Ninja gaiden 2 general discussion.

The flails are probably my favourite weapon as well, considering how easily they flow together. That and they are part of probably my 'proudest' moment I caught on film haha: https://youtu.be/RjE5CEC35sQ?t=302

I just. How that weapon flows together, it's fantastic.

I do recommend eventually doing a NG+ run where you have all weapons maxed and just toying around with them. Having the maximum Ninpo slots is cool and having all weapons to toy with, thanks to max health allowing some tanking, is great to see just what is possible.


> just the DS
The dragon sword is fantastic, but it does gain its best moves at Level 4 so you're never 'really' using it until then. I would recommend just some toying around with others, if only to spend your Essence on something.

> my best time
I believe something like 9 hours being an extreme casual resetting fights constantly because I didn't want to heal or were just straight up experimenting. It might be a tad arrogance, but I feel I can literally beat the 6 hour record by 2 hours at the very least if I put my mind to it. I'd need to swallow my pride though and go for maximum abuse.

>flails
Great stuff, I still can’t keep up with goes on in this game sometimes haha.

>toying with weapons
Do you have a recommendation for an order to try them out? Or ones that are easier to use than others? From the little I’ve used the katanas they seem hard to get used to.

>beat the best time
Most fight are mandatory right? I feel like most speed runs of action games I’ve seen are either running past enemies or spamming something braindead.

In NGII you can skip nearly all the fights, only a very select few are actually mandatory and you can use a lot of despawning tricks. It is mostly a game of using the correct Ninpo and getting the >Y of the Claws asap as well as the 360OLUT for the Lunar.

> weapons
In terms of learning curve I'd say:
Scythe (really easy to learn)
Lunar (gets best toys at level3)
Claws (mostly around grabs)
Dragon Sword
Flails (requires knowing what leads into what)
Tonfa (canceling takes some practice)
Dual Katanas
Kusarigama

The dual katanas are just really hard to master since they have such specific moves, and the best of its moves are gained at level 4 in the final chapter. Really worth investing into for a rerun of the game though, great weapon. The kusari is a great weapon, but very slow and you really need some more game knowledge to be able to use them outside of spamming aerial XXY (or was it YYX).

Cool, thanks for the info. Are some weapons better for boss fights than others? And are some weapons worth changing to for specific mobs or is every weapon capable of handling all situations on their own?

Generally every weapon can do everything, but some weapons definetely have pros and cons against some enemies. The Claws lack multi-target usage for instance, and thus are best used against big mobs like Gelfs where its high delimb shines. Meanwhile the flails and tonfa really shine against groups of foes. The flails is good against those pink spider droids, while the tonfa is great against those giant mechas.

Regarding bosses, really depends. The scythe is generally a good boss slayer thanks to certain semi-infinites. Claw can absolutely nuke Alexei, while the dual katanas maul Zedonius etc.

If you're going to go for an optimal playstyle, you'll probably switch weapons a lot. Claw has a shitty UT for instance, so best to use it for getting essence, and spending it on something else i.e. tonfa's UT.

>claw has a shitty UT
Why’s that? What differentiates the UTs?(sorry for 20 questions haha)

>What differentiates the UTs?
IIRC claws are just single target with a low delimb, low damage.
Claws are good for a few key moves.

The Staff however has arguably one of the strongest UTs
If you spin the stick 360 in the air and land, you do a spin attack that is fully invincible, high delimb/high damage. It also propels you forward with great crowd reach.

I do think the claws should have had a better UT, they must have toned it down because they are already pretty strong.

As noted, Claw's UT is low delimb and tends to only hit one target. Also does quite low damage and has short range. Upside is that once it starts it does not stop until the animation is finished, even if there's nothing to hit (unlike the Dragon Sword's UT). Good damage against bosses though.

In terms of UTs, each weapon has one or two and some are better than others. The easiest to master is the 360UT of the Lunar (Level2) and Tonfa, since they are just so good with high delimb (nearly 100%) and also high as fuck damage.

Claw UT is mostly good if you JUST want to kill one foe with an UT for Karma-scores and don't want to bother with Kusarigama UT chipping (don't ask).

