Random Razor's Edge thread

Wait.
So does this info mean the game is actually good?

Has the community been trashing it for years only to be wrong the entire time?

I remember saying that since it's so hated, it's probably good and I'll like it. Was I right?

EDIT: Wait, were you talking about Ninja Gaiden 3, or Razor's Edge? I thought you were talking about Razor's Edge, and Ninja Gaiden 3 is still terrible.

Yes. It is good.

The mechanics of this game are the best they've ever been in all the Ninja Gaiden games, and I think that when the game's pieces all fall into place, it's the best combat system ever made, period. But the problem is with all the big asterisks. A.k.a The most linear level design in the series, trivialized platforming (moreso than Ninja Gaiden 2), less weapons (No Tonfa, Vigoorian Flail, or Enma's Fang/Dabilahro, but the existing weapons are all pretty great), not as much weight behind each string that you pick, combo-breaker enemies that embarrass Bayonetta 2's, the myriad of glitches, and the performance/input issues on Master Ninja and above (They're generally fine on Normal, and Hard).

Lots of asterisks, I know, but the core mechanics are so good, that it actually makes these issues worth slogging through.

Also, @Royta/Raeng, how would you feel about the ability to Cicada Surge out of a dodge's endframes by holding down L1 (while dodging) and hitting jump? As it is right now, it only works when Ryu is blocking, and he doesn't immediately go into that stance after a dodge, so now and again when I try to use it, I just end up jumping up.

Note, he makes VANILLA NG3 look good, which is still a trash game with a lot of problems. Razor's Edge has always been the 'fantastic combat stuck in a bad game' title.

> cicada
I think it should be doable whenever in the next game. In the air, during combos, just make it a 'free input' as it were. Might require it to be a different input. I'd go as far as to say it should be a baseline ability.

It's a shame that the new traversal abilities in NG3 and RE were never used to their fullest potential.

Like, that slide dodge for getting underneath small gaps, and the knife climb could've been used a lot more for, say, more open levels, with tons of secrets like NG Black, as opposed to just QTEs, and the occasional hidden crystal skulls.

The slide and climb were cool, but they also felt very singular in the way you'd use them. I think something like what we're seeing in DOOM:Eternal's wallclimb is better, that you can actually do things on them or go from one to the other.

Tried out the claws, and Jesus Christ, these things are fun to use. Seeing Ryu blitz the fuck out of everyone by combining martial arts and blades is just such a delight.

But I'm still running into a wall with the White Alchemists on Master Ninja (Not Ultimate) difficulty. Any tips on how to beat them with claws? And what are the best strings to use?

Also, Wind Blades are just fucking broken in this game. Whenever I need some health, I just run away for a second to get everyone in a group, cast it, and then proceed to SoB/OT everyone that got hit by it to refill the Ninpo gauge.

Random question: What sort of combat OST do you think would fit future games, or this one? I know it also depends on what levels that we're currently in, but just in general.

This theme is good, but not intense enough for general combat I feel, this is also good, but it sounds... too tense? And not oriental enough? While I think this one could work for general use, I don't think it's oriental enough, either.

For Ninja Gaiden I always felt most of the combat specific tracks weren't really good baring some exceptions like the original Doku theme. I really thing they could benefit from some more classical styled music like Ninja Gaiden III's themesong or something like what was played in the Volf stage in NGII or the infamous "Fighting Soul" track from that game; good twist on metal. Feel the stage tracks in the games were always excellent though. But things like Genshin's theme generally make me cringe.

The weird music in NGIII or what was added in NGS1 never sat right with me honestly.

Any tips for dealing with White Alchemists on Master Ninja? I decided to restart Day 2, but it's been a while since I last played. I'm using Claws/Scythe/Sword.

I was unpleasantly surprised to learn that they can block your Steel on Bone.

They'll only block it if they have their shield up. With the sword XX>YYYY is a good combo against them, as is XXYYY. 360Y into a hold-Y is fantastic as well. Stay on the move at all times, end every attack with a dodge. Try to avoid Shurikens if possible.

Surprise surprise, the next article is going to be about Razor's Edge and I really need to start playing this title again. Popped it in for a bit today and forgot just how excellent it is. Going to be interesting to write about.

Is it true that alchemists were more coordinated in the original release?

What do you mean with 'coordinated'?

Some time ago I read that they were smarter in the base game. They attacked and moved like a group, defending each other. It was hard to break their formation.

I'd like to see the source if possible, but I don't think that's true. The only thing they removed was that enemies could beg for their life.

Back to Trials a.k.a Mission Mode, I set a goal to clear 50 missions on my own with the secondary characters. Seems modest enough. Playing Kasumi as if Hayabusa is odd, aside from sweet Izuna drops. Any short pointers for a Black vet? I know II too, but with no high regards. Heretical thanks, hehe.

