Ninja gaiden 2 general discussion.

Can I get help from this forum? I`m challanging on 7th Test of Valor(ch8) on master ninja.
I use eclipse Scythe for dealing with purple demons, usually with [jump, xxyy, 360y, ↑xxxx] so I can easily delimb them or comboing with out interruption. I do use tonfa for dealing with dragons. I tried this part almost a week(like 8 days?) but I can`t beat it.

Can you tell me what is my problem and how to improve? Or is there any tatics better than this one?

(Two vidoes below here are same one with 4mins)

https://www.xbox.com/play/media/NK6UGZMTWQ

This challenge (and the one in chapter-11) is the bane of everyone's sanity, so don't feel bad. Few tips:

- don't stay in the middle, Van Gelfs are pretty agressive but the dinos tend to just derp around, so kite them around a bit so you can fight Van Gelfs at an easy pace.
- IIRC Van Gelfs also lose some agression if you delimb them, so might be worth delimbing one and focus on killing the other constantly to be less overwhelmed.
- I'd recommend using either >Y with the Talons or the Flails to get consistent delimbs. Don't be afraid to spam Void or Inferno here either, as you get a full recharge when you win.
- for the dragons, the aerial scythe combo is the best yeah.

>so might be worth delimbing one and focus on killing the other

Oh, Yes. I didn`t do that much. This was the lesson of which I learned from the first TOV, but I frequently forget about it(because OT is so cool, lol)

I am still trying on 7th TOV, and it is fun but it`s too long. I usually play TOVs in NG2 almost 45mins(play 30mins, take a break, and play more 15mins and end the session of that day). But 7th TOV takes mostly 5mins even if I failed, and If I do good fights then it takes almost 10mins. and I can`t go more than straight 15mins because I`m exahausted. I feel too old for this hahaha

like I said, I`m having fun and I played 3weeks and one day for 1st TOV so I would not give up quickly, but I do not know I can take it more right now

https://www.xbox.com/play/media/FLDFYEKU9T

Has anyone here ever considered doing a NUR of Ninja Gaiden 2 on Master Ninja? I'm thinking of doing it at some point in the future. I know, I'm crazy, ahahah.

Btw, I still remember the hundreds of death I suffered to complete ToV 1 in Chaper 3. That was insanely hard, but I'll share my own strategy for it nonetheless:

1. Start the TOV with the Lunar equipped, draw melee ninja enemies to you, then use 360+Y on landing (without charging it of course) until they're all mutilated. If you can, kill some mages to use level 1 360 UT, which mutilates but doesn't kill ninjas;
2. Switch to the Falcon's Talons and take care of the mages by spamming the Flying Swallow + Izuna Drop combo. Repeat until you kill them all;
3. Kill all zombie ninjas one at a time by using the Obliteration technique on one of the mutilated ones (pick the white ones, because they're easier to beat) until the end of the trial with the same method as step 2.

I did a NUR a few years ago on a Fresh Master Ninja file, as well as a fresh OLB+NN run later-on (Original Lifebar/No Ninpo). The NUR was pretty easy as you still have access to most of your tools regardless of upgrades and most of the strong stuff still works. You can skip most fights, Essence isn't a big necessity and you have Ninpo to help circumvent some of the more annoying encounters. But you still have >Y with the Talons for example. And once you get the Tonfa's most encounters can be cheesed hard with OLUTs. Scythe makes a lot of bosses easier too. Your main issue is damage values, some bosses will take pretty long and Dagra Dai was a fucking nightmare as a result.

OLB+NN was a legit nightmare. The Chapter 11 Rasetsu fight broke my soul. As did some of the other encounters. You might have more combat options and your damage values are higher, but the lack of Ninpo really makes some encounters a straight up nightmare or way harder to skip.

Who is worse,gigadeath or skorpius(gow 3)?

Gigadeath imo. Scrop from GoW3 is at least a fight. Gigadeath is just "let's fucking get this over with".

