My first Ninja Gaiden 2 Master Ninja run (Solved)

Hello. I'm new here. Actually, this is the first forum I've ever joined. So, if I've posted this in the wrong place I apologize.

I've recently started my first NGII Master Ninja run. It's been rough so far, but I'm determined to finish it. I just finished CH 3 and thought it would be cool if I could ask for advice on parts I'm struggling with and give updates on my progress. I've come to terms with the fact that the game has problems, and though I might complain here and there I will refrain from obnoxious angry ranting. I actually quite like the game. Help with it will be greatly appreciated!

Again, as I said before, this is the first forum I've joined. I've always been a lurker. But I've been reading Stinger now for a few weeks, and because of my respect for action games and the people who play them, I'm hoping I don't embarrass myself. So, again, if I've made a mistake in posting this I apologize and will try to fix it.

Hello Solitude, welcome to the forum! We're happy that you're here, everyone is welcome :)

Feel free to introduce yourself further in the New Members topic, I believe you should've gotten an automatic Private Message from the forum. If you didn't, let me know, I'll give you the links!

That said, great to hear about new blood going into NGII master ninja. It's a harsh mode but once you come to terms with how the game should be played it really is a joy and offers that unique blend of adrenaline, fear and mastery of said fear you don't find anywhere else. It's exhilirating!

Chapter 1 to 3 are generally speaking the hardest, followed by 11. Chapter 3 is especially challenging to players still adjusting to the mode's specialties. What elements are you really struggling with currently? Let us know, we'll be more than happy to give advice :)

Again, welcome, and I hope you enjoy your stay!

Alright! So tips for CH 4. Mostly Van Ghelfs as I remember, so I'm not too worried. I'm not too good at the troll boss on the bridge. With the Tac-Ninjas joining him on mentor mode; I can only assume I'll have to deal with IS ninjas this time around. So advice for him would be nice!

I'm fairly comfortable with Alexei. He's probably my favorite boss in the game. He keeps you on your toes, but not in a cheap way; he doesn't randomly block stuff constantly like other bosses.

Oh yeah! That opening fight with white archers I remember being painful.
Probably just spam Falcon's talons FS into Izuno drop.

Oh! I've heard of something called a guard break reset. Is that in this game or only in NGSII? Is it that hard to pull off?

I'm just going to list the 'efficient' strategies, once you get more comfortable you can of course go ham!

> Van Gelfs
>Y with the Talons is an instant-delimb on them, really safe too. Using the off-the-wall attacks with the Dragon Sword also works as does XXY>Y with the blade since it has two attacks with a ton of delimb% and the final hit propells you forward, making it dodge attacks.

> troll boss
Stand underneath him by his feet and dodge and punish his stomp. 360Y with the Kusarigama wrecks him as does any multihit attack. Not sure if you have the Kusari yet though, I always confuse weapon pickups. He doesn't have any additional foes in NGII on Master Ninja.

> opening fight
You can skip that one IIRC by using a flying swallow, or just run through. Once you enter the Van Gelf section everything despawns. What helps is quickly using IS to delimb them and then focus on the IS ninjas. Be mindful of Izuna's as they are pretty unsafe upon landing, especially in fights like that.

> Alexei
The most fun boss I agree, just a fair challenge, fun to fight, some hard hitting moves. Just a cool experience for sure!



> guard break reset
Pretty easy, and works in every game in the series including NG2004. Basically you let go of block when it breaks and immediately press it again. I'm not sure if it is a technique or an oversight, but it 'resets' Ryu's blocking state. So the game thinks you're still blocking and it isn't broken yet. Allows you to block entire strings of guard breakers (which makes me think it isn't an intended feature).

Good luck, keep us posted! Always enjoy talking NGII :)

Am I the only one that would rather fight IS ninjas over Tac ninjas any day of the week?
I hated mentor with a passion.

I sometimes hear that too, personally I love fighting Tac Ninjas. What's the bother with them for you? The guns that lock you down? Rocket Launchers?

They aren't aggressive enough in melee IMO, idk it has been I while since I fought them.
Every fight I just wished they were IS. Are they easier than IS? For sure, but so much less enjoyable.
IS are like the perfect hard enemy, very well designed.

hedfone wrote:Am I the only one that would rather fight IS ninjas over Tac ninjas any day of the week?
I hated mentor with a passion.

Overall I prefer IS ninjas. It's just that most fights have too many of them. I think they're better utilized when they're mixed with white ninjas (without bows). In that way, they still work to keep the pressure on the player, without it feeling like your being carpet bombed the whole time.

