Ninja Gaiden 2 can be nuts

Always wanted to make a compilation like this, lots of fun haha!

Hey Roy, just a heads up. You've posted this weird game, like, explosion or demolition simulator in the Ninja Gaiden forum instead of Other Games.

Oh shit, sorry. I think Itagaki put this weird demolition expert game on my NGII disc. I'll ask around.

So this is the shuriken spam I've heard so much about? Is there any way around it? It looks impossible to avoid 100% of the time

It is impossible to avoid 100% of the time, I explain it a bit in the upcoming article, but the idea behind Ninja Gaiden 2 isn't to play flawless, it is to win. Fights are all about control, if you lose control of the fight stuff like this will happen and you will die, you really need to not let them take the fight from you, not give them a chance to go ham.

That said you can avoid it. You can throw enemies for i.frames, use i.framed moves like 360Y, spam UTs, do headstomps, other i.frame moves, wall attacks etc, all to avoid the explosion. With the claws you can do >XY to activate a grab animation for instance. Lots of options around it. But if you want to play no-damage you have to play really boring and lame, I do not recommend it.

I would also like to add that the entire game isn't explosions. The only difficulty where it's completely over the top is Master Ninja, secondly you fight enemies other than the IS Ninjas during the game. But like Royta Rogers said, you have plenty of ways to deal with them.