Omar73874928271728 wrote:Who is worse,gigadeath or skorpius(gow 3)?

In terms of difficulty, I don't know.

In terms of quality, Gigadeath by far.

Skorp is not a great boss due to its grab having ridiculous range and turning into an attack taking away over half of your health if you're in a bad spot, but at least it's clear what you must do and its other attacks can be predicted or prevented. So, all in all, it's an okay battle.

 But Gigadeath is a horrible boss (I'd argue throwing his minions at you is his most annoying attack, unless you abuse Ninpo), and the same goes for a fair number bosses in NG2.

I think scorpions is worse due to being a sponge lord compared to gigadeath. That and gigadeath does look pretty badass imo unlike scorpussy who looks like a cartoon character. Both suck but skorpius is worse but then again I just started playing NG 2 on the xbox a month ago but dropped for a bit due to god of war and zone of the Enders but I really want to continue my playthrough and get to master ninja. I will say and I think I said this in twitter to you raeng,that I think the lunar staff is not as good as it was in NGB imo. I think it may due to the inputs making way more sense like seriously,why is the heavy combo in ng2 for LS literally just a light string from black?

I haven't played GoWIII yet but I doubt Skorpius can be worse than Gigadeath. Spammy attacks, moves around a lot, dealing damage to it is boring (either Lunar UT while it passes or Bow UT from afar), does a shitton of damage and has non existent hit reactions. Few bosses are worse than it.

>the lunar staff is not as good as it was in NGB imo
Lunar in NGB was super good, in 2 it gets outclassed pretty fast imo. Delimbing is eh, damage is good but Scythe does it better, doesn't have a non wall FS, the ID is good but finnicky. The UT is great and that's pretty much it. It's still a good weapon but it's on the bottom of the list for me (which shows how good the weapon balancing is in NG2).

Honestly,the boss at the end of chapter 2 is pretty good. Like,seriously. He has a lot of chemistry with the enemy’s and you can even use him against him which is neat,as well as being able to heal while you have enemy’s up your ass but in a good way and you can use them to your advantage mainly using essence to charge up LS UT. Great boss. Cvit is a dumbass giving it more thought after playing this boss.

Oh wait, I meant the first boss in chapter 2 I think. The spider guy basically.

Will say while I am having fun playing the game for the first time fully(not watching some cousin play it like 8 years ago), I am kind of just spamming UT a lot of the times. It’s fun and requires skill but at the same time a lot of times I just go to some corner and spam it against enemy’s. I know this is gonna change though, but I want to know by how much.

Ah you mean Rasetsu? Yeah he's a fantastic mini-boss. Way more fun to fight than Scorpius but honestly also those are different scales. Scorpius is a big main boss fight. Rasetsu is a miniboss that eventually becomes a more common enemy, the point of you fighting three at once with ninja support even.

> lunar
It has arguably the best early-game UT, making it a household weapon by that argument alone. It isn't until you get the Tonfa in Chapter 7 that its 360UT is outshined. If you take out the UTs it is still solid, but has the distinct problem of having level-3 be where it shines, meaning you need to dump quite a bit of resources. It also has some issues with application, as most weapons have moves that are easily accesible, it needs specific situations to get them. I.e. with the dragon sword you can just flying-swallow, but with the lunar you need a wall. With every weapon you can basically XYXXXY for a izuna, with the lunar you need to jump first etc. I'd put it at mid-top tier, if you allow UTs.

> gigadeath
To note, Gigadeath is the boss of chapter 3, that giant silver worm. Itagaki even got interviewed about him and he noted he was unfinished and "a shame". He has so many insanely hard to avoid setups without Ninpo, it's a mess honestly. Even if you're good at the fight it's still a cointoss at times.

Omar73874928271728 wrote:Will say while I am having fun playing the game for the first time fully(not watching some cousin play it like 8 years ago), I am kind of just spamming UT a lot of the times. It’s fun and requires skill but at the same time a lot of times I just go to some corner and spam it against enemy’s. I know this is gonna change though, but I want to know by how much.

