Rumored Collection of NGS titles spotted

Take with a grain of salt, but apparently a collection of NGS, NGS2 and NG3RE was spotted online:

https://www.gematsu.com/2020/09/hong-kong-distributor-lists-ninja-gaiden-trilogy-for-ps4-switch

While not surprising, I am somewhat saddened that it is not the original version. Though the idea of the Switch even trying to play NGII at a consistent 60fps is laughable, only the Xbox One X manages that (barely). Wonder if this coincides with the rumored inclusion of Ryu Hayabusa in Smash and the aformentioned NG4 leaks most of us here are familiar with. I always personally predicted that Team Ninja had a Sigma collection rotting away somewhere for when they wanted to boost NG4. Here's hoping this might actually happen.

I could buy it to show some support but I want NGB and NG2. A complete collection with every NG game would be perfect but I doubt they are still thinking about NG (2004) and Hurricane Packs.

I highly doubt we'll ever see the Hurricane Packs again, in part due to Itagaki noting Black was the definitive edition. I don't think he realized how much people would love the Intercept move in hindsight.

But yeah I'll buy it to support the numbers but without NGB or NGII I'll probably let them stay in the dust.

Are these Sigma versions really that bad?

I understand the originals are better, but what would you rate Sigma 1&2 if they were the only NG games?

They're really solid action games on their own merits.

Sigma 1 had a bunch of little things that were wrong with it though, like the lack of adjusting for timers to compensate for certain changed encounters, making some encounters impossible to beat within the time limit.

Sigma 2 plays like something else entirely.

Roy would do a better job outlining the differences, I think he even had a list of what Sigma 1 changed.

I think the Sigma games can best be described as me remaking Chaos Legion for another console. I kind of know how games work and what makes a good game, but I have zero relevant experience with the game in question and a tight deadline to boot.

The Sigma games are great in that they build off of a phenomenal base set of games. But everything they add or change is either a result of not knowing how the game actually worked or general oversights.

Taking Sigma 1, they changed the back-dodge animation. Which sounds fine, but it royally screwed up some elements of the game. Certain sections of calm are now filled with enemies, screwing with the pacing while other short fights now have waves of 20 enemies total.

It goes further than that too. The timers per fight are not adjusted for the higher enemy count, making some timers impossible to complete, showing that lack of attention to detail. Similar details are missing in weapons, smoke bombs barely work now for whatever reason, Incendiary Shurikens now bounce off of some bosses instead of damaging them, enemies that were a menace now have all their attacks be parryable etc. Details details details. They won't bother someone doing a regular romp on Normal difficulty, but for series veterans the game really missed a lot.

The only things I feel are improved are the fact that you can unlock higher settings faster by beating a (boring) optional boss. That and they removed all the puzzles. While I don't really like that latter part I can see players who played NG:B for years on end feel good that they can now just skip all the busywork and go straight to the combat.

Sigma 2 is just a bunch of quick fixes going absolutely out of hand. The big problem with NGII originally was its frame-rate, which they fixed by lowering the enemy count in Sigma 2. But then to balance this they...gave enemies a huge health boost. And to balance this they lowered delimb-chances. And to streamline the game further they removed the currency system. And to balance that... and it just keeps on going from there. That game is so far away from the original I consider it a totally different experience, though I still prefer NGII's original vision.

>remaking CL

Yeah I guess I would be the first person knocking at your door with a machete.

>The timers per fight are not adjusted for the higher enemy count, making some timers impossible to complete

This happened in the English releases of CL too, though only for two stages, with others being possible but feel really unbalanced compared to the JP version.

I might grab it for RE.

If you want Razor's Edge, I'd still suggest you just get the Xbox 360 disc if possible and put that in an Xbox One X or later-on Series X. Will without a doubt run better I'd figure, unless this trilogy pack will have some added content which I highly doubt.

Announced for switch. I assume it is the plus versions? Which from what I understand are not great.
I will still support it just to hopefully get more in the future.
I wonder how the performance will be.