Beaten POTA last night and now focusing on the DLC Missions. Now I am having with Mission 09 and I wish that there is a regular survival mission.

What do you mean regular survival mission? The DLC includes survival challenges that stop when you die for each weapon.

When I mean by regular survival mission, I mean an extra challenge with all of them. Don't get me wrong though, I like the survival missions. I have that tendency to wanting to switch to each weapon just like story mode. Say, have you ever done the missions on the Xbox One? I'm only asking because the loading times are a bit too long.

I’m nearing the end of the game on Normal. I’m kind of scared of the thought of trying the next difficulties.

There's a weird bug with the Xbox One X's load times, I'm not sure what causes it but it can get really, really long. Also happens with a regular load at times.

And yeah the game is really, really brutal on the higher settings, but oh so rewarding. I did a speedrun of the first chapter on Master Ninja yesterday, total time 16 minutes which wasn't too bad. Single save, no deaths, but I skipped a few fights. Very happy with the result.

> survival mode
Ah like so, I can understand that! I wish more games had challenge-map makers..

Not sure what to think of this. NGII's No Damage Run is getting pushed by Seraphim more and more, with both constantly shitting on the title when they can. Going as far as putting "World First" behind the title. I'm really glad to see people opening up on NGII because of the run (despite the hateful commentary). But that "World First" really sits badly with me. There have been No Damage runs of NGII in the past. But for some reason they don't 'count' in their eyes, maybe because they used a glitch to skip one fight?

Hard to say for me. There is no pleasing me I think hahahahaha! Don't know, just wish they weren't spiting the game's legacy or previous runner's achievements. I feel conflicted haha!

I just found out about TGD's no damage run of this game. I actually didn't think it was possible, kind of crazy to see.

Edit: Roy got a shout out on the chapter 4 video, 19:00 ha

Ha! I liked the follow-up haha, "balanced in favour of the enemy"!

I got to ask this because it's driving me nuts. Sometimes when I'm blocking seems like Ryu can't move. Especially after a kill when trying not to absorb the essence. Is this a feature, am I hallucinating or is my controller broken?

The Xbox One X version has a little issue with input lag for some users, especially when using the Elite Controller from what I've heard. I personally never experienced this. Note that if you hold block and tap the direction too lightly, Ryu will 'turn' in his block (pointless), so need to ram the stick hard haha.

All right thanks. Maybe I am just too careful with my inputs in the battle. I have never experienced inputs dropping outside of the fights. I'll try to ram my stick next time.

I am currently in chapter 3. Just jumped down to the sewers of Manhattan. Upgraded the DS, Lunar and talons to level 2. My main weapon is Lunar, but I am having trouble to delimbing Van Gelfs. So usually I am switching to the sword when fighting against them. I noticed some nice combos for the talons in earlier pages. What are the bnb combos for Lunar and DS?

The Lunar is pretty good, but not the best at delimbing. Its XYYY is a good multi-hit area of effect delimb move, but you don't get that until it is at Level 3. XXY is its bread and butter, good damage, mediocre delimb. Ironically your charged Y (not UT) is your best regular delimb move. High damage, high delimb, also has a chance to decapitate. Easiest to do it is after landing from a jump.

Against Van Gelfs your best attack is honestly jumping off their heads and immediately doing XXY in the air. Has decent chance of removing their heads. Otherwise the 360 UT (Lunar needs to be Level 2 or higher) is monsterously good.

If you have the Talons, at level 2 they get the >Y, which is a near instant delimb on the entire game haha.

For the Dragon Sword:
- Flying Swallow into OLUT (can only be done if weapon is lvl2 or higher)
- XXY
- XXY>Y (high delimb and knocks down)
- >XXXX (high damage, high delimb)
- >X into shuriken, pretty safe, high delimb. Be sure to send the shuriken to another target.
- >XXY (high damage, delimbs and auto corrects into OT)
- XYXXXshurikenXXY (on the ground). The on-landing-X is a spin with huge delimb
- off the wall X
- YYY, its last hit is aerial and thus avoids some attacks and has i.frames near the middle.
- >Y(hold) has some loops on certain enemies.