If you're playing on Warrior or Mentor, this is exactly when you should be free to experiment more. You won't have that luxury on MN mode in a fair majority of cases, at least not until you unlock NG+, which is FAR more enjoyable than a fresh run while still being very hard.

Anyway, I have been doing a NUR on MN, and guess what boss did I just beat yesterday? Gigadeath. 

And I wasn't misremembering anything: this boss is horrible and insanely frustrating, with the worst attack being him sending his minions at you, which is annoying af, especially when you're trying to aim with the bow, and you are basically forced to use Ninpo to protect yourself from them.

Were it not for those flying ****ers the fight would be far more manageable as you can avoid his other attacks far more easily.

Hope the game gets easier from now on, but I especially dread Chapter 8 personally due to those Mech bastards and their stomp attack. But considering how frustrating it was so far, maybe I should just stop the run here.

> NUR
If you're allowing Ninpo, you won't have too much issues outside of the typical issues. Zedonius is going to be annoying for example but still managable since you have the scythe option-select. The mechs are wasted by the Tonfa which you already have by that time. You can also just spam >Y with the talons/flails if you wish. They can't really damage you if you guard-reset in close combat.

It's basically just a slightly lower damage run as you still have the most busted tools at your disposal and don't need to regard essence as highly, so you can skip a lot of fights. Dragons might be annoying in Chapter 9 since you don't have level-3 Void but I did those with just the bow and it's still pretty doable.

Water Dragon you just bow. Skeleton dragon might be an issue since you lack 360Y with the Kusa iirc. Still you can just spam UTs and use the inferno-exploit if needed. Volf you can loop with dualkats. Armadillo you'll mostly use IS with a few ninpos. Rasetsu's you walk past. Staircase you'll probably have to UT-cheese. Eli is whatever.

Chapter 11 is going to be a nightmare as always. You'll probably be walled a bit by the Rasetsu gauntlet there, but you can use the tree-glitch with Ninpo maybe, but you'll probably lack the damage values to make good use of it. You can just go out of bounds and use scythe UTs though. You at least have wind-blades, makes it a bit more doable. Then do tonfa UTs which have godly range.

Dual armadillo is going to be hell of resets.

Dagra Dai is going to be Dagra Dai (hell).

Raeng

If you're allowing Ninpo, you won't have too much issues outside of the typical issues. Zedonius is going to be annoying for example but still managable since you have the scythe option-select. The mechs are wasted by the Tonfa which you already have by that time. You can also just spam >Y with the talons/flails if you wish. They can't really damage you if you guard-reset in close combat.


Of course I am. Indeed, Zedonius is annoying due to his stomp attack being almost unavoidable without Ninpo. What is option select for the Scythe? And what could I use with Tonfa?

Guard-reset is a tech I know, but I find it impractical against normal enemies, due to the game being so fast paced and you always having to be on the move. But I'll try it.

Water Dragon you just bow. Skeleton dragon might be an issue since you lack 360Y with the Kusa iirc. Still you can just spam UTs and use the inferno-exploit if needed. Volf you can loop with dualkats. Armadillo you'll mostly use IS with a few ninpos. Rasetsu's you walk past. Staircase you'll probably have to UT-cheese. Eli is whatever.


Water Dragon is so annoying, you basically have to use Ninpo if you remain on the platform (assuming he doesn't make you fall into water). Skeleton I already know what to use, and it's aerial Y,Y with the Kusa. 1 Armadillo should be easy. Eli you can use a specific combo with the Scythe, but I don't remember if it's available without upgrades.

You'll probably be walled a bit by the Rasetsu gauntlet there, but you can use the tree-glitch with Ninpo maybe, but you'll probably lack the damage values to make good use of it. You can just go out of bounds and use scythe UTs though.


What is that?

Dual armadillo is going to be hell of resets.

Dagra Dai is going to be Dagra Dai (hell).


