Johnny "John" Johnson attempting another internet review.

Street Fighter X(cross) Tekken, developed by and produced by Capcom, is a fighting game for the PS3 and Xbox360.  When a mysterious box form outer space the media duds Pandora, crashes into the antarctic, M. Bison's Shadaloo and Jin Kazama's Mishima Zaibatsu seek its unusual power while other fighters form around the world gather to seek it out for them selves, whether to destroy it to protect the world, or use it for personal gain.

SFxT is actually one of two games.  The other is Tekken X Street Fighter, which will use the Tekken 6 engine and be a 3D fighter.  But little is known about that game and most likely wouldn't be coming out this year.  We're not talking about that anyway, but I thought I throw that out there for those you who don't know.

Capcoms last couple of fighters (Super Street Fighter 4 and Marvel vs Capcom 3) have really lacked anything that resembles a story.  In Super SF4, they had the prolongs and endings animated by a low end studio, and nothing really happened in them.  MvC3 just had its story slapped on, and the endings where just two famed pictures of characters doing things.  Would SFxT continue this trend?  Actually, to my pleasant surprise, no.

The story is straight forward and nothing to brag about, but what I really liked was the effort.  If certain characters are put together in arcade mode (like Ryu and Ken) they have special dialog with each other in between matches and have a cinematic with here rivals and at the end.  Compared to their last outings, there was a lot more effort put into the story and I enjoyed a lot of the characters dialog between them and the a lot of the rival cut scenes.  

Pandora, aka "the MacGiffun"

Graphically, the game uses the Street Fighter 4 engine, meaning its a 2D plane with 3D models.  The art style is the same stylized cartoon art used in the same game.  I liked it in SF4 and I think Capcom made it better in SFxT.  The colors are brighter, the characters look great, and the stages are fantastic.  The stages in this game have a lot of detail in the backgrounds and are very busy and some have multiple floors, something I've never seen in a Street Fighter, or Capcom game in general, before.

As for the characters, they do look great, but you can tell that they're both from two completely different schools of thought.  The Street Fighter characters are very simple designs while the Tekken cast have lots of details to them, from tattoos to jewelry, clothes, etc.  Make a note of this when I start talking about game play.

The music is... okay?  I guess.  Some of the tunes like the SF theme remix are nice to hear, but overall nothing really sticks to me.  It's mostly generic techno and rock aside form a few remixes, and I don't expect any of the tunes to be the next "Hawkeye's theme makes everything better".

Producer, Yoshinori Ono

Now for me, one of the most important parts of a fighting game is the roster.  SFxT has a HUGE cast of 38 characters (43 on PS3) with 12 more to come as DLC in the future (for those of you who know, I'LL GET TO IT).  On the Tekken side, I only played Tekken 5 on the PS2, and it's been a long time since I played that game.  I do know enough of the back story and characters that I know at least who they are.  I liked who made it into the game, no one I think got left out, but I'm not a big Tekken fan so maybe I shouldn't say anything on it.

On the Street Fighter side, I like the characters they picked... expect Dhalsim.  SFxT I feel is a rush down, combo heavy game.  A character like Dhalsim just feels out of place.  Guile and Chun Li, who are also generally defensive characters, have enough tools to play on offense, but Dhalsim is just too defensive and he also lacks a real reversal to keep characters off of him.  He might be good, but to me, he just doesn't fit this game

One other thing about the roster.  I feel that Capcom missed an opportunity with SFxT.  Hugo from SF3 is in the game, along with his manager Poison whose playable for the first time in a Street Fighter game.  Cody and Guy from SF Alpha are coming to the game as DLC.  On top of that, Rolento is also back from Alpha.  With that it mind, where's Mike Haggar?  For those of you who don't know, all those characters I just mention, are all from Final Fight, an old arcade beat'em up from the early 90's that shares the same universe as SF.  It would have been great to not only see Haggar in a Street Fighter game for the first time, but to have a Final Fight cast reunion would have been awesome.

Maybe too awesome...?

Yes I know he has a cameo in the game in one of the stages, but I mean as playable character.  That would have been great to see.

TORO and KURO, the Sony of Japan mascots, Cole MacGrath from Sucker Punches Infamous, Megaman and Pacman are also in the game as guest characters, but only on the PS3 version.