Looked really bad in the direct.

Not the Plus versions, which took me by surprise. It's the Sigma versions but insanely downscaled by the looks of it. I'll buy it to support the series and dev but it honestly looks terrible. Only plus side imo is that more people can now experience NG. Which is always good. Just hope this version leaves a decent impression.

Didn't see any mention of them being the Plus versions - would they really want to port the Vita games to Switch?

Good news for the franchise but it's a shame they aren't including the Itagaki titles.

Looks like we are getting the 2 Sigma games and Razors Edge one Switch Could be happier to play these games again and on the go which is even better!

Hoping that Black and II at least come as DLC or something later. Regardless, nerfed Ninja Gaiden is better than no Ninja Gaiden. Seems to be something of a Genma Onimusha and Onimusha Warlords situation.

But if I were to try and understand why base II was cut, it might be because Japan is really bad about censoring gore in video games. Resident Evil 2, The Last of Us, The Witcher and Nioh among others all had their violence cut down. But that doesn't explain Razor's Edge, which is by far the bloodiest game in the series.

That would be cool actually is NG Black did get some sort of remaster on Switch. Id like that

Even weirder is that Razor's Edge has all its online functionality removed, so now the Xbox will have two versions of Razor's Edge. One with online, one without. So weird.

Not gonna lie, really bummed by the quality of the HD collection so far. Missing DLC, cut online modes, Sigma version - big 'meh' from me.

I thought in the Switch trailer the voiceover said it included all DLC, is that not the case?

They doubled back on that really quickly on the site. It now only notes "most of the DLC", mostly in reference to NG3:RE. Solid chance that the dlc for Sigma 1 will be absent.

Ehhh...I’ll probably hesitantly pick this up, if not just for a lack of having anything else to play this year. We all knew these were the versions they would use yet it’s still disappointing.

They just can't do it, can they? They just can't give the fans a proper collection of the definitive versions of these games with all content and modes intact. Or rather, they just won't.

My gut is strongly telling me not to support this, but you just know that KT are sat there now thinking "well if this doesn't sell its because nobody likes NG any more, and we won't need to make an NG4". Feels like they're trying to force our hand.

Yeah this is the same thing we went through with Onimusha. They released Warlords rather than Genma which is vastly superior, yet I felt obligated to buy it show Capcom I’m interested. Same thing here, I already own these inferior versions and don’t want to buy them again, but they’ll use poor sales as a reason to not give us NG4(or something that isn’t Nioh).

Was Sigma more popular?

I don't see any reason to not have Black. Unless it was an XBOX exclusive deal.

Sounds like an awful, no effort collection. I have zero interest.

The Sigma versions were easiest to port, as they were made because the Xbox originals were hard to port (and had licencing issues). They are perfectly fine for casual players, but for veterans Black and NGII are prefered of their Sigma counterparts for a multitude of reasons.

Add the removal of online co-op, probably removal of some DLC ... and you've got quite a shitty collection that really has me bummed out.

> NG4 lives through this release
Very high chance. Which is why I'm going to buy it, but I won't be happy about it to be honest. I just pray Survival Mode is in there for Sigma, then I'll at least have a reason to play it. Otherwise I'll literally be buying a case to sit on the shelf.

Hard pass. Very hard. The absence of Black costs them any integrity. That's no way to go.

I can only arc my eyebrows in surprise that some of you consider to purchase against better judgement. Mind that I'm not shaming. It's just that this reminds me of prayer. As in I'm not convinced, alas there might be life after death... Yeah, agreed. Just not like you're told. Suit yourself.

Best-case scenario, Black and II come later down the line as DLC. But seeing as how Capcom never bothered to bring Genma to PC, I've not much faith in that.

Perhaps I could write a note:

Dears bums.

