Ninja gaiden 2 general discussion.

> wall-run again after NG1

they do that in the first ng? where?

Alexci is very annoying, his main move that’s getting me is his main move that is getting me is his charging grab, hate that move.

> wallrun
Chapter 1 especially, Ninjas can do wallruns and walljumps.

What do people think of mecha soldiers here?

You mean the big mechs? Didn't like them at all but they can be delimbed at least. I guess I can also use them as a way to practice guard reset.

So this is how delimbs in ninja gaiden work:
General light attack combos have a high chance of getting rid of arms.

Sweep attacks have a high chance to get rid of legs.

And overhead slashes have a chance of getting rid of heads(which can result in health for you if lucky)?

Every move has a specific chance for a specific limb, some only have a chance for some limbs and none for others. For example the XX>XY from the Twin Katanas only goes for heads which is handy. Your general conclusion is false though, as there are plenty of heavy attacks that go for arms.

Other than what Roy said above, XXY with the Dragon Sword is one of the best delimb moves in the game. It can also be combined with Shuriken cancelling, which can then be followed by a near-instantaneous OT. So it's XXYBY.

Another interesting tech is XXY with the Lunar, which sometimes directly beheads Ninjas. The delimb rate is quite low, though, and you can't cancel it with a Shuriken, given that the Lunar counts as a two-handed weapon, IIRC.

>delimbs
To my knowledge there is no universal rule for this however the game does a pretty good job at lining up what a move looks like it should target and what the move actually targets.

>health from decaps
If you kill an enemy without using a UT or OT and your combo is below 20 hits then it has a chance of spawning a blue orb, nothing to do with decapitations.

Decapitations can 'seem' like they give blue orbs more likely, since they are often low-combocount kills and are regular kills, so they've got the option of generating blue orbs, just like any other regular kill yeah. It's nothing inherent to decapitations though.

Oh, so the are how blue orbs work. Thought it was always something different.

This is how orbs work:

Regular Kill: Yellow/Red/Blue
Regular Kill when you're at low HP: Yellow/Red/Blue (with higher chance of blue)*
UT kill: Yellow
OT kill: Yellow
Combo 20+ kill: Yellow

*Not sure if this is also the case in NGII tbh, but it was the case in NGB.

I think UTs and OTs can give blue orbs if your under 20 combo points. Happened to me before a couple of times.

Question about lunar staff btw, what use does the x,y,x,x combo have?

>UTs and OTs can give blue orbs if your under 20 combo points
They don't under any circumstances.

> Lunar
I forget which one XYXXX is. Is that the one where Ryu spins the end around with the chains? If so, that one is pretty freak'n sick, great aoe.

> OT / UT can give blues
0% chance of this happening, probably a mandela effect.

What challenge for ninja gaiden 2 would literally be impossible(can’t be something that literally soft locks you directly at your face)?

NUR No Ninpo Ranged Weapons only would be quite literally impossible haha. But NUR No Ninpo also sounds really hard, don't think it has been done yet. Same with NUR No Ninpo + No UTs or a variation of those modifiers with No Damage.

Wasted potential to not have windmill shuriken ninjas.

Finally beat alexei on mentor. Now on to chapter 5…..

On mentor , chapter 6 is probably my least favorite chapter due to the skeleton section alone.

Omar73874928271728 wrote:On mentor , chapter 6 is probably my least favorite chapter due to the skeleton section alone.

That boss is horrible, lol. Not as bad as Gigadeath, but stil garbage tier. In my NUR I used the XXYY combo with the Kusari Gama after drawing the bone spiders away, since it can be used for crowd control, including launching approaching spiders. Otherwise the best strat should be using the Lunar's 360Y UT, IIRC.

> skeletonboss
If you have the Kusari, you can spam 360Y to nuke him. Note that if you time it right you can 'skip' the boss with an Inferno to his core, not sure if it's a glitch. You can also spam 360Y moves with some weapons, or spam UTs but that takes forever.

Horrid boss though and the fact that dying after him means you gotta redo him is even worse.

>kusari
Luckily have that beautiful weapon. Although it’s level 2…
Honestly I think my least favorite thing about this chapter is the spiders. Horrid enemy.