Haha! I ended up getting through most the stage with few problems, definitely in part thanks to your advice! But then I found out I actually suck at Alexei. I kept getting through most the fight unscathed and then wiping when he powered up. I eventually used a few healing items and got through, but I hoped I wouldn't have to resort to that. Oh well.

Anyway, CH5 next!
I used to think the Lycans chucking chunks was annoying, but after the IS ninjas it really doesn't feel so bad anymore. The main problem for me is the water dragon. On mentor mode, I ended up just using the bow but that's pretty tedious. Everytime I tried going for the head I ended up taking a dip and becoming ghost fish food. So advice for him and if you can think of anything else helpful I'd appreciate it!

https://youtu.be/g0VQqplEBlU

Did him once with just the bow on Master Ninja, but it just isn't that fun. It is worth it to learn how to fight him with the Claws I'd say, or just use Ninpo. If the fish come using wind-blades is a safe way of dealing with them.

> IS
I agree he's the most fun when they're intermixed. The early fights with just them seem like more of a skillcheck, but there's some rooms in Chapter 2 that are just a bit wack with the designers throwing IS after IS at you.

> powered Alexei
Most players 'skip' that phase using the Talons. Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pOOrGmojQo

You want to activate the XX>X just right so that when his transformation finishes you immediately do the swallows. If done right he can't dodge and dies instantly.

Are you also doing the ToV's? Glad to hear some of the advice was useful :)

@hedfone


> Every fight I just wished they were IS. Are they easier than IS? For sure, but so much less enjoyable.
Hm. I don't feel they are harder, think they are easier yeah. Mostly since their damage is so low and they don't tend to 'circle' you, making GTs very efficient against them.

> Alexei
Wow, wish I used the Talons on Alexei now. I was just baiting, dodging(which is scary when dealing with the tornado move) and then punishing with the staffs XXY combo. I''ll definitely try this for the later fight.

> ToV
I'm embarrassed to admit it but I was unable to beat the fight that gives the rod of trials. Which is a shame, as I was planning on doing the trial in CH 7 for a demon jewel. After getting to the first checkpoint in CH 2 I backtracked to the bridge fight after that I immediately did the fight for the Talons. With no healing items, and having just spent all my essence on weapon upgrades, I was faced with that fight with only half a healthbar. After quite a few deaths I decided to bait the IS ninjas towards the checkpoint away from the archers. But this ended up de-spawning all of them. I thought of reloading, but ended up taking advantage of this. A lot of poor planning on my part. I'm also playing on autosave, which is probably not the best, but I don't care for fiddling with save files.

> Alexei
There's a ton of fun stuff you can do with him. ETs are generally great against him due to their armour properties, making for safe punishes (you just eat some damage).

> ToV fight
You can sort of cheese it by retreating into the room where the talons were. The doors will close if you go inside with some enemies, allowing you to fight the enemies peacemeal. You can also delimb all the enemies with >Y using the talons and then just kill one IS, and keep killing the respawning IS while the other enemies crawl after you. It's dull, but smart and safe. Just be sure to delimb the archer's in such a way that they don't have their bow anymore!

> autosave
Yeah that can work against you. Personally switched to manual, you tend to just have a single save per run but it's nice to have them.

Holy crap,yeah. You just de-limb archers without killing them to make them useless and so no fresh ones spawn! Man, I wish I thought of that. Just go's to show how falling into a mindless pattern can be really dangerous in these games.

I've had a busy couple of days, but I finally got around to finishing CH5. It wasn't too bad for the most part, but man the Water Dragon was a pain in the ass. I did manage to beat him fighting on the water though, without using health items too!

I've also started a bit of CH6; got up to the big skeleton boss. But right now I'm swimming in essence (180.000). I've been afraid of not having enough in future levels, so I've only upgraded the Staff and Talons and only have used health items I've found in levels to save as much as possible; I might have overdone it. I'm wondering if I should upgrade the Kusarigama or the Dual Swords. I'm not at all familiar with either though.

As for CH6.
On mentor mode; I fought the skeleton boss extremely slow and safely with the staff. I could probably do it again, but if you have advice to make him go a bit quicker it'd be helpful! Oh yeah! long death gauntlet after the boss too! Guess I can't die.
Volff, I know it's possible to stun-lock him with the Talon's >xxx combo, but he sometimes blocks and does that charge that zaps all of Ryu's health. I've never really struggled with him in the past though, so I should be fine. Maybe.
I don't remember much else of the stage though. Is there anything else I should be worried about?

