Ninja Gaiden 2 first run (Series S)

>this L-Jey guy on Reddit has quite a few answers
That's me. Don't worry, I won't delete them.

>I'm more of a parrier than a juggler
NGII's block is very strong but not very satisfying. Fortunately the counters in this game are very, very strong. They deal high damage, have a good delimb chance, some offer good iframes and are stylish to boot (the light counter for the Talons is a beauty). Some are also launchers. The timing is a little stricter than the ones in NGB but they are still super forgiving. Use and abuse them. It's an aspect of combat that I always neglected but tried to incorporate them more recently and had a blast.

> UT PKP
More in a sense that it's an easy access all purpose move, that can carry you far. Make no mistake that UTs are extremely powerful. Some, like the one of the Tonfa, can imo beat the game by themselves barring some bosses. It's more a bad habbit.


> flying swallow
Is a great mobility tool. It was broken in NG2004, and decently spammable in NGB. In NGII it is more a great tool to stay on the move. You'll see me use it quite often.

> Izuna
More a beginners trap. It is very strong in NG2004 and NGB, in NGII it's very dangerous as you can end up being showered with IS in its recovery animation. Looks sick though.

> essence miss to a reset
I'd argue you're going to miss out on the joy of essence management due to this. The chaos nature of it, only half being able to influence your drops to a degree, while playing on the fly and using what you have, is half the fun imo. Can see this differing per person ofc.

> play by play
I want to do so many things haha

> 3.11 onwards
Enemies tend to be more passive when you're attacking, so I kept up pressure. I was keeping an eye on them to cancel my attack with a shuriken in my flanker's face but it wasn't necessary.

> XLH
Fun guy, great gameplay, I'd also recommend NXSPACE, he's got an old run online somewhere. Same with Gigue and ShowR. Those three are basically the Ninja Gaiden gods. XLH is great fun but doesn't scratch top 20 in my book. In general you have to understand that to get to the level where you can style on enemies, on Master Ninja, that's a lot of work you need to put in if you want to get there organically i.e. you can play like that 50% of the time without getting slaughtered. Often times when you see a high quality NG clip, it tends to be that magical run that happens once every 100 attempts, which is more frustrating than fun. It's much more enjoyable when you slowly get to the point where you can play well consistently.

Note that I said 50% of the time. Even though I'm damned good at the game, NG2 is a title that will eat you up if you so much as think about styling around when it isn't called for. You can be as good as you think, but if you start styling with fancy strings against a couple of IS ninjas in a small room, you're toast.

> two limbs
If an enemy loses two limbs they die instantly.

> damage values
Note, it's not all % based. Some attacks are like 50+10% if you get me, so a base value with some HP% added on to it. Bosses mostly use % based attacks. Upgrade items also fully heal you or fully refill your ninpo, so they are often saved for that.

This giant cave worm can fuck right off.

That is one boss that even with cheese strats still takes some time to kill. Go into the cave and use the Scythe UT whenever he passes by. Should be dead in a couple of minutes.
Are you still using the Lunar or also experimenting with other weapons?

> worm
If you want to blitz him you can stand in the hallway and use 360Y with the dual katana when he's about to hit you, then cancel recovery with XYXXXY into Void ninpo. Absolutely slaughters him but you do take some damage near the end.

The two slow methods are spamming Scythe UTs or Bow UTs near the edge of the cave.

>Are you still using the Lunar or also experimenting with other weapons?
I don't change weapons.

It's highly unlikely I'll replay this campaign. Thank God for mission and survival.

Survival is ridiculous fun.

The campaign definitely has its low points which are really low, but it's still worth getting through on mentor and master ninja IMO. Chapters 1 and 11 on master ninja are not to be missed, and you can always start NG+ with all of your upgrades, or even regular NG but with all of the weapons unlocked from the start. Fuck the dogs on chapter 2 though, they hurt an otherwise almost perfect chapter.

Why are you so adamantly sticking with one weapon? You're missing out and honestly already gimping your run as a result.