How are you doing? Me, I'm bummed out by you bums. Getting me pumped and not delivering. I, for one, want the strong stuff. Reserve the watered version for the masses. Just gimme the sour-sweet flavour I've come addicted to. You know, back when your predecessors knew what moved me long before I even had an inkling. If you don't, well, go on feeding the saturated fat boys, prone to end of overstimulation. Just don't say the numbers weren't satisfying when you don't come up with a satisfying collection.

Thank you very much

Z (not an zombie)

It's way too soft, isn't it?! I'm only hard with myself. Ninja Gaiden Black taught me that.

My dream is that it becomes a hit and they at least add some of the older content back in, like Ninja of the Future etc. But I doubt it man..

>easiest to port
No surprise there. Quick cash grab.

>perfectly fine for casual players
Who don't matter and even Sigma will be too hard for them.

>removal of
They'll probably censor it too.

> Older content
Based on how they kept adding and subtracting content in releases... Yeah, no.

> Casual players
Whether you like it or not, casual players are most video games' main demographic and are where most sales are generated. Players that explore mechanics in-depth are a minority. I think this forum forgets that sometimes.

Also, with our luck, at the very least, the Steam version is going to have a bunch of technical issues at launch based on past Team Ninja ports.

For the first game it isn't that big of an issue. If you get to the point where you're bothered by Sigma 1's shortcomings, you'll be in deep enough to self-justify buying an Xbox for Black generally speaking.

My main gripe is the inclusion of NGS2 and the removal of the co-op. NGII is far more indicative of 'what Ninja Gaiden is' imo in terms of difficulty/pressure, and also the game that would benefit mostly from a PC release.

The co-op is my biggest complaint though. As it was really what pushed the community further and encourages an active player base the communicates and sees players go away from their game to learn more about it on forums etc. To find other players to tackle these challenges. Without that 'drive', the game suffers greatly, especially Razor's Edge imo.

Jeez, this is a weird collection for me. But then again, I don’t think it’s for me specifically. Though I would be happy to be able to play on Switch and PC. I’m happy more people can play; it is a good thing. On a more selfish note, I would really like more out of the collection, Vanilla (w/ and w/o hurricane pack would be incredible), Black, Sigma, NG2, NGS2 (plus online content), still don’t know what the best 3 combos would be. Definitely asking for too much though. Likely not worth it to the company as maybe the community isn’t huge. So maybe just getting some versions out there to more players will spark some further interest?

Not a big fan of Team Missions in Sigma 2 but they were important content, so their exclusion is a bad decision. I imagine the same argument can be extended to Razor's Edge which I didn't play. I'll probably buy this collection to show some support and I hope there will be mods on PC (especially for Sigma 1).  
Worst-case scenario, there won't be those annoying micro-loadings in Sigma1-2.

It would have been better to have NGB-NG2 (exclusivity deals aside), but I'll get a Series X in the future.

@hebass
I played NG (the original one) on Xemu. It's not perfect frame rate wise and there's a lava glitch that obstructs the view, but I managed to beat it on Hard. I reached CH9 on Very Hard, but I'll wait for some improvements.
By the way, someone made HP1-2 work on this emulator. I don't know how, but that seems promising.

@RedShot Oh snap, thanks! I'll try this out. Been itching for a little XBOX NG, but haven't had my XBOX out in quite some time. I'll give this a shot to see how it runs!

Well, I got Xemu up and running to where I have to insert a disc...then dug my old vanilla Ninja Gaiden copy out of the closet (big adventure), but it looks like you have to get fancy to get it off the disc into a proper format...need a special drive to do so. I think, technically, finding an ISO is legal since I own it, but it feels weird. I might try to figure out how to get it off of my own disc properly, but not today! Interesting adventure nonetheless.

But I'm off-topic: Worth noting that I'll likely buy the new release as I didn't explicitly mention it above. I'm not certain of what platforms at this point. I'm hopeful that if enough new people plus the old NG fans purchase it, it may give them the go ahead to make more. However, I also recognize that this may just be a money grab tactic by the company. We may never see anything new or possibly not for quite some time.

