My first Ninja Gaiden 2 Master Ninja run (Solved)

> Vanquish
Ah, I can get that. I remember the game getting some flack upon release from the more mainstream community for being short and lacking multiplayer. It really wasn't a shooter, more an action game that uses a gun instead of a sword.

> NG2004
Yeah it is dirt cheap most of the time since everyone wants Black.

> Survival
It's pretty brutal yeah, but also a lot of fun. The Survival Mode in Sigma is the best one imo. It ranks on how many kills you made, not based on your karma-score, which I feel is better. Also doesn't loop around iirc but has actually designed combat arenas up to 999.

> rasetsu
Don't remind me, I'm still suffering from PTSD haha.

> 11 and beyond
12 is really short if you skip the dull fights in between like most people. 13 has a lot of fun fights but is also really short. 14 is basically some centaurs and the bosses. They tend to blur together for me too.

> centaurs
Mostly dislike how they can't be delimbed, just like the dragons, which makes them very annoying to fight imo. Think they'd be fine in smaller numbers, but as it stands they are just really annoying imo.

> dogs
Disgusting enemy type haha. Always cheese them, the damage they can do is ridiculous.

>Dogs

I only played NG2 up to Mentor (Because you gotta give back your uncle's 360 at some point), but man, dogs have always been the bane of my existence in these games. Always made me mad that you couldn't delimb them, or Steel-on-Bone them in Razor's Edge, but there are probably some regulations against that kind of thing that would result in the games being AO if they included that...

> dogs
To be fair, Ninja Gaiden isn't exactly going for a PG13 rating haha. Do feel dogs seem to be a hard enemy to do right in most genres. They're annoying as hell in shooters, terrifying in stealth games and in NG they're a bitch too.

One thing that helps in Razor's Edge is that a single touch of an UT kills them, which makes them a lot easier. NGII's dogs though... only way I know is to abuse either flying swallow or on-landing-ETs like the 360ET with the Lunar.

CH 13 done!
Not much to say about it. it went fine.

CH 14 next... Almost there.
There's like 5 bosses in this one I think. Too many. Could use some tips for Elizabet and more importantly Dagra Dai. He in particular is one I never really understood how to fight.
But honestly, if worse comes to worse I can just brute force everything that's left. I have 7 full health upgrade items (only used two so far), 2 Ninpo casts upgrades (haven't used any yet), a Talisman of Rebirth (Haven't used any yet), plus the general health items.
Kind of ridiculous I know. I've probably been too conservative when it comes to using items. Until CH 10, I had probably bought only like 4 items at the shop. I'm at the end now with around 240000 essence to spare.

>dogs
They're fine in the Tenchu games. One shuriken takes 'em out. They just spot you quicker, so you gotta pay attention.
But yeah, dogs are really weird in games. Anyone who's played Dark Souls 3 will remember they outright teleport to get in front of you. So bizarre...

> Eli
If you don't mind exploits, she has a weird weakness to the Flying Swallow of the Falcon's Talons. She cannot dodge it as well as other moves so you can at times just kill her by spamming it. Otherwise there's a few loops, or you can do it 'my way' i.e. using the Flails >Y smartly which takes a lot of practice and please god don't try that haha.

> Dagra Dai
This video should have most of the tips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og4iIxpOM18

Instead after the aerial scythe combo you do an On Landing Ninpo to be safe from the lightning (use inferno).

> Chapter 14 in general
Not a fan of it either. Though the areas are really cool imo.

MASTER NINJA MODE DEFEATED!!!!!

Awesome! How did the final chapter go?

It was a bit frustrating. Encountered the bug with Elizabet's floor snare grab thing where she doesn't finish Ryu leaving him awkwardly floating indefinitely. Which means I had to reset the game, which means I had to fight Genshin again. So that sucked.

I still suck at Dagra Dai. I'm tempted to say the boss sucks altogether. Which is a shame as he's the most visually interesting and complex of any of them. He's so fluid in his animations; the way his swords form in hand, the way he transitions into each phase of attack. He's unique and unlike anything else in the series. He almost looks like a DMC boss. It's too bad then he kinda just sucks to fight.

The first phase of the Archfiend is formulaic and easy, and I just spammed 360Y with the Dualswords for the true fight. Nothing too bad.

The good news is Dagra Dai does suck. They clearly never finished that guy. Too messy.

Yeah he has so many attacks that seem really fiddly to avoid consistently. Still can't bring myself to dislike him as much as some other bosses though (Zedonius).

He's still among the list of things I haven't cracked yet. I cannot imagine that it isn't possible, but I just can not no-damage him without ninpo abuse, and even then it is absolutely bonkers. Arguably my most hated fight in any game.

I'll never do a no damage run of this game haha. That sounds like absolute hell. I'm honestly happy I even managed to beat it. I remember on mentor feeling like I was never gonna be good enough to beat even that, let alone Master Ninja.

I checked my playtime in the options; 118 hrs. While NGB is my favorite; it seems I've been playing this off and on a lot more over the past year. NGII is just a bit more "pick up and play" I guess.

Oh please don't get me wrong: you should never aim to no-damage this game. I don't think there's a worse way to experience it. No-damaging bosses is another matter though imo, since they are such singular experiences.

Just wish there was a more consistent way to do it. Like Zedonius's second fight. He can just decide not to play ball, constantly spawning Gajia, staying in the air throwing fireballs. Or he can just spam grab 20 times in a row making for an easy kill. So weird.