Awesome! Glad to hear you managed to clear the Water Dragon! He's a bit of a trashy boss but once you get him down he's fine! Actually played a bit myself again too thanks to you man. Did the 100 man fight in the DLC (in the sewers) with just the Dragon Sword without healing on Master Ninja. Really happy with it. Just kept in the flow haha!


> swimming in essence
The Dual Katana gets its best move at level2 which is the 360Y which is fully invincible, but that move is a lot more useful in NGS2 compared to NGII imo. The Scythe is well worth upgrading, as is the Kusari. Try to always have around 20-30k if you can. Note that if you find a chest that has an item, and you already have it, it gives its essence value. So if you for instance have a Talisman, you'll get 50k, which is great if you plan around it.

The Flails are also fantastic. Tonfa is great to have if you want to 'skip' the Genshin fights, but honestly at level 1 its strongest move - the UT - is just as good.

> Skeleton boss
He's a 'giant' and thus you'll reap benefits from multihit attacks. The best move against him is the Kusarigama's 360YYYY, which absolutely melts him. Note that there's a few very specific frames that, if you use Inferno on him while he's falling down, he takes massive bonus damage. Only works with Inferno for some reason: https://youtu.be/x8_J2i6uqTg?t=798

> Volf
If he charges at you, you can open the quick menu and change your projectile weapon. For some reason this changes his dash direction to your left, leaving him open (really weird bug). You can easily loop him with the Dual Katana's >Y(hold) spam. You can also sort of infinite him with UTs of all things. If you punish him after an attack with YYY with the Dragon Sword, you can then switch to the Lunar and charge a 360UT. You can just repeat this. Really weird. There's also some flying swallow loops but I never bothered. Fun boss though.

> other things in the stage
There's a few long trecks in between saves if you don't want to savescum. And a pretty hectic fight against Gajia in the cathedral that can kill you a few times. Be mindful of some larger arena fights which you can skip. The TOV is trash imo. Never liked that one. Other than that not really. It's a fun chapter imo, lots of good fights against Gajia, Werewolves and IS ninjas that all hold up really well.

> Skeleton boss
I could be wrong, but based on the video, I think whats happening is that when he falls down his head's hitbox droops a bit in front of the chest part that is targeted by the Ninpo.
My inferno is only at level 1, after fully upgrading Wind Blades, my plan was to save all demon jewels for Void. So I don't know if I'll be able to get this damage, but I'll try!

I also didn't bother picking up Phoenix Ninpo, cause I assumed it was useless. Was I wrong? Should I buy it from the shop? I remember always thinking that fire wheels was useless in NGB, but after seeing some videos I realized I was INCREDIBLY wrong. So now I'm second guessing Phoenix.

Also!
Did you record the sewer fight? Wouldn't mind seeing it if you upload it.

> upgrades to ninpo
Inferno is pretty handy to upgrade if you're going for a 100% run since some TOVs really require it maxed out. I cannot imagine doing TOV4 without it haha.

> phoenix ninpo
It's terrible. I can think of only one fight there it is sort of useful. Flame Wheels was great because it worked like a regular hit, but Phoenix makes enemies invincible when they are touched by it, so it is more a good way to 'skip' fight safely than to use it to kill.

> record
No, I sold my Elgato and tend to really suffer from performance-anxiety when I know I'm recording/streaming. If I upload it's that fancy "record what happened" feature haha.

Alright, I've beaten the skeleton boss! Four times...
I got to the checkpoint and quit, I was too angry to finish the mission; I'll finish it later. Thanks for the advice though! The Kasurigama really does wreck him! It would have been way worse not knowing that.

Worse boss in the game!  

If you wish you can sort of skip the fights afterwards and just jump through it all, but the final jump you have to make is quite dangerous and if you fail you die iirc. Feel that this is really just an oversight due to time constraints. The segment after that tunnel is one of my favourites though. Lots of cool fights!

Yeah, Lycans and Ninjas are a good time. Gajias are kind of "meh" imo. So the rest of the mission should be fine. I'm hoping my progress through the game speeds up a bit soon. I'll probably be putting more time into it throughout the next week.

Gajia are pretty fun imo, mostly since they delimb so easy, come in huge packs and are quite passive when you go on the offensive. They are just 'close combat ninjas' basically with large tails. One thing that's a lot of fun is to grab the Dual Katana, do XYXXX>flyingswallow>IS>YY, absolutely decimates them en mass.