I'll probably get it for PC at least in case modding does take off, and depending on the content and performance get the Switch release down the line. I'll definitely get the Xbox release though, just so that I have a console with all the games in the series on it haha.

I'm only interested in Razor's Edge as I still haven't played it and my only option right now would be either the ps3 or the xbox360 version, and from what I hear neither is ideal.
So here's hoping it will be a great port even with the online and some dlc missing.

If these achievements are true we could get some new content from the Sigma Plus versions such as "Ninja Race".

https://www.trueachievements.com/game/NINJA-GAIDEN/achievements

https://www.trueachievements.com/game.aspx?gameid=9302

Just saw this too. I'm not too sure on how they get this data, since these trophies are verbatim the Plus achievements. If true, than they really are just porting those over instead (which would be cool!). The Plus versions have a lot of neat additions. Sigma Plus I would note though is worse than Sigma regular imo thanks to its removed Survival Mode and added 'Gear' system which made Master Ninja a breeze (though it is optional thankfully).

Sigma Plus 2 is fantastic though. Barring the removed online it's a straight upgrade barring the frame-rate issues it had on PSVITA.

These lists and those for the PS Vita versions have some little differences. For example, there's no mention of "turbo mode", there aren't online trophies and some other achievements aren't exactly the same (different requirements for missions in Sigma/Sigma Plus).

That's a good note, didn't notice Turbo Mode.

Would be weird if they do end up being this conglamoration of versions. That'd be really freak'n cool, best of both versions. I'd laugh my ass off if this version actually ends up being fantastic.

From the Microsoft Store descriptions we can conclude that they are the Sigma Plus versions converted to 4K/60fps or they have at least some content from the portable titles.

Got a link to that? I can't find it on the storefront.

Awesome! I've always wanted to play Ninja Race at a decent framerate so that's cool. That and we can finally shut up those players that always claimed they could Platinum NGS2+ "if they had a Vita". Time for them to put their money where their mouth is, curious to see how that will play out.

Is it true that this won’t have a physical version? If so I’m not buying it. These publishers need to get their shit together.

From the news reports it seems only Asia is getting a physical release. The west is getting a digital deluxe which comes with a digital artbook. Might be interesting in getting it on my PC, maybe get some quality artwork for my articles. But knowing them its just an old low-res PDF they had lying in the toilet haha.

Was slowly coming round to the idea of maybe supporting this, thinking a collection would be an efficient way to get in to NG. The upcoming Sigma 2 port is based on the original PS3 version, as confirmed here: https://twitter.com/TeamNINJAStudio/status/1372945033964437505?s=20

So, the purple mist remains. I'll keep my 360 for now then. Undoubtedly a disappointing, quick-buck cash grab from KT. They won't even create a definitive version of the second-choice version of the game. Absolute bare minimum effort from them.

It's just such a scary collection with so many fine print:

- they note that they cannot promise a stable 60fps;
- uses the sigma versions without all the DLC;
- razor's edge doesn't have online, it's key feature;
- sigma 2 has some of the sigma 2+ modes, but no online;
- no physical release
-the absolute gall to ask extra for a collections edition

If they'll use this game to gauge interest in the series, they'll find little interest I fear.

Can't promise a stable 60fps? I hope that's specifically for the Switch version (and even then that would be disappointing)...

If new-Sigma 2 has the old Sigma 2+ modes then there's absolutely no excuse for not combining them in to a definitive version. No online is a joke - the fact they aren't prepared to invest in an online infrastructure for the game they expect you to buy is pretty telling. I'm not even an NG fan and it's made me angry! Can't imagine how disappointed long time fans must be.

Agreed, sales are going to be poor for this, by whatever standard KT are expecting. They'll see this flop, say "OK no more NG then" and not have the self-awareness to realise that they've shot themselves in the foot by choosing to give the fans a product that they didn't want.