So now onto the most important part, the game play.  The game is a two on two, tag team style fighter.  It's in the Street Fighter 4 engine, 2D plane with 3D models, using the traditional SF mechanics, like a 6 button lay out, super meter, and EX moves.  It's been change to incorporate the 2nd character with a chain combos that lead into launchers so your partner can continue the combo, or you can tag him in by pressing both medium buttons.  You can do this during attacks and can make for some interesting combos.

You can use the super bar to preform EX special attacks and Super moves.  Again with a focus on team work, they also have whats called a Cross Art, were one character sets up his team mate for a free super.  It's cool looking and does more damage then a normal super.  What's really awesome is the Cross Rush, were for a short time you and your partner are on screen at the same time.  Which leads me to another good point, four player co-op.  Players can play against a friend or team up with him against two others.  I think in a game that emphasizes the tag team style, this was great idea on Capcoms part.

One of my concerns going into the game was whether or not the game was going to be too easy.  The motions for the supers for example, are one motion and 3 attack buttons, unlike past games that had double motions.  What I liked was that even though it didn't take a lot of effort for me to understand to basics, there are a lot systems in place that I think well keep the game from being a button masher, like heavy damage scaling, links, the chain combos, and use of meter.  When I first heard about the games chain combo system, I though it was going to make combos easy, but in order to use a special move after a chain you need meter and to call your partner during a combo, you need meter.  Meter management I feel is going to very important in the game because so many of the better combo require them.

and there goes his tooth.

If you're like me and have played SF4 (and still playing), you'll find that the SF cast is very similar to how they were in that game.  A lot of the cast still have all there combos from that game and some of their tactics still work.  If you have played SF4 before, I think the new juggles and combos in this game will be relatively smooth transition from game to game.  Then I played the Tekken characters.  Like I've said, I haven't played a Tekken game in while, and reportedly they are made to play like there 3D counter parts.  From a guy whose played a lot of SF, the Tekken cast just feels weird to me.  Jin for example, has a move were the motion is forward, back, forward and punch, a motion that only he has, and Nina has a grab move that has to be inputted with two more punches after the initial grab that have to be timed correctly to get the full damage.  Little things like that that the Tekken characters have.  It doesn't make bad though, it them different and I've seen some good game play from them from tournament footage and when used right can be just as good if not better then the Street Fighter characters.  (As a side note, Law, Hwoarang, and King are some personal favorites, and Rolento I think is going to be very popular from the Street Fighter side).

The juggle system in this game makes for some interesting and cool looking combos, along with the tag team game play will make for some very entertaining Youtube videos.  In term of balance, I say it's too early to say, and most fighters take months before anyone figures out whose the best and whose the worst.  For all I know, Heihachis' pet bear Kuma is the best character in the game and no one has figured him out yet.

BEAR! :D

There are two other thing.  One, the Pandora mode.  That macguffin I mention earlier, gives off powers and super human abilities.  In the game, when you're down to 25% of your health or less, you can active Pandora and you lose your team mate, but the other one gets and damage boosted and unlimited super meter.  The problem is that you're on a ten second timer, and if you can't beat your opponent in that time, you automatically lose.  It's an interesting mechanic but I don't think I'll be seeing it too often do to it's high risk, high reward nature.  Maybe in the future someone will figure out some good combos for it, but right it's just kinda there.  Oh, and the characters do this transformation thing that looks, to me at least, creepy...

you be the judge

The second thing is the gem system.  Gem are items you put on your characters before a match to give them power ups during the match, ranging from attack boosted to being faster.  Everyone else whose review the game has said that the gems are balance and make the game more interesting, I think differently.  I feel that if the core game play is good, why have something like the gems.  I think they're pointless honestly and don't really add much to the game.  In other words, I think Capcom could take out the gems and the game play is good enough to stand on its own.  When I first heard about them, I was turned off by it felt that they take away from the game then being a selling point.  That's just me, but feel free to have your own opinion.

In terms of game modes, there's the standard arcade mode, were you fight different teams before fighting your rivals and finally the bosses (Akuma and Orge).  In arcade mode, you can turn on fight request to look for online opponents.  There's a mission mode to complete challenges like beat X number of characters, use only special moves, etc.  The trial mode from MvC3 and SSF4 makes a return, were you try and execute combos ranging from simple bread and butters, to more complex combos.  The problem I have with trial modes with all these games is that most of the time they're impractical.  The only time the trial mode I though was really good was the first SF4, which did go through all the characters move set and taught you how to do very basic bread and butter combos, and since then, they do enough to get a feel for the character you're trying out, but don't really teach you anything for the most part.

