Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 moves away from violence

Puzzling Moments In Gaming Sequel History

Sven Karrlsnod, lead producer on Tetris 3: The Blockening: "Sure, I love Tetris, you love Tetris. But what our team had to ask ourselves was this: Could we make Tetris work without all the blocks? We knew we had to try."

Trina Schwinn, design lead on Super Mario Universe: "In retrospect, making a Mario game set in Compton circa 1992 that didn't actually include Mario was a little ... brazen. But we had to follow our bliss."

Yosuke Hayashi, director and producer of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 to GamesRadar: "Each game has its own concept and with Ninja Gaiden 2, the focus was on extreme violence. But with Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, we really questioned whether violence is a necessity for a game, so we decided to move away from that trend. So the violence 'approach' is not the way we approached the development of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. Being able to unlock higher levels of gore would be out of kilter with the concept of the game."

[Via What They Play]

Reader Comments (76)

NG1/NGB and Sigma (to an extent) were very awesome. NG2 dropped the ball and jumped the shark. Cool combat and weapons, but so many bad level enemy and boss designs. I was cringing through most of the game at so many bad decisions. I doubt all the co-op characters in the world could save NGS2 from being the same, tho if they have Fiend Ryu and other enemies from NGB then I could see giving it a rental.

I disagree. Their where some mistakes with level design and some boss battles, but on a whole I thought it was a step up from NG 1. Less puzzles, more action, faster paced, regenerating health/save points healing you, obliteration moves, the whole thing was just awesome fun for me.

And I agree with those points, that's why I said combat and weapons, which involves pretty much everything you said, even the heal on save I agree with. But it's not the tools that you use as much as it is where you go with them and what you use them on. That part was a jumbled mess.

I think it sucks that the violence of the 360 game won't be at least an option in Sigma 2. You'd think they'd just keep it in there for those who want to see it.

I hope there's DLC that comes out that lets you get all the violence back.

I'm pretty impartial to extreme amounts of gore, so I don't mind it being taken out or toned down

In most other cases I would have argued for this saying that violence is overrated and it should focus more on plot and blah blah blah blah.

However part of the appeal of the Ninja Gaiden (at least the xbox/360/ps3 games) were the exaggerated amounts of violence in the games.

Well you're in luck, because Sigma 2 has more blood than the Xbox versions ever did.

So much in fact, your brain can't process the level of gore, thus it appears that there's none in the entire game! Isn't that just awesome?

Why do they always "lame-ify" the PS ports? Sigma 1 was enticing until I bought it....suddenly an acceptably difficult game was disappointingly easy. I think I turned it off when you could just jump out of the water and run on it whenever you wanted.

Extreme violence probably isn't necessary, but does Sigma translate into "hugs" or something? I'll buy it anyway because I have all the NG's, but come on.

I was waiting on this to have theOnion as a source article or something.

I can bet that Ninja gaiden 3 will have massive amount of gore and by then the developers will have another stupid comment on why they went back to the gore.

This is just an excuse.

Certainly hope this game reaches $10 at retail a week after release cause that's the only reasonable time to buy this infantile version of Ninja Gaiden 2. Lesson learned: never give the Ninja Gaiden series to pacifists. Man this crappy port is like Lost Planet 1 all over again.

Whatever, the game is too reliant on Piano Lesson style finger maneuvering to let me beat it anyway, so I won't bother with this just like I never bothered to finish Black, barely played Sigma, and avoided NG2 like the g**damn plague.

Can I get a real "normal" difficulty up in this? I don't mind dying a lot, but when difficulty gets in the way of FUN, I'm out.

I found NG 2 to be easier than NG 1. It might be because I beat NG 1 like a bazllion times, but still.

Playing NG 2 on the easiest difficulty should be possible for the average action gamer without too much trouble. If you even made it 1/2 way through black on the default (not ninja dog) difficulty, im confident you can beat NG 2 on easy mode, and enjoy yourself during the process.

NG 2 was faster paced, and you did take more damage, and could carry less healing items. But recoverying the majority of damage inbetween battles, obliteration moves, and save points healing you the first time you used them, really more than made up for it.

After nearly three years it's obvious The Cell is just not as capable of producing the same visual fidelity as the 360.

uncharted, Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 would like to have a word ....

What a joke. Are they kidding?

Great marketing:
Ninja Gaiden, Now with LESS violence!!!

I totally agree.....this game has dropped from a must have to a "maybe if there is nothing better to get...and I have time to waste". Why don't then just have the gore level to be set in the main options? If its a technical issue they might as well come out and say that, than this BS excuse they are trying to feed us now. Anyways I was praying NG2 game to the PS3 and its coming....I guess when someone throws you a frickin' bone, they dont want to hear if it taste good or not, one should just be happy that they did...go figure.

And here I was appreciating the fact it was coming to PS3...Damn you, bastards! Thanks for screwing us over. They will need pleeeenty of boobies to make up for that crock-a-shit they're trying to pull...in fact that should be the focus if they want to at least keep some of the old sigma fans.

Less slicey dicey. More nicey nicey.

This will sell millions.

Not Happy Jan. I want to unlock higher levels of gore. dammit. The extras they have added to the PS3 version better be great, cos they need to make up for the lack of gore, Im sure it comes down to a performance issue, Lots of gore = slow down.
Bring on big bouncy boobs. they would be better if covered in dripping blood(hostel 2).

But will buy this game, the company has sort of moved towards the PS3 with sigma and other projects, think they might of got a bit burnt by microsoft. So support a company that supports your PS3, will make for better games in the future.

Actually the slowdown came from the number of enemies and projectile explosions going off at once.

I am pretty sure a Ninja Gaiden without the extreme violence can still be fun.

BTW Forced memes are lame... please stop. Thank you

I'm all for less violence. As long as it means more TnA of course.

I heard about this a few months ago. It seems like a waste that they spent so much time working on how blood moves through the air and how limbs be severed would change enemy AI in the original release just to scrap it all this time.

I am not saying games need gore to be good, but what MADE Ninja Gaiden II so good was just how ridiculously over the top it was.

IMO it just sounds like they want more sales by making it a Teen game instead of an Mature one.

What is the facination with over the top gore? A facination with boobs just means you have a healthy sexual appetite or at worst are a pervert.

A facination with gore leads to a whole lot worse. If you play a game just because you want to see a head get ripped off there is something wrong with you. Same goes for Goreporn movies.

That is one reason why GOW:3 looks like it might just go too far and will lose a lot of sales because of the over the top gore.

Previous 50 Comments

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 moves away from violence

Reader Comments (76)

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