Ninja gaiden 2 general discussion.

> essence
Getting a highcombo count, then doing an UT kill, stacks in NGII iirc. So you can get a bulk of essence that way. Never do OLUTs unless you have to (or only when using blue/red as fuel). Fun to toy around with.

Just as I suspected, then.

I take it I should use a lot more shurikens. Problem is, it's hard to farm essence when you have all those explosions jnterrupting your combos. And help against explosion damage is the very reason I'd want to farm essence.

Goddamn! IS ninjas ain’t a fucking joke. Would you guys say kurisgama is useful against them due to iframes? Trying to do that and it’s decently working. But can get me killed due to how long it can be at times.

Any iframe attack is useful against them. I like the Scythe FS since it has a decent chunk of iframes during the grab part of the animation.

>scythe
Started using it a bit more and it’s decent imo. I just don’t think it’s fast enough to be useful for my liking.

Got windmill shiriken, how good is it? Remember loving it in black.

> IS ninjas
Mobility is key. If you're using the kusa, use aerial moves, wall moves, dont expect to be able to stand still and do YYYY strings.

> windmill
Good UT. Great UT against those pink spider droids.

>I just don’t think it’s fast enough
The Scythe is probably the most powerful weapon in relation of how easy it is to use. The ground hits don't come out super fast but you still have your wall attacks, aerial attacks and FS which are pretty fast, plus some tricks to make your moves connect better, like using With Run to stun an enemy before destroying them (and you can also use the grabs this way). The Sctyhe also has the ->Y Hold move which gives a ton of iframes (and can be comboed into an ID like move for even more damage and iframes). I also recommend giving counters and running attacks a shot, since they are pretty important but people (aka me) tend to forget about them. The Kusari in particular has a great heavy running attack with very high decap chance. Note that you can use the running attacks after a Wind Run onto the stunned enemy if you change direction as soon as you land.

>windmill
The UT is ridiculous, it can decap like 5 enemies at once if they are grouped up. It doesn't have iframes though. The normal throw is useless, but Roy can correct me on that if I'm wrong.

> scythe
Yeah it's scary fast honestly, XXY is a great starter that slaughteres enemies. Aerial Y is broken as noted. The jumping walljump scythe-throw is great too.

> windmill
Regular throw is...eh. It staggers some enemies...I guess. I never use the regular throw.

Goddamn, the triple ratesu ain’t a fucking joke.

Omar73874928271728 wrote:Goddamn, the triple ratesu ain’t a fucking joke.

They aren't, but you can skip them, especially if you're fast enough, on all difficulty modes. Which difficulty are you playing on as of now, anyway?

First time I hear about a skip, I know you can use the tree for cheese and also glitch back through the door, but you can skip the fight/ despawn them?

Royta/Raeng wrote:First time I hear about a skip, I know you can use the tree for cheese and also glitch back through the door, but you can skip the fight/ despawn them?

 
IIRC if you get to the next save point they'll despawn. Oh wait, maybe I'm confusing myself with the ones in chapter 10. In that case, my bad.

The ones in Chapter 11 are nasty, though.

Beat that fight, mainly just Ut spammed. Didn’t really like it tbh.

Done with chapter 11s encounters for the most part. They were pretty good mostly, only one I didn’t like was triple rasetsu and the dogs(as usual). Pretty good chapter honestly, only complaint aside from those fights is that genshin feels pretty much the same and that the white ninjas don’t really have much going on I feel? Like they are good enemy’s, like real good but I don’t think they feel all that unique to me. Still fun to fight though. And IS ninjas are pretty good enemy’s, I also love their input read due to how you can use that against them(makes them rush towards you which allows me to bait them more into certain combos for my advantage).

My fucking god the first boss in chapter 12 is literal cocaine on crack

Just started playing NG2 (vanilla) for the first time. Blocking is with LT... for SOME reason. I'm used to blocking with L1, oh well. Adapt.

NGS1 was THE SHIT. I'm already hooked at the start of NG2.

>blocking with LT
That's standard across the franchise. It felt so odd when Σ chnaged it (customizable controls thankfully). Once you get used to it, there is no going back to Σ's control scheme.

>hooked from the start
It wants you dead form the start - hands down best opening in video games lol.

>Get used to it
Got used to it. Didn't take long. Even got used to RT for camera repositioning.

>Best opening
It's up there. It, GoW 2-3, and DMC3 have insanely good openings.

