Ninja Gaiden II demo sneaks into North America

In every meaning of the word...

I think you meant delightful. Too bad the camera is broken.

http://www.petitiononline.com/iloveuwe/petition.html

Disgustingly...AWESOME

Now that must be a joke... LoL... Seriously, i played NG1 but i must say that NG2 either is more difficult or a lot CHEAPER (A.I) but its kicking my Arse... & i was pretty good at NG1 in all settings... This game is BADASS but is The A.I. is so cheap, especially the Bosses... This is how it goes: 100 enemies, Mini-Boss, 100 enemies, Big Boss = Dead 20 times... hmmm... or is it just me... LoL... :(

In normal mode, the game isn't too hard, yet. The only boss that has given me issues so far is the chapter 3 boss...took me forever to figure out how to not die. But this game kicks ass... Seriously, if anyone is on the fence about buying this, freaking buy it. When you're playing a game for a few hours straight and have no idea where the time went, thats when you know a game is good.

The first level is more of a tutorial to the basics of the game. The game gets much harder as you progress through. I wouldn't go as far as calling the game cheap though. It's just hard. What some people seem to call cheap, I call challenging. If the game gets cheap once then you can expect it the next time, because in NG there will be points in the game where you will die over and over and over again.

So far I absolutely love the game. I just beat the second Test of Valor and the 4th chapter on Warrior Mode and am getting ready to start Chapter 5.

Thank you, we need more brave people like you to fight the good fight for Our Uwe.

Silver members get it a week later no?

Yes, a week after the gold members.

Agreed. The camera is exactly how it was in NG1, yet NG1 got 9.5+ out of 10 from just about everyone who reviewed it. Due to the scale of some of the battles and the number of enemies attacking at once, the all encompassing view that most of the negative reviewers call for simply just isn't possible. My guess is they were trying to play through the game real quick to meet a deadline for a review, got frustrated because they couldn't beat it, and gave it a bad score because of it.

That must be why games like COD4 that have super-long 6 hour campaigns that play themselves practically get 10/10's.

Dude, COD4's campaign on any difficulty kicks ass. The fuck you talkin' bout, plays itself? On recruit, a difficulty explicitly stated as the EASIEST, the game's fun and unchallenging. On veteran, damned if you can actually pass it. I loved every minute of that campaign, regardless of difficulty. I'm pretty sure reviewers didn't give it high scores because it was easy on recruit. Maybe it was the superb gameplay, wonderful set pieces and good story/entertaining dialogue. And a fun multiplayer.

Don't even get me started on the notion that reviewers give games a bad score because they themselves suck at the game. Bullshit man, and you're gonna have to find a better reason than that to bash COD4.

Agreed. I gave DMC4 a shot because all the PS fanboys always said I should give it a try. I played it for a while and got bored with it. I was expecting another NG, and it was far from it.

Agreed. I'm sure this isn't news. The game's out, nuff said.

Demo was released during the week. It's bloody, but rather flawed. If you played the original you've played the sequel.

Nigeria, you're full of shit. It's not "rather flawed". Thats a bloody lie (no pun intended). And contrary to what you said, if you played the first and liked it, definitely play the sequel. You make it seem like people should just pass it up...

I say: if you haven't played the original then go out and buy the sequel because it's a good game.

But if you've played Gaiden/Black/Sigma then you shouldn't feel no rush to purchase this version. Wait for a price drop.

To me, this version feels sterile and cold. There's no character. Though, I was just judging from the demo. I could elaborate further on my thoughts but I don't have the will to qualify them at the moment.

Same here, I have a US account, supplied by a US bank...yet when I travel to the Caribbean all my content gets gimped. Thanks Microsoft!

I agree that the game deserves better than low to mid 80s and it is a lot of fun, but be warned that the demo is not very indicative of the actual game's difficulty. The fact that they only allow you to play on Acolyte and give you maxed out weapons from the start will give you a somewhat skewed impression of the game. NG2 is easier than NG/Black/Sigma due to the recharging health system, but it is still rough in spots.

Overall, though, I haven't had too much trouble with the camera and I'm on Chapter 8 / 14.

I disagree about the health system. What you fail to mention is the fact that the amount of health that you can gain back decreases with the more damage you take. Also, due to the health regeneration and the healing at the save points, health items are much more difficult to come by. Also, healing items are MUCH more expensive at Muramusa's shop. In the first game, a basic health elixir was 500 essence. In this one they are 3000 essence.

I think the health regen makes it easier to get through the different parts of the levels, but when you encounter parts of the game like the Tests of Valor where you are facing 100+ enemies nonstop the health regen is completely useless to you and health items are necessary.

Agree, to me the whole camera debate stinks of one of those situations where a reviewer mentioned it and a bunch of people that wanted to hate the game before ever playing it decided to run with it.

The camera is no worse than the camera in a hundred other games I've played, including many very highly rated games like SM64/SMG.

agreed

I disagree. You are entitled to your opinion but I feel like you are basically simplifying to its basics to try and make it sound worse. There is much more to the game than "move a few steps, attack, repeat". In my opinion, the game is full of strategy. Attacks that require more skill often yield more essence which enables the player to purchase more items, this in turn greatly rewards those who choose to take the time to learn to play NG, and don't just button mash all day. Beyond that, item management is an essential strategy as well, and spending money to level the correct weapons at various points in the game can make fighting different enemies much easier. In addition to that, there are the tests of valor, which give experienced players a chance to be rewarded for their efforts even more by forcing them face non-stop waves of 100+ enemies. These battles also unlock achievement points that in my opinion, carry more bragging weight than unlocking all 1000 points in many other games on XB360.

If I broke all games down to the bare essentials like you have, then why does GTA4 deserve a 10/10? All you do in it is drive, shoot, repeat. Same goes for COD4. Run, shoot, repeat. Or perhaps FFVII. Run, beat battle, repeat.

You see, any game sounds horrible when you exaggerate the basic nature of said game.

Don't know if you'll see this reply this late after the original post, but yes.

Some of them are pretty rough, I think. 5 and 6 in particular. Just finished the final one last night :)

In response to your argument about the health regeneration. You're right, in the Tests of Valor and in the boss fights, the regen system does you absolutely no good. But I've had an extremely easy time nearly everywhere else because of it. That, in addition to the full heals at save totems, full heal/ninpo after valor tests, life refilling after you use a lives of a thousand gods, and the overabundance of essence in this game have made this game a hell of a lot easier for me than the first one was. I currently have every weapon and ninpo completely maxed out with full items and about 300,000 essence left over - and I'm only on Chp 12 on Warrior.

BTW I did beat Black on normal difficulty, but I BARELY made it through several areas. Any fights with other ninjas and the boss fights with Alma 1.0 and Marbus, in particular, had me extremely frustrated. Any slight mistake, and I was restarting from the last save point. The sequel still has some difficult bosses (like that damn worm in Chp 9), but it seems more forgiving to me overall.