Kasumi's biggest strength is her grab. She can instantly cancel connected and blocked hits into a grab that sets up an SoB chain, fantastic stuff and great for killing whole groups. She also has Cicada iirc which is worth it. Be sure to level her up first in Chapter Challenge, otherwise you cannot play using her properly. Her projectile is decent, but not fantastic.

I think her Heavy string is best against bosses but my memory is hazy on that.

@Raeng It's somewhat difficult to find the source. I've read it on an Italian forum but the thread is no longer online. In my country a small community of action gamers defended NG3 when it was released, but I wasn't into this genre at that time. I've watched some good players play the first level of NG3 and I can't see a bad game, even if NG2 has many more weapons. I'd like to play it to see if it is so bad. NG3RE seems the best version on every aspect, but at the same time it's a NG2.5. A game based on fans' feedback, not a truly creative work.
It's just my impression and I know it's an unpopular opinion around here (and everywhere else), but as an action game I think it can provide at least some fun.

Give it a shot is all I'd say, I've probably pumped in more hours in vanilla NG3 than I'd care to admit and it certainly is an ambitious title - but I'd also say it isn't what we'd like to have. Calling NG3:RE NG2.5 is doing it a disservice imo. Let me know what you think of the game when you try it.

Regarding the AI, I do believe that's hogwash pardon my words haha!

I don't know what it is, but everything I hear about NG3RE makes me want to play it as my first serious NG game.

You know damn well what it is. You're a sucker for an underdog

If there's a guy that would figure out how to trigger SoB in the original NG3 on command over here, it'd be Birdman.

Nawh. He talks tough, but I'm sure even he'd go screaming towards the hills at the sight of Vanilla NG3's Master Ninja mode. That stuff was so broken. (Yes, this is a challenge haha! )

I'll start looking for a copy.

This is going to be good. The PS3 version is slightly better of Vanilla NG3. Game should be dirt cheap.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh boy

I'll be following this one closely. If Birdman somehow manages to do it (Good fucking luck)... I'll take back almost everything I said about the game, and actually reinstall the damn thing.

I feel like I've had this discussion about Steel on Bone before. Wasn't the case that in vanilla NG3, it's a random occurrence?

Semi. There are methods of increasing the %, and some of the DLC weapons have a much higher chance, but technically you're left to the game's whims. If you want the vanilla experience I'd say get NG3 (not Razor's Edge) and only use the Dragon Sword. The Claws and Scythe were added later and were basically easy mode sadly.

So it's confirmed to be a percentage based thing?

Why are you lot entertaining the idea that there could be a way to do it on command?

Pretty sure after all this time, if it were possible someone would've found out by now.

Because I refuse to believe that Team Ninja made the core feature that their entire combat system is built upon be a random event haha. Let alone structure all fights around it (hence massive waves of foes). There was a lot of speculation in the first month on how to trigger it, but we couldn't find it. Best setup we could find was making a foe bloodied, using a shuriken, sliding into him an pressing Heavy Attack, worked 'sometimes'.

> if it were possible someone would've found out by now.
Doubtful. The game was played for about a month when the Scythe DLC hit which wrecked the game so nobody tried to learn it. When that happened Razor's Edge was announced which released around 6 months later. Vanilla NG3 barely got a community effort and most avoided Steel on Bone since it was unreliable (even when it activated there was a chance the game would glitch out, the animation would fail, and you'd be in recovery frames and get demolished).

>refuse to believe TN would
But isn't NG3 bad for a ton of other reasons? What's one more? Doesn't sound like they did a good job of the game in general.

>RE announced
That explains a lot. Most would've jumped ship then.

I'll look into it. Go through a process of elimination. Sometimes it's a matter of asking the right questions. I still feel like it would've been found by now regardless of RE's announcement simply because I've never come across a mechanic in any game that was so mysterious and hard to find out how to do.

Then again, not a soul knew about Genji's directional attack system and how to do all the variations and their rules until I broke it down. Not to my knowledge anyway, as there was nothing online and this was years after release.

Still looking for a copy but only when I pass by an EB Games while working.

Answer these:

>Is Steel on Bone present in RE? If so, how does it work?

>In vanilla, what situations have you seen it work in?

These will tell me two things; was it fixed in RE, which may confirm that how it works in vanilla was probably intended, and what situations you HAVEN'T seen it work.

That last one will be clearer once I've played it but it'll still give me something to think about while I'm bored to death at work.

You read the article, so yeah they made a lot of different choices that didn't resonate with any audience. It was the typical 'this is what the west wants' and they faltered, badly.

> answer these
Yes lord!