The combat is so great. I absolutely adore Lunar in NG1, but here it just... idk. It feels like it's slow for this world. Still, i'm near the start. Dragon Sword? Killer. The new grab mechanic (Y when enemies are delimbed) is very good. The air fuck you Markiplier stinger (I think it's called Dragon Swallow) is MASSIVE here. Once was OP. Twice? Damn, Ryu. Huge.

What else. Oh, the parry is really good and straightforward.

Great game. Can't wait to get stupid good at it like DMC and GoW.

I also love the environmental story telling and tips. I'm not a huge guy on stories, but if it hooks me in like SOME other games, i'm in.

>environmental story telling
The story is pretty ass ngl. Not that I mind, it’s entertaining and has some good characters(Volf).

>Lunar
You get used to it actually. I was the same, but once I saw the ninjas dog I started using it more. It has a FANTASTIC 360 UT, has a high delimb chance and great for crown control, as well as Iframes which help in a fast pace game like this.

>Delimb
Fantastic mechanic. When I go back to games with similar mechanics, it makes me mad how they didn’t do what this game did with it.
Also what do you guys think of how ninpo works in this game? Imo it is pretty decent. Some decision making with it but not as good as gow proper imo.

Got to fire demon 2 and he got fucking bodies by vermillion bird with claws. Now at the forest and am confused about the enemy’s there ngl.

Not having fun with chapter 3 tbh haha, the enemy’s feel so limiting. Like I feel so limited by the weird robo dolls.

Question, how much harder is mentor gonna be?

>Mentor

It`s almost revolutionary. The first chapter on mentor feels like the next chapter on warrior difficulty, rather than starting again. The most important thing is that enemies` composition is totally different from warrior difficulty.

The mentor difficulty demands how much you know about the game. For example, I used various weapons, of which I didn`t use much on warriror, for survivor.

small note : I am doing the first run of master ninja, and It is sure more difficult than mentor, but that revoltuionary feeling doesn`t come even after ch10. The first test of valor (ch2) was the most impressive one, others are there for ones who want more imo.

... And I`m the one who wants some more so I`m happy with it *shrug*

> lunar
The lunar in NGII is a bit different, when it is at level-3 it gains some unique strings as it now has chains on each end, making it more an AoE weapon. A lot of weapons have a lot of built-in mobility, the lunar really needs walls to do wall-attacks for it's special moves. It has bar none the best UT at the start of the game (360UT) until you get the Tonfa (note, for that UT you need it at level-2).

> flying swallow
Bonus tibbit: if you put an enemy in the air or on the ground, grabs and swallows are OHKO. So you can do XY(Hold) into shuriken, into a quick flying swallow for an OHKO. Gorgeous.

You can also do swallow into shuriken into OLUT once you can do double-swallow. Game is endless.

> grab mechanic
Oblitheration Technique, OT for short. Eventually you'll learn to abuse delimbs for more than just a quick kill, but first focus on killing and getting comfortable with Ryu's mobility and how enemies work.

> parry
Note that a lot of parry animations are i.framed, but also can be cancelled INSANELY fast by just jumping or dodging. Especially the first hit of the dragon sword x-parry, lightning fast.

> omar
Final few chapters are meh, thankfullly short. Just run past most fights. For the robogirls you can spam Windmill UT at a distance. OHKO's them.

> mentor
A huge jump in difficulty, where the big boys are born imo. Master Ninja is as noted more insane, but Mentor is quick a leap.

How would you guys rank the enemy’s from worse to best?

Omar73874928271728 wrote:How would you guys rank the enemy’s from worse to best?

Not sure, but I think archers are the most obnoxious (worse than IS Ninjas), giant bats, and the red dragons are perhaps too spongy, not to mention those armored dogs with their cheap grab. Also Van Gelfs are great (though the golden ones can be nasty) and so are the Wolves and Gajas, to name a few. 

As for the best, hard to say, maybe white melee Ninjas, mages, those Ninjas armed with machine guns (very fun to slice them with the Scythe). Most enemies are great, overall, imo.

The dragon robots are also very good imo. Put a lot of pressure on you with their dashing and just have a lot going on, Jack of trades if you will but in a good way.

Raeng:
>Lunar
I loved it in 1. In here, i'm afraid of using it. This a whole different game. I might experiment with it later on in the game.

>Flying Swallow touch of death
Imma try it on right now. I'm at chapter 3. Chapter 2 was really great. A lot of creative encounters with options and whatnot.

>Get comfortable with Ryu and the movement
I'm adjusted to it.

>chapter 3
Pretty mediocre chapter from what I remember but the bit with the da s was cool. Heard the trial of valor was fun.

Eh, stuff are promising so far. Some good platforming which kinda teaches the unaware player how important a wall is in combat.