Good luck and have fun! I'm at chapter 12 now finally with my Dragon Sword run.

Yeah, maybe I'm just butthurt towards Gajias 'cause I kept dying to them and having to fight the boss again. I probably just suck at them haha.

The biggest danger is their semi unblockable aerial tail attack and their sweep-grab. The former just deals Sigma levels of damage, while the latter is pretty hard to avoid if you're not paying attention to it. Here's me fighting them, maybe it will give you some tips!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAcMh_7KAFU

I just completed CH 6 and CH 7!
Ch7 is definitely one of my favorites! Other then the dumb opening with the turrets, the whole mission is just a blast! There is something so fun about charging around the ship tearing it, and it's occupants, apart. I even like fighting the mechs (in moderation), and I vastly prefer the rocket Tac-Ninjas to the practically hit-scanning White-Archers. Genshin's always fun too!
I don't know why, but I even like the dumb Armadillo boss. It's such a ridiculous fight! I remember I used to use the I-frames of Ninpo to survive the explosion when he dies 'cause I guess it just didn't occur to me that Ryu could block a nuclear explosion haha. Good times...

Ch 8 next...
While there's a few fun fights, a lot of this mission just feels like an absolute slog. Although, I think I only need advice for the awful fight towards the beginning with the mechs and Multirocket Tac-Ninjas. I just don't know how to handle it. It's so chaotic and it go's on and on. I might also need suggestions for the rocket window part if there's a trick to it. Otherwise I should be fine. I'm just gonna graveyard spin Zedonious, it's cheap and lame but oh well haha.

Yeah Chapter 7 is really one of my favourites as well, easily. One I regularly just replay for fun without a care in the world. Lots of fun fights, cool bosses, fun setpieces. Also just great oneliners like the one about Sonia being 'hot' haha over the intercom. Really balanced that weird Ninja Gaiden humor with epic setpieces of you taking out a ship from the inside. Best song in the series too imo.

> chapter 8
The first fight, honestly, I tend to soft-skip it. Use Inferno on the rocketeers and use their essence for a Tonfa or 360Lunar UT on the robots. If your aim is on point you can do a Void Ninpo too and hope to get them all together.

If you want to do the fight 'legit', my best advice is to backtrack behind the tank or at least go somewhere with cover so you can funnel the robots into a killzone while avoiding the rocket-dudes.

In terms of the rocket-window. I always just run past it. If you dodge>jump the mines won't damage you. Then when you get to the turrets I do XYXXXX on them or something similar to destroy them from the side where they can't hit you. When the turrets die you can open the gate. Note that one has a body inside with a Devil's thingie that restores a Ninpo Slot.

> Chapter 7
Wow, I've never noticed the Sonia comment haha. I guess I've always been distracted by killing things. That's really funny!

Yeah it's something like "Warning, there's an intruder aboard the ship. Alert. She is hot", something along those lines. Almost Kojima levels of humor haha.

I just replayed it on warrior; the lines are really funny. I don't know how I never noticed them. There was a countdown timer on a part, is that an instant gameover? I never noticed that somehow. Makes me wonder how close I was to dying on master ninja when I did that part haha.

I think if you take to long the room explodes and you die yeah, but it is really lenient! It's been a while since I did that chapter, might boot it up tonight. Just a ton of fun. The Genshin fight is absolutely brutal.

> Genshin
Yeah it's brutal! But it's one of the few boss fights I feel benefits from additional enemies. The size of the arena combined with Genshin's stand-offish defensive nature make it tense while still allowing room to breathe. Comes close to capturing the same magic as Murai in NGB.

> CH8
It took a lot of attempts, but I eventually did that mech fight at the beginning legit. It was SO messed up haha. Thanks for telling me about dodging through the mines though! I was dreading that part and it ended being a non-issue haha.

Onto CH9....
The main part I struggle with is the village by the lake with the spotlights, it's so confusing. Does shooting the spotlights do anything? They just comeback! Why?
The rest of the mission is kind of a blur to me. I'm just gonna smack the dragons with Void, seemed pretty effective on mentor.

Chapter 9 is pretty forgettable since there's so little combat. Be sure to know what routes to take with the mines and if you want, farm ahead. As far as I know they respawn indefinitely here, so you can enjoy maxing some stuff out.

The village is all about knowledge and IS. There's a chest near the water that refills your Ninpo, so you can freely spam Inferno against the robots. For the rest, just use IS to delimb the soldiers and then arrow UTs or another IS. There's also a few sweet spots in the hut that contains one rocket-dude, where you can snipe the robots freely with Arrow UTs. But hard to tell you where exactly.

