Does Ninja Gaiden 2 set the bar for future action games? Or does it fall short of the standards set by its predecessor and competition?

When you think of action games, there should be three game series that immediately pop up in your head as the "big 3" of the genre. Devil May Cry, God of War, and Ninja Gaiden. While all three game series could be brutally difficult on the hardest difficulties, Ninja Gaiden was easily the most unforgiving even on the easiest settings.

For better or for worse, Ninja Gaiden 2 retains the same level of unforgiving challenge as the original, making it a game that is easy to recommend to fans of the series without a second thought, but hard to recommend to the average gamer looking for the next big game on their 360.



Ninja Gaiden was never a game known for having a fantastic story, so it should be no surprise to find that NG2’s plot is a little bit on the generic and even ridiculous side. In a nutshell, a group of greater fiends are looking to resurrect a being known as the archfiend, and it’s up to master ninja Ryu Hayabusa to chase them all around the world to stop them. It may seem like that’s too much summarization, but really, that’s about all there is to the story. You travel randomly to various locales including Times Square, Italy, Japan, an airship, and of course the depths of hell itself as you look to take down the four greater fiends and put a stop to their plans.

That’s alright though, you can forgive NG2 for having a lame story because all you really need from the story of a Ninja Gaiden game is for it to give a reason for Ryu to slice up lots of bad guys, and NG2’s story is more than serviceable in that regard.