That and the game is easing the player in. Hallways clearly for practicing the wind Ninpo.

This chapter is also a fantastic introduction to ninja gaidens 2 boss quality(gigadeath). Gigadeath,the 2 golden dragons, zediounus, the worm, zediounus 2, water dragon, etc are skorpius but 10 times worse. Sorry if I spoiled the game but trust me, you won’t care, you will wish you took my advice if anything(just pretend I did to add to the “cinematic” flair which would make nu-gow blush). You would wish you would be playing iron wolf once you get to gigadeath. Every boss after gigadeath made me question this games praise. Then you have the greatest combat encounter in your life and cum and piss all over the floor.

THAT electrical thing was Gigadeath? If that was Gigadeath, then he didn't really pose a challenge on the normal difficulty that i'm playing. I first tried him.

All i had to do was watch out for electricity, repositioning to the center, charge my bow shot, and carefully aim it to his face for maximum fuckage. Not a road block. Let's see how it's gonna go in my second visit for this game's campaign. Charge bow shots went BRRRR tonight.

Oh boy just you wait. On Normal he's more annoying than hard. On Master he's just infuriating, especially since he can glitch out of the arena at times forcing a restart. Best tactic there is a few charged shots, and then switch to lunar 360UTs when he's close. You use Ninpo to give i.frames when his summons and electric-face overlap (or just when he decides to rapid fire your ass at max range).

> Lunar
If you have the spare change, boost it to level 3, it's where it gets it main attacks like XYYYY. Granted, I didn't really warm up to it as much either in this entry as much as the other tools.

>Ridiculous on MN
The whole time i thought he would be a road block for even Normal. As you can see from Omar's love letter to the boss, i thought Giga would stomp me on normal.

Now that you explained him and how ridiculous he can be in MN, i'm ready to face him.

>Lunar lvl3
I'll get it there. Me love Lunar.

Warrior Mode is hard to gauge. It is known for utterly decimating certain players, while others mash their way through.

Even then though, Gigadeath isn't perse the ultra-difficult boss, he's just fucking annoying since he can no-sell a lot of stuff and can randomly decide "okay, now you die". He's got an OHKO grab for example that can glitch out, making him teleport full-screen, nothing you can do. He's also sometimes immortal (final kill move won't connect), other times not and you'll just regularly kill him. His facemask explosion can have a random ass delay to it. On Warrior you'll sort of tank through, but on Mentor and Master where things are more expensive and damage is upped and you want to save healing, he's infuriating at times.

On my NG+ file I just sweep him with a ton of Ninpo shots and laugh at all the pain he has caused me.

EDIT: hardest boss in the game, and arguably the series, is Dagra Dai from NGII's final chapter. He's a bit more doable now with modern strategies and exploits (such as disabling his ability to spawn helpers), but even then he's a run killer for many. For future reference (in case you want to avoid spoilers): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og4iIxpOM18
He's got a few moves that are impossible to avoid without specific weapon or ninpo setups (and the weapon setup is a 1.frame combo). He's a nightmare beyond recognition in singleweapon runs.

Yikes. Immortal? Teleport? OHKO?
How does a thing like this get greenlit? I know, trouble development, but still.

Not really development troubles, more like the entire team left at the last few months.

Long story short, the team was offered a bonus for DoA4 if they crunched. The game was a hit, but they didn't get the bonus. The team-leader (Itagaki) got publically humiliated in front of his team by his CEO as he had demanded the bonus. Itagaki ended up sueing the company and was promptly fired. Nearly the entire team left the same day. Most went with him to his own studio, some went to other pasture.

This is why a lot of content was left on the cutting room floor, some of which we got through the DLC (like costumes).

The OG release as a result had a lot of issues. Some chests would crash the game when opened. The original Staircase fight had no enemycap and would overheat/crash the system. IIRC one boss didn't even have a texture. Some animations wouldn't play. It is a mess. The game got a decent patch afterwards and the DLC, but it wasn't 'reliably' playable until it went on BC which fixed a lot of the chinks (mostly framerate related).

It really is both the best and the worst action game on the market imo.

EDIT: should note, I (and many) did already go for mastery on the original release, so it was playable. But you really had to sit through a lot of shit.

>Final boss
Damn. So nobody's gonna have a normal Master Ninja run? The entire game feels like a very restricted challenge run based on what i've read here. I'm starting to think the proper way of playing the game is not even on MN. One difficulty (or hell, two) lower than MN seems to be the 'ideal' way.

>The story
Fucking cunt CEO. Bitch behavior. I hate it. Shitty things getting in the way of a beautiful craft. Just pisses me the fuck off.