There's quite a few healing items there and even a blue-orb chest iirc, so just tank the damage and move on.

The water fight later-on also has a sweet-spot. There's a little island that has a body on it with an item, beyond it is another small pool of water. The fish cannot get there unless you are insanely unlucky (only had it happen once in 20+ runs). Void does wonders for the dragons for sure! And that's about it!

Be sure to stock up, chapter 10 and 11 are quite brutal.

> Beat CH 9!
I kept dying to the worm boss for some reason. I was trying to use the Scythe's fully charged 360 UT, but I kept getting grabbed out of it just before it would finish; which is odd as I thought that move had complete invincibility. I eventually just used the staff's 360 UT instead and did the fight no damage real easy. It takes a bit longer and doesn't do the damage the Scythe does but oh well.

> CH 10 next...
I know the big thing with this mission is the stairway of doom. I'm playing this on 360 so the performance here is a real issue for me. In fact I've been worried that this game is aging my console at an accelerated rate haha. On mentor; I just used the cheesiest method I could think of, which of course was just spamming Scythe UT's. If this time around IS ninjas are involved that tactic might not be as viable as their IS's knock you out of UT charging. So I don't really have a good idea of how painful this will be.
As for the rest of the stage; I'm afraid this is another one that's kind of a blur to me. Is this the one with the really hard opening with all the Gajias and Van Gelfs? Oh, and the million Rasetsus?

> Worm
You can just stand in a cave and charge Scythe UTs from there when he slides around. Completely safe. If you're doing single-weapon runs you can use Arrow UTs which works too.

If you're standing in the middle, it can be pretty tough. I once did him with the BotA for which I found a decent strategy as shown here: https://youtu.be/Zy4r6lDe_1k?t=758

You can do XYXXXX afterwards as well which does good damage. Somehow I totally glitched him out here. Works for me though.

> CH10
The staircase is brutal on the 360. Be sure to not open the chest near the end as it has been known to crash the game. In terms of combat, you can sort of cull the spawns by delimbing the IS ninjas near the bottom and then going all the way to the top to fight the straglers first, divide and conquer. But honestly, go ham. Die a few times, it is part of it.

The chapter is very skippable if you want to. Only three mandatory fights iirc, the one in the big arena near the start, the acid pit (just spam IS) and the last fight before Elizabet. Other than those, all skippable by just running past (yes, even the staircase).

That aside, how are you liking the run so far :)? The first Master Ninja run is always a bit rough, but are you enjoying it?

> Enjoying the game
I'm enjoying it! Though I don't think there's any denying this game can be a real headache at times. Some parts have been really testing on patience. Just yesterday when I was fighting the worm boss, on one of my attempts with the Scythe, he was on his last legs and all I needed was one good combo to finish him. I jumped in the air to hit him with the Scythes aerial combo, and it inexplicably just didn't do any damage. Watching Ryu spinning in the air, every hit connecting, the boss's health bar not going down. Everything went in slow motion as I realized I was gonna die the moment I touched the ground. I thought how I would never have used such a risky move had I not been confident it would finish him.

It's one of those things however I haven't felt the need to complain too much about. While I haven't read up on the development and don't know the details; it doesn't take a genius to see that this game had a troubled development. Like it was rushed or something I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me to continue to play, all the while complaining about how obviously imbalanced it is. I felt it better to except it's problems and enjoy it for whats unique about it.

If you want to know more about the game's 'interesting' development you can refer to the article on the site, it has most of the development history in it: https://stinger-magazine.com/article/ninja-gaiden-ii-pursuit-of-perfection/

Long story short, there were time constraints, budget issues and eventually internal 'riots' that ended with Itagaki and a sizable portion of the staff of Tecmo and also Team Ninja leaving.

But yeah it is a diamond in the rough, and best enjoyed when you know how to effectively skip the bullshit parts so you can more enjoy the great combat sections!

> I began writing this before I saw your reply. Sorry.

That being said; I have been enjoying my time with NG in general. I beat NGB, 2 and 3 (only played a little of Razor's Edge) on normal last summer for the first time. So I am pretty new to the series. And it's honestly been refreshing. I got into the genre because of Souls games, Bayo and DMC. I came to feel like everything had to either be an action RPG or some Stylish Combo Crazy adventure. So playing NG; where, to me at least, it seems to be more about the thrill of the fight, it's a welcome change. Just surviving seems like a legitimate way to play. While I'll never not love going combo crazy on an angel or something, I don't want that to be the whole of the action game market either.