I beat the boss again but died ti the skeleton spider dudes…….. so now I have to restart…….

For the little spiders, you can skip ALL fights after bone-dragon. You can also spam Windmill UTs if you want to kill them but IIRC one of the spawns is infinite (not sure, but it goes on for long enough that I decided to skip it haha)

Yeah, just figured that out. Question by the way, what chapter is itagaki most ashamed of and most proud of in this game?

He didn't talk much about the game after release since he got fired/left, he had other things on his mind. He has said that he felt bad about Gigadeath though.

Is ninja gaiden 2 really that unfair? Sure, there is a TON of BS parts, but for the majority of the time, it is rather fair imo. If you know what your doing atleast.

There was once a pretty good (Korean) analyasis on the framedata with the conclusion that the game was pretty fair. Just that players suck.

>players suck
Exactly.

>frame data analysis
Would be interesting to see.

Question, what exactly is this NG2 Black mod I see floating around? What is it exactly and is it worth paying attention to or just some goofy romhack?

> NG2B
It's worth a look. It's a mod for Sigma 2 made by FiendBusa, a fantastic NG player. The basemod tries to go as far as possible to rebuild NGII from Sigma 2's remains, and is pretty darn good at it. He's also added a ton of other features, like costumes, new UTs, sounds and a custom difficulty that's absolutely bonkers. I've only played it a bit since I don't play on PC that much, but if you have GamePass I'd definitly recommend it.

That said I know some still prefer NGII. And for me that one will always win out since it's the OG and it's on a console I use every day. I don't like PC gaming that much.

Can’t wait to return to this game.

So, after months of inactivity, I reprised my NUR, which I had paused after completing CH 12, and now I'm on CH 14, tips for facing the centaurs after Muramasa's shop?

My memory is hazy, is that the one encounter in the blood pool zone or the one earlier on near the savepoint where the giant Crystal Skull is?

In general I used Scythe+Bow. XYbowY is pretty decent, and you want to keep them at range. Scythe's UT is the only one that can really easily put a dent into them.

It's the second encounter, right after you face those mechanical marionettes. There is blood, yes, but it's not a pool. Anyway, I especially have trouble with their spear grab, which almost always gets me.

Yeah then it's the one I was thinking about. Generally I use Scythe UTs there with bow-shots in between and whatever IS I have left (barely a use for them after this fight).

The grab is super annoying. If I remember your run, you allow Ninpo though. And Items. You should have the economy going to have 6-9 Ninpo shots at this time (3 regular, 3 items, 3 from revive), which should go a long way. I admit to never having learned an upfront engagement tactic with these chumps since they're too rare and can be cheesed.

You can also try Tonfa UTs since it has such an absolutely insane hitbox, but it is risky still. Way more damage than the Scythe UT though to thin their numbers. IIRC there's also a 'tree' there you can jump off of, but that could be my mind fucking with me since that arena looks like the Survival Mode arena which has that tree as well.

Finally completed my NUR, it was about time. I had trouble with Genshin and Elizebeth in particular, as well as Dagra Dai later on, but I did it. Gee, this run was so hard, definitely not something I want to do ever again. NURs are definitely far less viable here than they are in GoW, but it was worth giving it a try nonetheless. Not a kind of run I'd recommend, anyway.

From now on, I think I'll only play on NG+ mode, I no longer want to have my ass kicked so much, ahah.

In fact, I replayed CH1, and had a blast. Being free to use your arsenal while having more room for mistakes is so much better.

Fantastic job nonetheless Zapan! I think you can count on one hand the amount of people that did a NuR. I remember being surprised by how hard Elizebeth was in particular, I rarely have issue with her but with the low-damage output you have. Did you use the despawn 'trick' with Dagra Dai?

> NG+
Legit the only mode I play these days as I have no patience anymore let alone time. Got a NG+6 file or something somewhere that's just fun to play around in.

Royta/Raeng wrote:Fantastic job nonetheless Zapan! I think you can count on one hand the amount of people that did a NuR. I remember being surprised by how hard Elizebeth was in particular, I rarely have issue with her but with the low-damage output you have. Did you use the despawn 'trick' with Dagra Dai?