Dual armadillo is one of those bosses that are both bad and good, the former especially due to camera issues.

Dagra Dai should be doable with aerial Scythe+shurikens when he uses his lightning attack.

Speaking of which, I was watching some NG2 videos of Miduki. Do you know him?

> Option select
You can do a jump-Y towards Zedonoius. It will either give a FS (which he will block or he'll take damage, canceling his flight if he was planning to) or the aerial spin (which nukes his HP).

> mechs
They don't have a grab or any close ranged attack that can hurt you if you guard-reset, so that technique kind of invalidates them. TonfaUT is a guaranteed delimb on them, so if you can snag a charge they're basically dead.

> water dragon
I have a no-damage run on my channel somewhere where I use just the Bow I think. It is doable but really freak'n annoying. I think I use 360Y or something, so in your case you'd have to Ninpo (EDIT: misremembered, it was just a regular bow run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0VQqplEBlU)

> tree glitch
There's supposed to be a tree blocking the path from the Rasetsu arena towards Kurehara's grave. If you're fast it doesn't spawn, allowing you to just walk up there. The IS ninjas tend to not follow you. You can just stand up there and spam Scythe/ Bow UTs. Dangerous though as it's glitchy and sometimes they'll hit you.

For the out-of-bounds, you have to dodge towards a corner of the door to the bridge. There's vids on it online IIRC, I can't find one immediately but you can basically exit the room and go to the bridge, and then just UT from there.

> Miduki
Know of him, don't know him personally or ever spoke to him. Guy's a great player! Good editing in his videos too and he seems humble.

Got the staff to level 3, wonder if it has hold attacks similar to gow 3 nemesis whip. Also at the final boss for chapter 2 and he is destroying me,I think I need to play more aggressively which I am not for some reason.

>zedonius
wind run has enough i-frames to go through his stomp consistently with a bit of practice.
when zed blocks a flying swallow you can cancel the recovery animation into shurikens which can then be cancelled into in air y with the scythe (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ1ituzQ_CA please forgive my mediocre gameplay)
also worth noting I found out while testing earlier that zed's grab can be countered if you're facing away from him, I imagine this is already known but I thought it was cool.

Goddamn,turns out I was playing in easy the entire time and now I switched to normal and am at the dogs…… my god they suck complete ass. Honestly ninja gaiden 2 feels like a drug if that makes sense.

> zedonius grab counter
Honestly first time I've heard this.

> zed loop video
Good showcase of what I meant yeah, cheers! Should note for clarity that this setup stops him from flying as he'll prioritize blocking over getting hit while flying up. He'll also cancel his summons.

> was playing on Easy
Acolyte is easy yeah. And the game is often named "cocaine as videogames" so that's very apt haha

>Acolyte easy
Pretty damn easy. Although harder than most easy modes. Hero is pretty fun but still pretty easy. Btw, something I want to hear your take on is your take on the criticism ninja gaiden 2 gets with weapons being so called too “samey”. Mainly asking since you tend to destroy people like cvit and tgbs but never heard your take on that. Me personally I disagree,I think they feel unique enough and I also am used to this criticism with raggy when people say the weapons are too similar but if you deep dive into them you realize how unique and well crafted they are. The same is with ninja gaiden 2 for sure. If anything more. I really am growing with the LS,one encounter that comes to mind where I had a lot of fun is the one near the end of chapter 1 in the building where the girl was kidnapped and there was a stair case where I used the environment to my advantage by getting a lot of ninjas in the stair case and then using the spear X, forwardXXXX combo to DESTROY them. Really hope the game has more moments like this since it’s really cool.

> Hero
Wait so you're playing the Sigma version?

> weapons
My argument tends to be that in a game like DMC5 you have one weapon: Dante. In NGII you have 7 weapons. It's why in NGII you need to do a slow swap between them instead of on-the-fly, leading to each weapon having its distinct strengths and weaknesses.