It kinda seems that, with the somewhat recent resurgence of action games, the scope of what an action game can be is shrinking. By this I mean; back in the early 2000's when 3D was coming into it's own, there was plenty of room for experimentation. No one really knew what would be popular or what would sell, so there were all kinds of ideas on how to do action in a 3D space. Of course as time go's on and trends are set; slowly everyone is kind of following the Zeitgeist of whatever is popular. So we don't really see action games like Shinobi reboot, NG, Godhand, or even something like Vanquish anymore. All these games had vastly different approaches to combat and unique skillsets to learn. I just don't really see that in today's market.

Anyway, that was an overly long answer to a simple question haha. But I hope I'm wrong and we see other unique games coming out.

Royta/Raeng wrote:But yeah it is a diamond in the rough, and best enjoyed when you know how to effectively skip the bullshit parts so you can more enjoy the great combat sections!

And you've been helping considerably with the bullshit, making my playthrough far more enjoyable then it was for others I'm sure.

In hindsight I kinda realized I didn't really answer your question, but rather used it as an excuse to go on an idiotic ramble about my thoughts on the industry or something, where I said a lot of dumb and obvious things. So, sorry about that haha.

Maybe when I finish the run I will take the opportunity to actually talk about the game :).

It brings a tear to my eye to see that conclusion, I think we all can attest to that here, especially in the bigger scope the of the medium. The more experimental titles have definitely taken a backdrop to what seems to be, in the eyes of fans and developers, "the correct way to make these games". There's a definitive opinion out there that style is all there is to it in these types of games, paired with items being for losers and ranks for chumps who don't know how to style. And the second a game is an RPG or difficult, Souls should be the inspiration.

I'm exaggerating a tad of course, but you see this in many forums and reactions. "Why should I play this game when I can play Devil May Cry" is something said quite often, and while it says something of the quality of that game, it also shows a pretty narrowminded fanbase of the genre at times. Something I was also guilty of at first might I add.

I think it doesn't help that the industry is more shifting towards fair games instead of those that pitted the game against you like those with more arcade origins. Vanquish, Shinobi (such a good game), God Hand - they don't care about fair. They want you dead. I think that's also why I just love Zone of the Enders 2 so much. It's purely unique. And good. Also, when people play a game, they rarely want to learn, they want to pick it up and play it. And that's easier if it plays a bit like others. "Oh items, they lower my rank" for example, making Astral Chain a mindnumbing game for some.

I don't have a lot more to add other than "wholly agree". I love DMC, but it is not the definitive action game as there is none. NG is great. Shinobi is great. God of War was great. Souls is great. Wish there were more games that did weird stuff. For all the flack I gave titles like Dante's Inferno or Castlevania Lords of Shadow...at least they gave a damn. You know?

I'm still especially salty about God of War 2018 making the transition from a unique game, to just another cooky cutter AAA experience. Such a shame.

> NGII bullshit
Glad I could help haha! I tend to make seperate saves in most games and at times I just boot up a shitty segment and try to 'make it optional' for myself haha. I still remember doing that in some games I really loved against a particular boss or enemy. Once you nail those segments, some games get so much better.

> aftermath
What's your plan afterwards though? I'm personally of the opinion that NGII cannot be mastered, but you can improve. First Master Ninja runs are often quite...shaky to say the least haha. Are you considering running it again to improve or something similar?

> Aftermath...
I'm gonna take a break from NGII for sure. I have a copy of Razor's Edge lying about somewhere, so I'll probably slowly start climbing the difficulty ladder in that game(which should be fun as I don't really like it). Everyone online was saying just play that version and skip the original, which made me curious so I actually bothered to play it at least on normal(something I don't think anyone really does anymore). And while yeah it's not very good, I feel playing it helps to appreciate all the changes in RE. As much as I don't care for it, it's impressive just how much was added and changed. It's nearly an entire overall of everything about the game.
After that I'm going back to NGB, I haven't finished my hard playthrough yet. I've kinda been saving NGB for last as it's my favorite.
I'll probably not return to seriously playing NGII until I get an Xbone X or it's released on a platform I have. Though I might play the odd level here or there for fun. I also have the Sigma games so yeah, I'll be busy.

I also recently got the Bayo\Vanquish double pack on PS4(I hadn't played Vanquish before). I beat Vanquish on normal and started hard but never finished it. So I'll probably go back to that as I was really enjoying it. I was under the impression that it was a neat but unpolished gimmick game from what I heard online. But I don't know, seemed pretty solid to me. There's a little awkwardness with moving around the geometry but other then that it seemed really tight.