> NG+
Legit the only mode I play these days as I have no patience anymore let alone time. Got a NG+6 file or something somewhere that's just fun to play around in.

I'm curious if someone else did a written run coverage ln some other forum. There is nothing like that on YouTube.

As for Dagra Dai, I didn't, but I used the Scythe's aerial XXY combo, with some Ninpo thrown in once you land. I think you can also buffer a jump, thus avoiding his lightning, but I'm not sure, doesn't seem to work consistently.

Elizebeth, the best strat I found is waiting for her to be dash, especially the ground one (she should end up being close enough to you, of course), dodge it, then jump and use the above mentioned attack with the Scythe. Should make her manageable enough.

NG+ is what makes fresh MN worth it, imo, it compensates for all the garbage in it. How long ago did you  do your NUR?

Can't you lock Liz down by using the Claws FS? Should be available in NUR.

>NG+
I like how you are still in danger since like half the attacks in this game do % based damage.

Honestly, wish ninja gaiden 2 had more encounters like the clock tower one. Great encounter IMO.

Also, if you hold down block does it make it so that spider ninjas charge at you?

Malcar

>Can't you lock Liz down by using the Claws FS? Should be available in NUR.

Seems unsafe to me. FS isn't very effective, it might stagger her for a moment, if you're lucky, but the damage output is low, and you likely won't be able to land a combo.

The best thing with her is not engaging her directly (unless you mastered the guard reset technique), and stay away from her, in order to provoke her into trying to go for a dash.

> I like how you are still in danger since like half the attacks in this game do % based damage.

It's still a very hard run, yes. Indeed, I died multiple times in CH2 in the courtyard fight, but it's much more fair this way. Really fun overall.

Omar

> Honestly, wish ninja gaiden 2 had more encounters like the clock tower one. Great encounter IMO.

I'd rather have more encounters like the famous staircase in the Temple of Sacrifice in CH 10. That was such an epic moment. Of course it wasn't possible back then, due to technical limitations of the Xbox360 IIRC, and that battle suffered from frate rate issues, unless you play on a newer generation console.

> Also, if you hold down block does it make it so that spider ninjas charge at you?

Not sure what you mean. If you block too much (and by that I mean, often even just for a second), all enemies will soon start to use grabs, or unblockable attacks, if they already didn't. It's a general feature of this series' enemies.

Anyway, I wanted to recommend this NG YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfQKwd2QNaziuXg1G_ubAew

This guy is a great player, and his advices helped me with my NUR too, though not as much as Roy.

Hey I know that guy, great dude seriously!

Royta/Raeng wrote:Hey I know that guy, great dude seriously!

You do? Good, he is one of the best NG players I have ever seen, definitely better than me, ahah. He even no damaged Alma Awakened (albeit on NG Sigma, which I didn't play in the last 10 years or so), whereas I always end up spending almost all my healing items on her, ahah.

Anyway, I wanted to add a few notes for my final Archdemon fight. A viable strategy is standing in front of him, waiting for his grab, dodging it (requires some timing, and on a NUR it's an instant kill), and then immediately using a full Y combo with the Dragon Sword. You should still have enough time to dodge his next attacks. Move to his sides if he tries to go for a white laser attack, then dodge at the last moment, when the laser is about to touch you.

Replaying this game (NG+ on Master Ninja) and I just now realized that you can use the ToV1 delimb strat on a lot more encounters than I thought. I started doing this anytime there are Mages + other ninjas and you can backtrack to a previous arena. The delimbed ones just slump behind while mages will teleport where you are, you can then finish them without problems and then kill the delimbed ones in peace.
Also the KG is great, never explored it that much before.

> delimb strat
Yeah you can flipflop a lot of encounters that way. For example the cathedral fight, but also the fight where you gain the ToV (delimb the archers).

> KG
Still working on my KG only run (too lazy). It's honestly a great weapon with a lot of fast strats. The most fun imo is looking for grab setups on knocked-down enemies for the decapitation-grab. Great shit.