When players say they aren't unique and samey, it tends to be a user problem. They'll just spam the same XXY and XYXXXY combo over and over again, or find a singular quick-delimb move and call it a day - leading to a very dull and boring game. This mostly happens at the start until you get somewhat comfortable.

There is some overlap, and some weapons are way better than others, but they are all pretty unique in their niche. Dragon Sword is obviously all round. Flails have a really cool flying swallow that can chain into all sorts of setups, from more swallows, to wall attacks, to aerial combos after a shuriken, to OLUTs - insanely flexible. Tonfa has the dash cancel. Claws has a ton of mobility in the weapon and cancels into grabs and wall attacks. Lunar is more AoE. Scythe has the shockwave and is the only weapon with a projectile (throw scythe from wall). Kusarigama needs no introduction in how different it is. Dual kats are more damage based.

They all stand on their own imo.

>hero
Thought that was what it was called, but no I am playing the TRUE ninja gaiden 2, I have proof since the combo hit counter thingy is red instead of blue. That and I think I meant to say warrior. Although I did watch someone play sigma 2 in the past mainly the Statue of Liberty and Buddha stature level.

>all stand in their own
Agreed. I also am at chapter 2 in warrior and I think this is where you get the claws. I am mainly making this run a LS only run since I just love my spears in action games. From what I played the claws tend to put you in the air a lot which is gonna take a while to get used to.

>weapon switching
Don’t really mind how it’s down here tbh. This game doesn’t seem to be one of those”weapon switching combos” game.

Ok,X,X,Y for LS is so good. It’s a guaranteed decapitation which is so cool. Helps me deal with those annoying teleporting dudes.

Damn,got a master ninja score! On mission 2 that is. On mission 3 now and it is decent so far.

Omar73874928271728 wrote:Ok,X,X,Y for LS is so good. It’s a guaranteed decapitation which is so cool. Helps me deal with those annoying teleporting dudes.

Try X,X,Y with the Dragon Sword, then cancel with a Shuriken. It easily delimbs, leaving enemies open for an Obliteration finisher. It is especially useful on Master Ninja.

>DS X,X,Y
I am mainly doing a lunar staff only run,also what do the different executions mainly the ones like decapitation and executing an enemy with a lost arm do? Also mission 3 is pretty mediocre overall as a mission. I like the verticality and some encounters are cool but it has some pretty annoying sections(water) and gigadeath is fucking garbage.

Omar73874928271728 wrote:>DS X,X,Y
I am mainly doing a lunar staff only run,also what do the different executions mainly the ones like decapitation and executing an enemy with a lost arm do? Also mission 3 is pretty mediocre overall as a mission. I like the verticality and some encounters are cool but it has some pretty annoying sections(water) and gigadeath is fucking garbage.

Well, with decapitation you don't need to execute a finisher (though you can), whereas delimbed enemies can go kamikaze on you (mainly ninjas, with the mages being especially dangerous, so I suggest dealing with them first), so it's better to finish them off. 

You also get invulnerability frames during the executution, which is crucial on Mentor and Master Ninja given all the explosions.

Gigadeath is garbage, yes, but I liked mission 3 overall. The next levels are much better, though.

Lunar spear is really growing on me. One of my favorite starts is to get fiends in a stairway and then use forward X,X,X combo or UT to destroy them. Really fun and cool use of the environment.

Sad news,accidentally pressed no to the game menu(still stuck in gigaCUCK) and don’t know why but the encounter before gigaCUCK gets a bit fuck with the camera. Pretty sure the flying dudes attack off screen. Could be a skill issue since I didn’t struggle much with it yesterday or it’s probably the fact I’m saving items for gigaCUCK.

Defeated him finally. Was thinking of doing a lunar staff only pain plus run in the game but after that….. yeah I can’t. Most of the regular enemy encounters are really fun but my god gigCUCK ruined everything.

