Ninja gaiden 2 general discussion.

Royta/Raeng wrote:If you have footage of the TDS doing it, link me and I'll take a look, maybe I'm misunderstanding or misremembering :)

I'm mostly going to focus on the main weapons, as I find that the ranged weapons all have their unique uses but are more 'situational'. Of them though I still feel the regular Shuriken is the best.
Regarding the weapons, note that this is my take on them regarding the NGII variants, not NGS2. Also that C-tier is still absolutely great, just more situational:


SS
Tonfa


S
Scythe
Dragon Sword
Talons
Lunar


A
Kusari-gama


B
Flails


C
Dual Katana


Starting from the bottom, the Dual Katana is the weakest of the bunch due to its design. It is a damage weapon in a game where damage doesn't mean anything. The core of NGII is about delimbing foes, and it lacks any good delimb move that is tied to a quick button. While it has some great AoE moves like >XXX and running XX, or the instant decapitation move XX>XY, those are very situational. Its UT is fancy but is again mostly damage and low on delimb to the point that some regular enemies might even survive it if tagged. Its saving grace is its mobility, huge moveset and the double Y from walls and aerial moves which is a great sweep. Good weapon against multiple foes, but outclassed in nearly every category by others. Note that in NGS2 I rank it at nearly the top due to how much more important damage is there and that stagger was changed, making moves like YYYY much better in that game.


Flails are my personal favourite, it has some of the best moves in the game like XXYY which is a brutal decapitation move and a lot of fast running moves and quick strikes. It lacks oomph though and against heavier foes lacks punch like the giant Cyborgs. >Y might contend for the best singular move in the game though due to its speed, delimb percentage and damage output. Also has a very tiny movelist. Great counter though.


Kusari-gama, very hard to use weapon. Absolutely wrecks giant bosses with its 360YYYY due to it hitting multiple times. Its grabs are fantastic too as they are i.framed, making them great to escape IS that are stuck to your body. Paired with your own IS it becomes quite a potent OHKO tool as two delimbs means a kill. Has one of the best aerial moves in the game (XXY). Lacks potent ground strings that can be used safely without 'thinking'.


S-tier is harder to nail imo. Lots of great weapons that have a ton of strenghts and some weaknesses. Lunar has a great early game 360UT and jumping XY and standing XXY wreck shop and these three moves can carry the game alone. Rest of the moveset is excedingly mediocre though. XYYYY is an exception but locked behind level 3 and is only great against large groups and only if you can pull it off safely.


The Talons are fast and furious and have some great singular moves, but lack potent multi-enemy firepower. Sadly they are only in S-tier due to how insanely good its >Y is and how potent Swallow>Izuna is against the game. You can legit skip entire fights with it. Absolutely terrible UT. Considered it for A-tier instead, but its good tools are just *too* good.
Dragon Sword is just a great all round weapon. Can option-select some heavy attacks into an OT, great delimb options, running attacks, flying swallow is extremely mobile, great off the wall moves, good damage on its YYY string, XXY>Y is very mobile too. Just a fantastic weapon with no real downsides.


Scythe lacks a lot of strings, but it just wrecks shop. XXY alone can carry it to S-tier, but it also has the scythe-throw which deals monsterous delimb, while its UT is among the safest and best with its short animation not giving foes the time to shower you with IS. Its 'spin of doom' in the air is easily the best aerial move in the game. Safe, high damage, high delimb, just a monster move.


The Tonfa though... is just the best weapon in the game, hands down. For it has all of the things above that make a weapon stand out, except it has all of them as noted. It is fast. It can option-select heavies into OTs. It has a dash. It has fully i.framed attack combos like Dash > Swallow > Dash. It has the best UT in the game against regular enemies where a single charge is already a kill. It has great anti-boss attacks with >Y - >YY x 360Y melting bosses. Its Flying Swallow wrecks heads for an OHKO. It is just absolutely in a tier of its own. Some of its longer strings aren't really that useful I feel but you can even then still tinker with them due to the dash being a nice escape from them. Just a monster weapon.