Regarding the campaign I really gotta side with GN on that. Finish it on Master Ninja. The game has definite low points but you don't get the full experience until that mode. You can do it at your own pace with mission mode in between ofc but definitely play the campaign.

>why only one weapon
I like to focus on single weapons to see what they can do in each situation.

>campaign
Planned to do another normal run using a different weapon.

I swear you are your own worst enemy at times haha

> another normal run
I really, really would not advise this. You'll start to get comfortable on what's essentially easy-mode. NG is built around subsequent difficulty-progression, you'll burn yourself out before you get to the truly great stuff if you just play Normal. You couldn't PAY ME to replay normal mode.

Volf's charge isnt really random, it's just one of the several branches he can take after certain combos. In most cases it's impossible to react to it so you need to preemptively dodge to the right the moment you're able to, except for one combo where he delays the charge for a bit (that one is reactable). If you have a mission mode on xbox/xenia you can lab him there.

So if I want to learn the weapons properly it's best to do so in Master Ninja and never touch other modes?

The two flying bosses were awful and I never want to see them again.

Beat Elizabet without any trouble. She tends to dodge constantly. I started just doing jumping attacks up close.

Now I'm back in the ninja village.

> flying bosses
This is where preparation helps. When you know they're coming, you'll just make sure you have level-3 Void Ninpo ready. Deals about 80% of their HP so the fight lasts like 5 seconds.

> Eli
One of the hardest bosses on harder settings, prepare yourself.

> Ninja village
This is the best stage imo

Fought the wolf boss again with annoying as fuck centaurs.

Got really far down this path and got killed by more of them then have to start from after the wolf boss. Did this three times. Not doing it again.

Stopped enjoying the campaign a long time ago. Not worth finishing. I have Black but want to play something else for a while first.

> Got really far down this path and got killed by more of them then have to start from after the wolf boss. Did this three times. Not doing it again.

Right after the centaurs is the savepoint so you were pretty damn close. It's a tricky part, but not too hard as you can cheese everything up until it. You can use windmill UTs against the spiders, and Scythe UTs against the cannonball dudes. The Van Gelfs you can IS or just kill normally.

For the Centaurs I tend to just 'skip' them i.e. use lunar/scythe UTs (just do a raw charge) and spam Inferno Ninpo. You should have like 3-5 slots.

> Not doing it again.
Giving up? Please Birdman don't fool yourself.

> Not worth finishing
Bullshit and you know it.

The save point was right there? I can't believe it.

Guess I'll give it another go in a day or two.

>ninpo
I keep forgetting about these. Avoided using them and UTs to focus solely on my weapon. Guess I'll unload everything to get to this save point.

On your article, it seems XxPuregruntxX has deleted their channel. ShowR is there, but I'm struggling to find anything but small clips of NXSPACE and Gigue.

Anyway, I usually scour the net before asking simple questions, but could I be cheeky and ask what combos I should memorise for NG2? From this thread:

Lunar Staff: XXY, ->X
Dual katanas: 360Y, XYXXXY

Edit: thanks

Roy already made a couple of lists for the best moves.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ninjagaiden/comments/kmghxi/how_would_you_rank_the_ninja_gaiden_ii_weapons_on/
https://stinger.actieforum.com/t550-ninja-gaiden-sigma-2-general-discussion#10372
Generally you want moves that have a good delimb/decap % or that are safe to use (better if both). If you experiment a bit you'll figure it out pretty fast.

Cheers Malcar for doing the search for that info, I knew I had them somewhere but couldn't find them.

Done.

Maybe later I'll try the kurasi gama later.

Grats!

I am interested in how it will continue for you. Since you didn't really experiment, I'm curious if Mentor will be a big hurdle or not as you only really know how the Lunar works. So going in with a completely new weapon on a higher setting might be really hard, not sure. Then again going on Normal again with a new weapon would be too easy.

> kusari
Saw a pretty neat setup yesterday that I hadn't heard of before. Jump, do X for the first hit, cancel it in shurikens to keep the guy aerial, do 360Y into holdY for the grab. What happens is the 360Y knocks him down, meaning the HoldY afterwards becomes an anti-ground grab (which is always OHKO). Fun setup!