Hope this helps :) If you have more questions just hit me up.

Thanks for the help! I am gonna try those out. Just in time for the first test of Valor.

Decided to start my attempts at single-segment chapters on a New Game. I'm currently doing my Dragon Sword Only on Master Ninja which is pretty easy since it's my favourite weapon or at least one of them. So I decided to at least give this run a few attempts per session. It's scary just how brutal things get. Furthest I managed to get was until the fight in the giant building, got nailed for greedy behavior.

Really don't want to go for a level 2 Lunar, afraid it will devolve too much into 360OLUT spam.

Got too greedy again on my no-save run. Managed to get to the fight just before Rasetsu, panicked, got surrounded. Really should have just calmed down, that fight is very doable once you relocate and don't act like a fool, but I did. Think that's what makes this game so tense for me still, no matter how good you get, you slip up or get complacent, you die.

Honestly surprised though how hard it is to do a chapter without saving. So many little things that can go wrong, it's honestly surprising (and refreshing).

I wish that the game wouldn't force you to save with the first statue. I understand the purpose but I just want to move on.

Note that you don't have to save, if you put the game to manual-save mode. But you do have to use its heal sadly.

Never knew, but found a true 'OHKO' combo in NGII. Probably old news but doing XY(hold) into shurikens puts enemies in the air long enough to Flying Swallow them. Always thought this was just coincidence, but seems to consistently either decap or kill them outright. Fun stuff!

You recording this? Would be curious to watch.

Started streaming it yesterday for fun, got some decent attempts in but every time I died it was just arrogance haha. Thought I could style around a bit in a large area only to lose battlefield control and die. You can watch the Vod here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/600356524

The fight at 45:35 is a great example of how using delimbs smartly can save a fight. I delimb a single IS ninja at the other side of the map, that fight only allows 2 IS ninjas at the same time. I then take the fight to the other side of the map, so I only need to deal with 1 at a time. Ironically my 'best' run is the one where I had the most bad luck of all.

https://youtu.be/LwbXF2RykG4

Completed the first chapter without saving. Had a really good run until I jumped down the well, after which the run devolved into a panic. Screwed up the first fight, lost battlefield control and decided to leg it. Had a few good fights afterwards, but really panicked at the Rasetsu boss and ended up facetanking him (badly). Overal good performance though. Really nailed the first few fights (also no damage at times), and didn't devolve the run into OLUT spam. Some genuinly stylish encounters in there with well timed counters, positioning, usage of off-the-wall attacks etc. Happy with it!

Very nice! I glanced through the video but I’m going to watch it here shortly. Maybe this scrub can learn a thing or two.

Don't have the time to watch this just now, but I thought it might interest some of you. His videos are usually very solid.

Skimmed through it, but it's mostly very basic introduction. Doesn't mention the numerous movement abilities that are lesser known which is a shame. Overal fun video though, think it's a great basics introduction!

He is really standing out in the Shmup-scene with his excellent Youtube channel, Electric Underground website, podcast and really great shmup reviews for the Nintendolife. I knew he had some love for RE4, but for Ninja Gaiden too? Certainly a man of culture.

Really lost my cool in Chapter 2, I wanted to test some things but the game just really didn't want to play to my jam. Couldn't OT enemies, instead Ryu would keep doing heavy attacks even while next to them. Tons of bad luck, tons of disregarded logic. Just really lost my cool haha. Great game but wish it was just a tad more dependable.

At one point I had a decent run only to get cocky against a single enemy. Turns out there were two, lost all my health in a second. That's just classic NGII.

Did some digging around the NinjaArchives regarding things I didn't enjoy in NGII and how they could be fixed with smart play/ glitches.

Here's some of them listed:

> archer hitscanners
Apparently putting them off-camera decreases their accuracy and fire-rate by a solid 50%. Makes the archers, especially the ones in Chapter 1, a lot easier to deal with if you're not on New Game Plus.