Another long read. I tend to do that.

OH! I nearly forgot. I did the Rasetsu fight in CH 10. It was SO MESSED UP! It went on and on, they were all so tanky, I kept dying and dying, and the cameraman was having a goddamn stroke the whole time. On my like 10th attempt or something (I'm not sure) I won though; only used 2 small healing items and 1 Void as well. Though I still barely survived haha.
I was too tired after that to continue so I'll finish the rest of the mission later.

CH 10 DONE!

Alright it's finished. Wasn't too bad though I encountered the bug where Ryu wouldn't OT and target enemies anymore. I panicked and nearly died, but then just ran like a coward for the next checkpoint. I died once to the stairway fight but once I killed the IS's ninjas on the second attempt it was easy to spam scythe UT's (I saw your fight when I read your article, really awesome!). Died a few times to Elizabet but nothing too bad. The hardest part for me was the Rasetsu fight. I tried skipping it but when I tried doing the acid pit fight, they were still outside tanking the game speed and spamming windblades through the walls. Awful...


CH 11

I literally haven't touched the DS since I got the staff in CH 1. So having it fully upgraded at no cost here is nice. ALSO AYANE!!!!
This chapter is gonna be a nightmare no matter what. I'm honestly not that worried about all the IS's though. I mean I'm sure I'll die a ton but at least they're fun to fight. What I really hate are the archers; my least favorite enemy second only to the dogs. Absolutely awful.It will be hard but Windblades will carry me through a lot of it.
Tips for THE big fight after the bridge? I think on mentor I spammed Windblades to get rid of the small guys, so I could focus on the Rasetsu's.

> Long read
No disrespect intended but compared to the people I tend to message with about this sort of thing, your posts are barely a footnote in terms of length haha! So please, don't worry about it!

> Razor's Edge
Also a fantastic game. Has less 'bullshit' segments so to speak, but also very...intense. Not a lot to that game besides its combat, it really is just arena after arena, but the core combat is absolutely fantastic. Please note that the game is best enjoyed, imo, if you play with the meter management and especially use Cicada to stay on the offensive. It's tempting to fall into the "spam 360 moves" trap, considering how brutally effective it is, but don't. You'll ruin the game for yourself. Also, hold-moves are fun, try them!

> vanilla NG3
Bought it on launch. It was a massive disappointment, had some cool ideas but really was also a message that Japanese developers should just do what they do best. Ironically it was, as such, quite the influential title. One could hazard a guess that had its focus on narrative been a succes, games like DMCV would've looked very different.

> NGB
Absolutely fantastic game, nothing more to say about it. Practically flawless. You going to also give the original a shot for comparison's sake?

> vanquish
Top three best game ever in my eyes, in terms of combat (others being NGII and ZoE2 for me). Really shines on God Hard difficulty which is akin to Ninja Gaiden II's Master Ninja. First I heard the word 'unpolished' in regards to that title, generally speaking it is the most polished of Platinum I feel, thanks in part to Mikami's influence one could guess.

> Rasetsu
If you run past fast, you can use the save point. Then die and reload, which despawns them. Otherwise you can use Arrow-UTs at a distance and then just regular Lunar UTs.

> archers
You can use some wall-climbs into IS to skip some of them which helps. Most no-damage runs do that too iirc. But yeah the archers really are a nightmare here. Only enemy I feel that is a tad overtuned.

> bridge fight
Phew. Start the fight with a charged Scythe 360UT, then equip the Tonfa. Note that kills made by Rasetsu do count towards culling their number, so you can technically just jump around until everything is dead. You can also glitch out the arena and just Scythe UT them all for a solid hour (don't haha). With the Tonfa the swallow into OT is your friend here with plenty of UTs. Once they're all gone you can use the Lunar 360UT for cleanup, just play it safe and careful.
Be sure to be prepared for the next engagements though. There's no save-point between the giant fight and the next two, so you need to stay on your a-game.

Easily the hardest fight in the game imo. Destroyed my will to live during my OLB No Ninpo run for months on end.

>Long read
No offense taken. I'm a pretty antisocial person, even when it comes to the internet (maybe a lot of people are I don't know) so I don't really have a good idea of what is an acceptable level of ranting. I'm not a very argumentative person either, so when I do make a point I try to keep it brief and unobtrusive. The funny thing is; me worrying about my posts length and possible obnoxious level made me result to constantly apologizing, possibly making my posts more annoying. Self-awareness can be a tricky thing. Either way, I'm glad this hasn't been an unbearable slog.