Zedonius is just nonsense. Drives me absolutely crazy. On one of my attempts in the second fight with him; he got stuck under the lava and summoned two sets of Gajia before he got out. I could hear him down there spamming fire balls the whole time. I was annoyed though I couldn't help but laugh at how absurd the whole thing was.

@Raeng
Alright well I probably already mentioned it, but this was my first time beating the hardest mode in any Ninja Gaiden game. I was pretty intimidated by it but it ended up being pretty fun all things considered. How does it compare difficulty wise to other games in the series? Honestly didn't struggle with it as much as my first DMD runs in DMC 1 and 3.

I realize it was probably weird to have some random asshole pop out of nowhere on your forum and start begging for NGII help. So I really Appreciate the patience and help.

I don't know if you'd like this whole thing deleted so it's not cluttering the NGII topic. I can't imagine it having enough of a purpose to stay.

Hell no man, keep this topic here. There's always a nugget of information to be found somewhere, I'm a big fan of keeping data alive. So if you don't mind, please keep it alive. Who knows, maybe one day you'll come back to the game and want a refresher or whatnot.

That said, not bad man, seriously. NGII on Master Ninja is probably as hard as it gets. Maybe Ultimate Ninja in NG3(RE) being harder but that's mostly balancing issues. But NGII really is known as the lord almighty in terms of hardness. DMC1 and 3 are harder only if you try to play well, not using items and some other tricks. DMC3's Vergil on DMD is nuts first time through for sure though. As is DMD Nightmare and Mundus.

> random asshole
Ha! Not at all. That's what this place is for! To have people that love the genre share their passion for it and talk about it. Every new member I see pop up is a highlight of my day, seriously. No joke.
I hope you'll stick around despite having finished this trip, I'd love to read your experiences in NG:B for instance, and feel free to join other talks. Don't be so self-deprecating :)

>I'm a big fan of keeping data alive

The best thing about this site is the years of discussion and info that isn't really available anywhere else.
I scoured the old topics here when I got into NG2. You can learn so much that way.

> Topic
I won't delete it then. I saw something where I could change the topic to "solved" or something. Can't seem to find it anymore. Should I do that? I've never been on a forum before I don't know what I'm doing.

>DMD
That might explain it. I'm pretty stubborn when it comes to using items. Never understood the Nightmare hype. I remember hearing he was the hardest boss in the game. But to me, he's the easiest. I remember struggling against Nelo-Angelo 3 for four straight hours; and then getting through DMD nightmare 2 and 3 on my first try (to be fair I think I used an invulnerability item on Nightmare 3). I would always do the whole fight without getting swallowed because, to me, every boss inside were a million times harder then he was.

>NGII is no joke
Yeah I've been lovingly referring to it as "Gang Rape Simulator" (sorry about the edge) to my friends. It definitely has been an interesting experience. The most exhausting game I've ever played for sure.

> scoured old topics
Good to hear that @Hedfone, because that's exactly what I was hoping for! Glad to hear the site is being enjoyed :)

> DMD
Nightmare is mostly annoying in his pattern, the angles on some of his attacks are wonky and you can really, really screw yourself over if you make him go red-orbed. There's only like 2-3 people that beat Nightmare fully red-orbed last I checked

> gang rape simulator
An apt term not going to lie.

> Nightmare
I don't know how most people fight him. But what I did is use Ifrit jumps to parry his physical attacks. If you stand at his side he'll often try to stab you. You can see this coming because his body will shift suddenly to aim at you. The spike always comes out with the same timing so when he shifts; stand still for a moment and jump. The parry exposes the orb for a couple fully charged punches. iirc you can even jump into his spinning boomerang attack for a parry. He's the easiest to control as he doesn't move much and follows very set patterns that are easy to predict once you get the hang of it. The most difficult thing is that he can cause significant chip damage over time with the projectiles he shoots. To me Nightmare 1 is the hardest as it's easy to get stuck on geometry.
This is all probably pretty well known stuff. But I was happy to discover a reliable method on my own when I played DMD for the first time.

I recall being able to Stinger his spikes too. No real timing required because Stinger would auto-connect on the tip of the spikes. No idea if it's better than using Ifrit jumps. I remember doing that too. Didn't know you could do anything about the boomerang other than avoid it. Something about Vortex on the core but I'm going on fragmented flashbacks right now.

@Royta/Raeng
Alright before I wrap this up; in your stairs of doom fight video I saw you do these sick jump flips up the stairs really quickly. How do you do that?

I'm gonna modify the topic as solved as I think that's the proper thing to do. Don't worry I'll be sticking around. There's a lot of useful information here to be gained, and the people aren't too bad either

Thanks for the help!

That's 'continous jumping', basically in NG you can cancel landing lag by pressing direction+jump on landing. You can do this at nearly any angle except a full 180degree change. So you can dodge to the front and then jump to the right. Or jump forward and then immediately jump left, fantastic for mobility. What I do there is just chain Forward+Jump inputs on landing. Doing it on the staircase is super fun and tricky since the timing is more strict.

Glad to see you stay around :)

> boomerang @birdman
IIRC you can hit it with a downwardslash to knock it back. Doesn't deal damage but it does remove the attack from the playing field.

Good to know thanks!

Note that this works in all games in the series! Kind of like guard-resetting, it is just an engine quirk that they never removed.

>boomerang
Wow.

I never even considered that seeing as it looking so large and dangerous. Now that I think about it, DMC1 was filled with enemy attacks you could hit.