> Acid pit
You can skip the second pit by backtracking to the skull location:
https://youtu.be/DXmcu6zdShA?t=4358

> Dagra Dai (unconfirmed)
https://youtu.be/Z3yL7C8Rlos?t=442
This is a strat used in NGS2. Not sure yet if it works in NGII though. Dagra Dai's lightning is insanely broken in both games in that it is active very long, making it hard to avoid, let alone keep attacking.

> water combat
Apparently there's something called Calm Water Break, which allows you to dodge with i.frames on water. This is present in NGII and NGS2 and I have never heard of this in my 8+ years of playing this game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT6ZAgq1d4s

> Giant Crystal Skull
It actually increases Karma. There's finally videoproof courtesy of JTB.
twitch.tv/videos/652604761

Oh wow, you can attack through Dagra Dai's Lightning!? That's neat! Unfortunately, I really don't like that fight haha...at least in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 on harder difficulties.

Also, I just set up my XBOX 360 last night in the bedroom! Might get some regular Ninja Gaiden II going soon for some comparison :)

Yeah you can also do an aerial Scythe combo if you wish. If you jump and do bow > scythe attack (the spin) and an Inferno Ninpo on landing you can just keep on going until you run out of Ninpo (or he dies). Nobody likes that fight on any setting. Absolutely the worst engagement in the series. My least favourite boss ever made.

> NGII coming up
Hell yeah!

I didn't know about CWB Iframes, but it is on the moveslist, I saw it on my first play and was thinking wtf is the point.

Yeah I probably saw CWB 10 years ago and thought "lol so it's a turn, okay lame" and never looked deeper. Stuff is seriously good though.

Silly story about Dagra Dai for me. On my first Master Ninja run, I died many, many times to him. So frustrating. Finally defeated him...what a glorious moment! Ryu proceeded to start falling into the water...but instead of landing, he fell through the water into nothing! I had to restart...and fight Dagra Dai all over again >.> Thought I'd never complete the game lol.

Decided to pick up my No-Save run again, but restart and play less fancy. I.e. make sure I have the Lunar at level 2 when entering Chapter 2 haha.

Scratch that! Been watching Fahram's No Save run and it really is just UT after UT after UT. No disrespect to the man, it's a fantastic run, but that just isn't my fancy currently. I'll stick to single weapon runs I think.

I could see that. There was a point where I used UTs all the time as that was how I upped my game from where I was at the time...but, for me anyway, that got boring pretty quick.

I've considered playthroughs with a single weapon as well to get more used to the other weapons that I haven't played with as much...against different types of enemies. Gives a nice fresh feel to the game against some enemies as well. Hope you have fun!

Yeah UT abuse and abusing other techniques is a good way to build confidence, and then working to rely on it less and less is a good next step I feel. Can really recommend single-weapon runs. Already did it in Sigma 2 and it was a ton of fun, especially since you can use more of the movesets there thanks to lower enemy count.

Have fun man :)

Found this cheap NG2 wall print on amazon and decided to see how it looked, it is pretty cool. The print quality is way better than expected. It is a little janky that it is just cut out of a full size promo pic, so there are slash lines on his leg but the rest of the lines were cut out. For 10 bucks though, pretty cool. Sadly the scythe one I also ordered was just a duplicate of the claw one so gotta return that.

That's actually not bad at all lol damn. I found myself immediately scanning my studio with the idea "where could I put this...." haha!

Finally started playing NG2 this morning. Only played the first two chapters on Warrior, but will continue. I love it so far! After playing NGS2 so much, this is a refreshing take on the same game for me.

Early takes:

• More enemies, less damage taken
  
  
  
  • Looking forward to Master Ninja to see how this works.
    
  
  
  
• More enemy encounter locations
  
• More gore
  
• Faster scrolls and treasure chests opening!
  
• Less cutscenes, also more cutscenes (Dog with a hand in his mouth!)
  
• Upgrade weapons at any time rather than 1 per level at specific Murumasa shops
  
• Camera is worse sometimes
  
• Input feels slightly crisper than NGS2 at times, less so in others...will have to play more.
  