Chapter 4 is a lot of fun. Love the Delimb system ngl. Just learned that if you get a big raptor dude with one arm he has the ability to grab you and the teleporting dudes can do a grab when they lose an arm. Really hope master ninja makes this system shine even more. Also the spear X,X,X,Y combo is also very good for delinking arms for a huge crowds so that you can get executions. Whereas X,X,Y is great for getting rid of single enemy’s right away. I am just having so much damn fun with this game! Can’t wait for it to go downhill again then up to continue the loop.

At chapter 5 and it’s pretty well,underwhelming. Will say I do wish there was a bit more creative combinations with the fiends.

I'd recommend learning to walk before you run if you catch my drift. This is legit one of the hardest games in the genre without challenge modifiers. Don't ruin it off the bat by doing single weapon runs with limitations. You don't have to prove anything.

> lunar
Jump XXY is an insant izuna which is great too. Once at level-3 you can do XYYYYY for screenclearing fun.

> enemy delimbs
Enemy management is a must later-on. If you immediately kill delimbed enemies you'll have a bad time, since they'll respawn. For example in Chapter 2 you make a hard fight a lot easier if you delimb the archers, and then let them live, so you can deal with the IS ninjas in peace.

> enemy combinations
The main weakness of the game, it tends to play it a bit safe i.e. "werewolf chapter" and " ninja chapter" etc. Mission mode does little to change this. Chapter 6 is a bit better, Chapter 7 is my personal favourite paired with 11.

Omar

I personally suggest practicing Guillotine Throw until it becomes second nature, especially if you wish to try the higher difficulties. This is what often gets me killed, as I execute a light aerial attack instead, particularly in open areas.

Omar73874928271728 wrote:At chapter 5 and it’s pretty well,underwhelming. Will say I do wish there was a bit more creative combinations with the fiends.

Are you the same person who wrote this? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/943273-ninja-gaiden-ii/80442654

>person who wrote that
No. I really hate cvit in general haha.

RedShot wrote:

Omar73874928271728 wrote:At chapter 5 and it’s pretty well,underwhelming. Will say I do wish there was a bit more creative combinations with the fiends.

Are you the same person who wrote this? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/943273-ninja-gaiden-ii/80442654

I mean, criticizing Ninja Gaiden 2 for its enemies compared to DMC? Wut? That's the one area where Ninja Gaiden stomps DMC in terms of enemy aggression and general competence. In fact, I'd say even GoW is better in that respect. Granted, NG2 has some infuriating enemies like those damn archers, and the giant bats as well (though they are fortunately relatively rare).

Any tips for the water sections with the bugs in chapter 5?

Omar73874928271728 wrote:Any tips for the water sections with the bugs in chapter 5?

You mean Gajas?

Try using the Kusari Gama. It has good range.

Will take that into account, thanks. I’m also going to Jordan to visit family there(mom and dad) and I may start recording certain videos there, is there a tab where I can share them just to see people’s opinion on it?

Also btw, I want to play black again but am afraid after playing 2 it will be a huge downgrade. Would you guys say it holds up well still?

Omar73874928271728 wrote:Also btw, I want to play black again but am afraid after playing 2 it will be a huge downgrade. Would you guys say it holds up well still?

Black is still a masterpiece and it has one of the best combat systems ever made. NG2 is a different beast, a sort of evolution, but they coexist.

> water sections
You can just skip them all, do a wind-ninpo and walk past them.

> gamefaqs topic
Guy sounds a salty alt that got destroyed by SBK one too many times.

> NGB
Both are amazing, I feel playing NGII makes you better at NGB's offensive style, while NG:B teaches you more patience for NGII. A lot of skills carry over. Definitely play them both. NG:B is imo the best game in the genre, but I like NGII more.

>Don’t limit myself to single weapon
Dunno, I just love the lunar spear a lot that and the claws feel weird for me. I may give dragon sword a shot.

>Both coexist
Interesting. Tbh I never understood why ninja gaiden black was a defensive game me personally.

At the water dragon and what the fuck?

Well that boss is ass, why does ninja gaiden 2 have so many NES bosses?