>Vanilla NG3
I feel like Ninja Theory Dmc had a similar influence. While I wasn't playing these types of action games at the time; I remember MGR came out around the same time and a lot of people bought that to make a point as to the direction they wanted the genre to go.

> Vanquish
I didn't call it unpolished mind you, it's just the impression I got before I played it. A lot of people online talked about it like it was average. Might of had something to do with performance before it was released on better hardware. I could be wrong as I didn't play on 360 or ps3, maybe it performed fine. Nonetheless; now that I've played it myself, even though I don't have a lot of experience with it, I think it's a blast!

> Rasetsu
I tried that, but the save point deactivated as enemies were close by. I only tried it once so maybe I got unlucky. Oh well, too late now haha.

>NG2004 (I forgot to reply to this earlier)
I might. Is there enough of a difference to warrant it? I know the hurricane packs had somethings that didn't make it to NGB. But without modding an xbox I'm not sure there's a way of playing those anymore.

> antisocial
No worries, everyone has their thing! Don't be too hung up about it I'd say. Just happy to see you enjoy your time here, and post about NG no less. I always love talking about the games :)

> DmC and MGR
That was a really interesting time. I do feel that DmC got more flack than it deserved, unlike NG3 it still featured a lot of what made the series great and even featured some improvements, especially in the later PC and DE editions. The marketing surrounding the game was aweful though. Really shows what spitting in your fanbase can do to a title.

> Vanquish
Yeah no worries, just curious where you got that impression from since as noted that's the first time I heard that. In terms of versions it's a tad weird still. The PS3/X360 versions perform at 30fps, but the later releases at 60fps. Sadly, due to the jump in FPS, the game is still a bit of a mess in the details which leaves the game's veterans with a tough choice haha. But yeah, absolutely phenomenal game!

> NG2004
Its UT system is different and the enemies are a lot more agressive, but other than that it's a stripped down version of Black. It's worth it to play it though imo since on Very Hard (its highest mode) it can still offer a nice challenge and it's the only way to fight certain bosses solo (bosses don't have helpers in this game). Also has some other unique things to that at least make a single run through novel if you're a Black fan.

> NGII
Finally got a gold medal on all survival challenges after putting them off for far too long. I really am not an UT user so it was quite difficult for me doing them my way, but fun! Big respect to those that managed to beat them on Master Ninja, no idea how I'd tank my way through certain waves.

>Vanquish
Yeah now that I think back; A lot of the people I remember talking about it were more shooter fans (I mostly played western made first and third person shooters back then), not really the type of people who understood Japanese action games. So as such were looking at it with that perspective. I remember people saying stuff like how the rocket boosting was cool but a gimmick to make it standout from other generic shooters, and it was otherwise just as generic. A lot of them didn't really understand the deeper systems. Of course I didn't know that back then and just took what they said at face value. 'Unpolished' probably wasn't the right word.
It however has been a long time, and I don't really remember things too well. So I'm kinda just left with the vague impression I got from others.

>NG2004
Maybe I'll pick it up then. My local gamestore always has like a dozen copies for something like 3 bucks a piece. So no real reason not to give it a go sometime.

> Survival
I don't have the DLC. But I saw a guy online called like JoeButton or something play some of these. It looks pretty ridiculous!

Just did the rasetsu fight and made it to the checkpoint. Spammed windblades the whole way there to make sure I wouldn't have to go through that again. What an awful fight. I felt like I needed to call the police the whole time. Like some horrible crime was taking place before my eyes.
I can't imagine doing it without Ninpo. All I can do is offer my condolences and mourn your former more innocent self.

Good on you sir. You gave it far more then it deserved.

Needless to say; I'm tired now and will finish the mission another day.

Alright! CH 11 and 12 are done!
Honestly, after chapter 11 everything just kind blurs together. It all feels like one blurry tunnel of boss fights. Kinda don't care for a lot of the end stuff. Though I actually don't hate the Centaur enemies like many do. They're not great but they're basically just the horse Samurai from NGB. They're not even the tankiest of enemies. Putting a million of them with Volf was a bad idea however.
I have a suspicion that dogs are among the tankiest of the enemies. Today I saw one survive Void! That's insane!

CH 13 next...
Can't remember a lot of it. Is this the one with the umm... sacks? I think Alexei's at the end of it. Don't recall much else though.