• Game gets laggy sometimes (I'm on XBOX 360 final version)
  
  
  
  • Bow and Arrow
    
  • Can't move while using it...or at least, I didn't press the right buttons if you can
    
  • It has an Ultimate Technique o.o
    
  • It takes the place of Shuriken :\
    
  
  
  
• Going to the leaderboard when not connected to XBOX live...almost froze the game it seemed
  
• There are some extra steps (get a keycard, shoot a circle, collect talisman)
  
• I got a Rod of Trials. Not sure what that is yet!
  
• Have to 'use' the Lives of the Thousand Gods
  

Looking forward to more of this :)

Really cool to hear Hebass! I'm going to take this oppertunity to gush about the game haha!

> more enemies, less damage
What's especially neat is that under the hood, most attacks deal very little base damage, most of it is %-based. This means that on a no-healthupgrade run, you take significantly less damage visually, really helps balance it all out. This also plays into what you note about the "lives of the gods", as using those also heals your healthbar. So they are more super-healing items than that they really make you live longer. Some attacks still have a massive, massive base damage (boss grabs for exampe).

> dog with hand
It's been a decade probably since I watched them haha, where was this one?

> upgrades
This is the big one imo. If you play your cards right, use UTs smartly etc, you can have the Dragon Sword maxed out before your get the Claws in Chapter 2. And that's without farming. It's nuts and allows for a lot of resourcemanagement again which I think is really cool.

> xbox 360 version
In a sense, it might be worth experimenting with versions. Some players have an almost flawless experience unpatched+uninstalled, others installed+unpatched, others uninstalled+patched - it's super random. I had one chest I could never open, others had other chests or rooms, game's a mess on the system sadly haha. There's a reason I bought the Xbox One X the second it went backwards compatible.

> move while shoot
Nope, doesn't exist.

> ranged UTs
Every weapon haha outside of Shurikens and the underwater gun (yes). Even Incendiary Shurikens and the Windmill have it and they're all really solid. The Arrow UT is especially cool since it has a huge delay on its absorb, so you can do an OLUT with it and immediately release, to pull essence near you but not absorb it. Fun stuff!

> extra steps
Yeah, like Sigma, Sigma 2 removed nearly all of the puzzles, backtracking etc. There's not a lot in it here for sure, but still more. What's fun is if you play NGS2 afterwards, it almost feels like there was a ninja that you're following that solved all the puzzles already, since they are still there but are 'solved' i.e. the rock is in its place or the card key is already inserted haha.

> rod of trials
The game has 'Test of Valor' which are huge ~100 enemy fights (a bit like those in NG:B), you can only access them if you have the rod. Not all chapters have them but most do. Some are worth it, some aren't, some are really fun, some are absolutely terrible.

Glad to hear you're having fun man, it's a fantastic game. Note that the jump to Mentor is absolutely mental and Master Ninja even moreso. Don't give in! And feel free to harass me any time of day to talk about it hahahah!

Thanks for all the insight!

I played chapter 3 this morning, going to pace myself so I don’t burn out too fast. It’s clear, that I still don’t like the ghost train boss, but I got him down. It’s a boss I just never tried to get good at...probably because he wasn’t in any team missions. Worse, the train disappeared and then the screen went black...with nothing happening...but I could shoot arrows! I had to reboot the game. Reminded me of my recent NG3 freezes.

This chapter had small areas that they flat out removed in NGS2, 2 of them. They introduced me to Van Gelfs before the scene where they come out of the ground which was surprising...about 20 of them lol. The enemy groups were remixed...less dogs was nice. There were lots of ranged enemies in this one. I did the trials run, that’s pretty fun. Weird they removed this from NGS2. I remember these in the first NGS as well (not portals).

Couple things I forgot about. No giant boss fights in Chp1, so this is new...guessing there will be no statue fight after Alexei either then. Also, fighting Rasetsu with extra ninjas was kind of hard to get the hand of things haha.

> percentage based
That’s great to know!

> dog with hand
Very early in ch2, first dog encounter.

> Xbox one x
Jeez I should consider upgrading the Xbox line. I mean, I bought an XBOX for NG, why not buy current gen to play them in all their glory :)

> Bow OLUT and delay
I will try this!