As for the online play, I think it's great.  I have really bad internet connections when I play online, so a lot of the time when I played SF4 online I ten to get laggy matches.  In the time I played online with SFxT, I never had a laggy match.  I never had a match that slowed down, were my inputs were delayed, none of that happened in SFxT.  But there were a few issues.  In all of my matches I had, I got the audio bug were you would get no sound or rarely any sound from the characters on screen.  Reportedly, the way the net code was made, they compensated so that you can play in 4 player matches online, and they are trying to find a way to fix the bug.  My feelings are that I think they shouldn't change a thing.  Yes, the audio bug is kind of annoying, but after playing SF4 online for last couple of years, I was very impressed and happy that with connections that I got.  The only time I saw something that looked like lag was some roll backs, were the characters would go into an animation, but would immediately end.  It happen only a few times, and it wasn't often.

No the real problem I had was the with match making.  When I got matches, they were good and didn't lag, but they took forever to get to and at worst, the game would drop in the middle of the match.  That to me is way worst then any lag, cause even if you have lag, you can at least say you had a match.  To be fair though, I have crappy internet and I've had the same problem with SF4, and very online experience is different.  So take what I say with a grant of salt cause you might have no trouble at all finding matches online.

So that was SFxT and I think...

oh... right...

... For those of you who don't know, SFxT is going to have 12 DLC characters coming later in the year.  However, Capcom though that when that does happen, some people wouldn't buy them right away. They made the so that people can play against the DLC characters even if they didn't buy them.  How would they do this... they put the character, for the most part finished, on the disc locked away until the DLC comes to unlock them.  As you can guess, not everyone is happy about it.  How do I feel...

Why is Dudley in the game?  You already have Balrog and Steve in, do we really need a 3rd boxer?

Honestly, I just do not give a crap.  Why?  In 2011, Capcom made Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition, in which they added Yun and Yang from SF3 Third Strike to SSF4.  They were overpowered and broke the game for a while.  That same year, in February, they released Marvel vs. Capcom 3 where people found a glitch that turned the game into a touch of death combo fest.  That same year, they announced Ultimate MvC3, and would be released nine months after the release of the first MvC3.  That same year, again, Keiji Inafune, the creator of Megaman, left Capcom.  And to top it all off, they canceled Megaman Legends 3.

But with all of that, there is one thing that gets me madder then any of that.  In February of 2012, to promote the release of SFxT, Capcom sponsored a week long web series called Cross Assault.  Ten people spilled into two teams would go head to head to compete for a cash prize.  Each team would be lead by a coach, both pro fighting game players, Alex Valle and Aris Bakhtanians.  One of the members of Aris team, a women, was sexually harassed by HIM for the entire week, on a live broadcast, and she couldn't leave the show because she was contractually obligated to be there.  Let me repeat that, Capcom sponsored a web show that had a man harassing a women, who was forced to be there, for a week, on the internet.  Oh, and before I forget, Aris, the "intelligent" person that he is, has been quoted as saying, "Sexual Harassment is part of the culture, and if you remove that from the fighting game community, it's not the fighting game community".  So according to him, anyone who plays fighting games professionally, or at all, is okay with sexual harassment... and all of it done under Capcoms' sponsorship.

This, this whole DLC thing, nothing.  After what happened in 2011, after what happened at Cross Assault, this is nothing to me.  I've spent my energy, my anger, and I'm just done.  All any of the past stuff as done is over shadow what Capcom does best, make fantastic games.  And that is what Street Fighter X Tekken is, a fantastic game.  The stages are great, the characters look awesome, the game play is fun and has a lot of depth and complexity to it, and the online play is good and just a great cross over with Namco.  Super Street Fighter 4 is my favorite fighting game, and I think I found a game that just might rival it.  Ultimately, time with deiced how great this game is.  Is it broken?  Maybe.  Is the gem system going to be great addition to the game?  Who knows.  All I know is that SFxT is going to be in my console for long while, and I think that sum up what I think about it.  If you're a fighting game fan, get this game.

I give Street Fighter X Tekken... I was going to give a B+ but screw it, A-

For me, it was a Tuesday.

What?  Things got kinda serious at the end there, and I just wanted to end on joke...  Not funny, ok...