>beat gigadeath first try
“Luck, that’s all this is?”-heimdall

>very restricted challenge run
It is when you're bad at it, after you get more familiar it gets more manageable. The cool thing about the game is that no matter how good you are you will still get your ass kicked sometimes. This is also why I don't think challenge runs are necessary for this game, since it's hard as fuck anyway (and NUR doesn't take away your strongest options).

>is not even on MN
MN is definitely the way. No action game can replicate its insanity but you'll be able to manage it after a while. The first 2 chapters on MN are the hardest levels I've ever done in an action game (under vanilla conditions). After that you get more options and the game stops throwing too many IS ninjas at you (for the most part).

Almost done with warrior and close to mentor. Chapter 13 is ass like I said before. But I am currently traveling and am close to my destination to set up the good old Xbox at my apartment.

> difficulty
A lot of players used to think Mentor was the way to stay, but those that got comfortable notes "once you get used to Master Ninja, you can't go back". So I dedicated a few runs to it and honestly they are right. It's easy to stay on a few lower settings where you can easily handle yourself. But once you push forward, man, fucking hell.

> challenge runs
Malcar nailed it. Most of the times I do challenge runs to make a hard game, that became easy, hard again. Or at times to experiment more and force my hand. In NGII, no matter how good I am (700+ hours played, at least 30 runs completed), if I toy around a bit too much, or even when the game feels me getting confident? I die. Horribly. You cannot let up.

>very restricted challenge run by default
In a sense. You often have players try to run before they can crawl, there's no shame in using Ninpo. My first Master Ninja run was disgusting. Used every cheap dirty trick, from spamming Ninpo, running from fights, spamming heals - but you get better.

> omar
Let me know what you think about chapter 1 and 2 on mentor.

>Difficulty
>Hardest is best
It is with every game i play, i'm sure it will be for this one too.

>Challenge
I love the game. Even on normal where i'm comfortable, the game still reminds me to stay consistent and all that. This game is truly amazing and i'm surprised i never played it earlier.

Just got to chapter 6. Game's awesome.

Anyone here familiar with TheGodfatherDictator's MN No Damage run of vanilla NG2? Referring to this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9wQ6NcGxW_ZDGuz3gd4qa375ZVliWLKw

Yes. The ninja gaiden player I watch alot is jtb button. Real cool guy overall honestly.

>MN
Yeah feel like I’m gonna do the same haha. I already cheesed the game at certain parts(chapter 13 and get in still stuck on it). Will report how mentor goes raeng, and thanks for the recommendation and this forum! This is becoming my favorite action game ever.

> TGFD no damage run
Ooooooooooooooooooooh boy.
Familiar, don't like it. Great player, legendary NG:B runner especially. But that run was always sour for me. We had a really, really good high risk no-damage run a few years earlier by the Chinese player 复活斩. And also by IIRC Nxspace and Gigue (not sure on Gigue).

But they took damage in the acid room, as the floor damages you there. Because of this semantic, once a method had been found to no-damage the room (specific set of moves done in conjunction chains i.frames just enough to go through the room), the new run was labled 'world first' which felt like a spit in the face to the previous runners and also to the run itself, that it needed that lable for whatever reason. It's clout-chasing for views. Like how that recent RE4 runner claimed 'knife only world first' despite whipping out the shotgun whenever things go hard, just to be 'first'.

Also feel 复活斩's run is far, far better. Way more risk taking, does way more segments in a single go and also feels more like an insane showcase of the combat system. Dictator's run is very safe and (sorry, if you're reading this) dull. Felt like a first-time player going for no-damage on his first playthrough and resetting every 2 seconds.

Again, great player and guy though, but that run never sat well with me and I think the whole worlds knows that at this point hahaha.

My biggest gripe with it though was how it's popularity also gave rise to an extremely annoying subset of fans at the time that tried to no-damage the game and hated it as a result, as no-damage is an extremely unfun and frustrating way to play NGII. IIRC he himself also detests the game (understandable, playing the way he did I'd fucking hate it too). I'm even mentioned in one of his commentaries with Seraphim in a ... less than positive way considering they both don't like the game hahaha

I do not forget.

> hardest is the way to go
The only game I don't have this with in my library of 'personal favourites' is Halo. Always felt that series struggled on Legendary, with Heroic allowing a far wider set of gameplay options. Especially in Halo 2.

>TheGodfatherDictator's MN No Damage run
Good showcase of how the game is absolutely not designed around no damage, but still impressive. It has since been improved by Farnham TheDrunk, with both ND + No UTs and ND, All Fights, No Despawn runs.