Ninja Gaiden 2 Black review

A few years ago I reviewed Nioh 2 and, at the time, avoided the comparisons to the Soulslike genre in favour of pointing out Nioh 2’s more obvious inspiration, namely Ninja Gaiden 2. The highpoint of Team Ninja’s trilogy was preceded by a stone cold classic and succeeded by, well, not that. But with the announcement of a fourth game in the franchise coming this year, Koei Tecmo have sprung from the shadows with Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, a remaster of the 2008 classic.

Or second remaster, I suppose, after Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, which was a weirdly diluted port that was released on PS3 in 2009. But let’s forget about that, shall we, and focus instead on Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, shadow-dropped during the January Xbox Showcase. Returning to the game after playing it at launch 16 years ago (I’ve erased Sigma from my mind), I’d forgotten how ridiculous and disjointed the story is.

Arguably, it’s mostly irrelevant. This is a game about Ryu Hayabusa, a government-sanctioned Ninja with the demeanour of a house-cat that’s been kicked out of its favourite chair. His job is to travel to many different places that I assure you are connected and paint every surface in gleaming claret. The visual glow-up here is astounding, frankly, and had I never seen the game before I’d have believed it wasn’t a remaster at all.

Combined with a faultless framerate, deliciously brutal melee action, and slick, responsive traversal, the graphical overhaul is simply stunning. Perhaps the only thing that really belies Black’s age is the camera, which is sadly set permanently to 2008 and often flat-out refuses to listen to reason. Without a lock-on option and with many of Ryu’s enemies also being similarly-clad ninjas (at least early on), you can spend a good amount of time hitting buttons, performing dazzling attacks, and achieving roughly nothing.

Purists will tell you that this isn’t a button-masher, and in later stages they’re absolutely right, but it’s a lot more generous with health refills, save points, and regeneration thanks to a certain amount of Sigma’s residue clinging to the corners – and that’s without using the newly-added Hero Mode that lowers the difficulty below the standard setting. Of course, it ramps up the difficulty pretty quickly, and you’ll soon graduate from sword and claw-wielding ninjas through attack dogs that fight with noticeable combos to full on monsters and demons. By the time you’re in an arena fighting a multi-armed werewolf, all the tricks and weapons in the world won’t make for an easy time.

But Ninja Gaiden 2 Black throws a lot of stuff at you at regular intervals. There’s over half-a-dozen weapons from katanas to claws, twin scythes to a scythe on a chain (a kusari-gama, if you want to get technical). In addition to melee weapons you also have unlimited throwing stars and Ninpo, a version of magic similar to the magic later seen in Nioh and its sequel. These often screen-filling attacks do devastating damage to enemies and bosses, but will consume your energy to use. Both energy and health can be refilled at save points or by killing enemies – or by using various consumable items.

As you move through each mission location vanquishing beasts and ninjas of the Black Spider Clan, you’ll develop Ryu’s skills and increase his damage output and survivability. The genius of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is how it balances Ryu’s growing suite of skills and weaponry with the steadily-increasing difficulty, simultaneously giving you more and more ways to deal with threats while always ensuring those threats remain relevant. It’s a level of design many modern games struggle with, and it’s easy to see why Ninja Gaiden 2 was such a hit on release.

The combat is incredibly slick and fast-paced. Blocking is as easy as holding the button (though enemies will punish you for over-using it), but dodging and countering take timing to master. The still-impressive finishing system is a joy to behold, too: lop a limb off an enemy and you can immediately finish them by pressing Y or Triangle. Do this and Ryu will do something incredibly cool while spraying viscera all over the walls like he’s shaking a champagne bottle half-filled with blood and sausage meat.

It’s both surprising and impressive how well this game holds up. The extensive graphical remastering obviously helps, but even without that the gameplay would carry it. Nonsensical story aside, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black remains an absolute classic. Elsewhere improvements to the UI and environment textures are just as welcome, though it’s worth noting that some things have also been stripped out. Extraneous game modes such as Ninja Race are gone, which is surprising and a little disappointing – though perhaps Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo reasoned that such things may feel superfluous in this day and age.

If you’re coming to this as an absolute newcomer you’re in for a treat. It’s not as punishing as you may have heard it once was, and there are certain things that will feel like they’re still in 2008, but overall Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is a great remastering of a genuinely superb game, and will raise a smile in fans and new players alike.