> steel on bone in RE
It works very differently. It can now only be triggered by pressing Heavy attack when a foe finishes a grab with a red-aura attached to it. Doing so will start the chain now. The chain is now also limited to your weapon level - so a level 1 weapon only chains twice and then it stops. Ironically since the game is so rushed, you can glitch your way into the original coding with some inputs and you have infinite chaining again, but that is not intended.
Steel on Bone now also heals you ever so slightly and builds lots of meter. You can also bait it more easily (certain inputs like charging UTs and healing, both not present in vanilla, trigger foes to do the grab that allows for SoB).

> SoB in vanilla
The ingame tutorial notes "mash heavy" but I've also seen it randomly appear from a light hit. I've seen it happen after dodges, after blocks, anytime anywhere. Never could find a rime or reason. The only one was as noted using shurikens to stun a foe and dodge into them. This would rarely send them into a juggle state where pressing Triangle allows for a free SoB...sometimes. Sometimes it happens. Other times not. Other times Ryu does the animation but the SoB chain doesn't happen and the enemy just takes damage (Kind of like a phantom hit?).

That last part is in both games by the way. I think it is a pathfinding issue, or something with triggering the SoB animation, but Ryu can at times activate the 'move' that transitions in the SoB chain, and just have it not do anything. Really weird.

@Raeng I trust your judgement and if you haven't seen better alchemists in the first version then it's probably a false claim. If I can get NG3 at a cheap price I still want to try it. I'm sure there are worse action games than NG3 but maybe I'm too positive haha.

By the way I know there are 2 dlc weapons. Are they free or you have to pay for them?

The DLC weapons are free to use in the campaign, but you have to pay to use them in the Trials. Honestly I'd say play without them as they just crush the game's balance.

>Implying that Ninja Gaiden 3 has balance in the first place

You're right. To put it better, NG3 just lacks any sort of challenge since the DLC weapons have OHKO answers for every enemy, which the Dragon Sword lacks. That and the Scythe's SoB is so much better than the other weapons in the game it is ridiculous.

So is the Scythe's SOB easier to do in NG3? You can predict when it works, am I right? These DLC weapons seem much more powerful and maybe they weren't tested enough. Are weapons more balanced in RE? I know the SOB is very different, but I mean their full moveset.

The Scythe has a higher chance to SoB %-wise, but it is also the only weapon that can do it in the air and its chain-range is nearly 5-times that of all the other weapons due to how wide the animation is. You can SoB whole rooms with the Scythe:




The reason DLC weapons are so good in Vanilla NG3 is that they start maxed out, unlike the Dragon Sword that gets upgrades every few chapters. For instance you don't get the OHKO method for Alchemists with the Dragon Sword until the 6th chapter iirc, while the Scythe starts with it because it is fully upgraded.

> weapon balance in Razor's Edge
They are all pretty balanced and have unique quirks. The scythe is still absolutely overpowered though and stands head and shoulders above the rest. It has the best SoB still thanks to its animation and has a fully invincible move that also happens to be the highest damage move in the game. If you want to learn the game, avoid using this move:

I don't understand how a very talented team can do such basic mistakes. Ok, Itagaki wasn't there but I think they don't need him to correct maxed weapons or that OP Scythe's move.

To be fair, Itagaki's games had huge balance issues as well - while not on the level of the Scythe's 360Y in NG3RE, still pretty broken stuff. So it isn't that weird for it to be in there.

But yeah this is definitely broken.

Alright. Just got back into Razor's Edge after a quick playthrough of NG2004 on normal.
I've started on hard mode because I have insecurity issues; it's definitely a step up from what I remembered. Do fights go on longer, like are there more enemies, or is it just me? I've completed Day 1 including the ToV (which was a pain by the way). It's heartbreaking to get to the end of that to die to Doku and have to do it all again. Though I was savvy enough to save a health upgrade for that fight so I made it through.
The Masked Man boss fight is weird. I don't like it. I tried doing carefully timed counters against him, but he always auto-dodges. Just became a cycle of baiting and attacking while he was in recovery frames.

Really not looking forward to the Van Gelfs. I remember them being a nightmare to fight.

I didn't finish my normal playthrough last year because I got sick of some of the nonsense in this game. I think the T-rex fight did it for me. But this time I'll finish it.

I'll keep this thread updated on my progress.

Alright I beat RE. Did all the ToV's and got all the Scarabs as well. It took awhile 'cause this game tends to burn me out.

For the most part I followed Royta's advice of not abusing 360 move's. Though I made exceptions for certain ToV's, a few bosses and Alchemists. I'm also glad I decided to do it on hard mode. It pushed me to have to experiment and learn in ways that normal couldn't.

I'm gonna take a break from RE again. But I will comeback and do the higher difficulties. I'm tempted to do the infinite Karma glitch on the higher difficulties as, in this game in particular, I have more fun when I have all the weapons and moves. I also didn't use some of them as much as I would like (Kusarigama).

Anyway, I've warmed up to RE a bit. A lot of it's problems are hard to overlook, but when it clicks it's a pretty good time.

Yeah the game's constant combat really has the urge to burn players out to some regard, really a great game imo to play in bursts. Glad to hear you had a good time with it! Imo Master Ninja mode is really fun too. Ultimate Ninja is really the game on overdrive, but still very enjoyable.

In terms of karma, it's hard to say. You can definitely get an absolute motherload of Karma in Chapter 1 alone, which would allow you to get Meditation, a level 2 weapon and Cicada right off the bat, but it is really recommended you 'favourite' a weapon in that case.

Note that the game has Chapter Challenge where you can do a pseudo NG+ on the beaten difficulties where you can really just go ham. So maybe save that idea for that mode. In the campaign the resource management also adds something I feel i.e. getting karma etc.

I'm sorry if this has been answered already in here...but curious if you guys know if the online content and trials, Shadow of the World status, trophies, etc are shared between NG3RE and NG3 on the same platform? (PS3).

I know I'm supposed to just play RE as everyone has told me, but I'm playing the original version because I'm a weirdo :). So far it feels good in terms of combat, though a bit repetitive on Hard mode.

I haven't purchased the online pass. Having a tough time finding information about whether the online stuff is shared between the two or if you even need an online pass for RE. If they're all completely different trials, that's great! I'm happy to play both entirely separately (assuming there are other weirdos out that there want to play online NG3Original haha). But if they are shared, then I'd probably just play through story on all difficulties and then move onto RE3 to continue with the Shadow of the World stuff.

Thanks!

What do you mean by shared? As in a shared player base?

Razor's Edge is too different in terms of content and mechanics, so they are really seperate games in all respects. The only thing that's usually the same is the enemy composition.

> online pass
Razor's Edge also has one IIRC and if you play on Xbox One (the best way to play that game, due to it fixing the input lag) you'll also need Xbox Live.

> online NG3
Aside from the rare trophy hunter you'll find a barren wasteland. Of the two platforms of vanilla, PS3 is the most populated, at least it was so on launch :)

Interesting, ok thanks! Input lag...now that sounds painful and not something I’m looking forward to. For the shared stuff, I mostly meant the online content and possibly the trials. The main reason why I asked was due to the leveling nature of the character...even within the trials. Sounds like I would need to buy 2 online passes to play both and the dlc. Will have to see how I feel at the end of my difficulty runs I think, and unfortunately I ran into a snag shortly after starting.

I was thinking to myself...I’ll just play until it gets as bad as people say...well...

Day 2, Hard mode -> Using kunai to climb to the top of the first wall, game freezes with Ryu in an idle loop...no input possible. No big deal, I’ll fight my way back to it...same freeze...4 times in a row. I tried moving the camera before popping up the ledge and such...couldn’t make it past the bug

Ninja Gaiden 3 is pretty okay in a vacume, but coming from NGII it was just such a step back with many shortcomings.

> online
Yeah nothing is shared. Note that Razor's Edge by default has all trials, even the ones that were DLC for the vanilla version. Outside of curiocity or achievement hunting, I wouldn't recommend playing Vanilla anymore.

> inputlag
It gets pretty rough on Master and Ultimate Ninja difficulties in both games. The Xbox One X powers through this thanks to sheer horsepower.

Good luck!

Good to know thanks! Unfortunately, i don't have an current Gen XBOX. My first time skipping a generational console.

I might have to move onto RE version regardless due to the unpassable bug I encountered. I'm going to try one more thing...uninstalling everything and then re-installing to see if I can move forward.

Good to know that all the trials are there by default in RE as well while you have to purchase them for the original!

I finally started NG3 (vanilla) up again to see if I could get passed that infinite loop bug in day 2. After a couple more freezes, I found that I had the tutorial off which hides the quick time events...so I was throwing a dagger at the guy at the top rather than strong attacking like the tutorial wanted. Goofy stuff. Throwing a dagger always resulted in a freeze at the top ><

Important point for others is you ever play, leave on the tutorial for a few playthroughs, maybe, to avoid weird bugs.

Also, it’s pretty fun. I steamrolled through Day 6 on hard today. Looking forward to Master Ninja.

NG3 on Vanilla is such a weird game. I remember liking it upon release, though it was just so different and not what I was looking for. Think they really tried to do too many things i.e. be a hard story telling game. Curious what you think about Master Ninja, personally that's where the game just fell apart for me.