Part 16: Ninja Gaiden II - Chapter 7

Here we are now at easily my second favorite chapter of the game. Who doesn't love an honest to god airship raid? Especially when said airship has tactical ninjas with machineguns and machine-fiend hybrids that look straight out of Quake II. Shit gets crazy here.



Tonfa
A powerful martial-arts weapon originating from Okinawa

A close range weapon that I would designate as being Trick Weapon #2 of the game, with #1 obviously being the Kusari-Gama. The tonfas are a weapon that's extremely deceptive as while it's a quick, short range weapon like the Falcon's Talons, its usefulness is not as immediately apparent. The secret to its power is in its ability to stance cancel combos into different follow ups, or reset the combo string to start a new one entirely. It's a very advanced weapon that gets overlooked in areas outside of its UT being godlike, but it is a very fun weapon for people that want to inject a bit of combo creativity into their play style.


Art of the Piercing Void
Simply put, this Ninpo allows the caster to project a black hole. Its angle of effect is quite narrow, but this serves to concentrate its destructive power, creating a devastating projectile that can penetrate through multiple targets before dissipating. This penetrating ability is the biggest appeal of the Art of the Piercing Void.
This Ninpo focuses the telekinetic energy created by the centripetal vibrations of the caster's lower dantian (Ki focal point), then directs the shape of the energy using gravitational waves propagated by the caster's conscious spirit. This creates a gravitational abnormality, forming a rotating black hole trapped inside a repulsing spiritual force field. Because this force field is somewhat permeable, extreme fluctuations of space-time occur near the surface of the Ninpo projectile that pulverize any nearby living matter.

The final of the four Ninpo Ryu gets in the game, it is a very stark contrast to the Wind Blades in terms of application. This thing fills a lot of the same roles as what the Art of the Inferno did in the first game, as it's a single projectile that moves in a straight line with no homing properties. What it does have over that, however, is that the orb will plow through multiple enemies should it get the chance so it's still useful against groups. Also Ryu is a crazy powerful motherfucker that he knows a technique on how to summon a miniature black hole and shoot it at people. Not even Hadoukens in Street Fighter are this devastating.


Humanoids

Tactical Ninjas

No matter the era and what their uniforms will look like, ninjas in entertainment will typically be held to the traditions of combat and stealth associated with it. The Black Spider Clan decided to go "fuck that" and gave a subset of their clan Sam Fisher night vision goggles and fucking assault rifles, and they can kick ass with them. Oh, and rocket launchers as well. These enemies are pretty much the replacement for the MSAT and Vigoorian Military enemy types from the first game, and while their designs are pretty dope, them replacing the aforementioned enemies means they carry over a lot of the bullshit people hated about them. Mainly the rockets. Fuck those rockets. And this chapter doesn't even show the worst of it.

Fiends

Executor

In addition to ninjas with guns, the Black Spider clan decided that they should invest in horrific human-machine hybrids. The executors are four legged bots with a pale human head attached to it that gives the whole thing a Quake II Strogg vibe to me. As you'd expect, they fire guns, and those guns are very good at stunlocking. Surprisingly though, the executors are easily dispatched with the tonfa's flying swallow along with its heavy attack follow up. Every time both attacks hit they will lose one of their guns guaranteed. Doing it again takes off the other gun and subsequently kills them. But of course, they're another good example of an enemy to use the scythe on, as a big heavy bruiser requires a big heavy weapon.


Mecha Soldier

And now we go from gun ninjas, to Quake II enemies, to finally something I can only describe as vaquely resembling the Xenoborgs from AvP Classic 2000. Giant Fiends reinforced with cybernetics, and they hit like a fucking truck. Probably the closest thing this game has to the Ogres and Berserkers from Ninja Gaiden Black. Really don't have anything else to say other than just hitting it with the Scythe UTs and other safe moves to deal with it as efficiently as possible. It's the enemy that weapon was made for.

Bosses

Nuclear Armadillo

One of the most infamous bosses in Ninja Gaiden II, mostly for one particular thing at the end, but it's also a pretty annoying fight to deal with due to the random nature of its attacks determining how quickly you can finish it. Once you get past the ridiculousness of this creature's existence, the armadillo has some attacks to look out for.

• The most common and annoying move you'll see is when it curls up into a ball and rolls around the arena. As expected, you can't attack it during this part, and blocking doesn't stop it either, so all you can do is just dodge out of the way until it returns to normal.
  
• When it isn't curled into a ball, the armadillo by itself will damage Ryu just from moving. Don't stand near it's legs as you'll get trampled, and don't be near it's tail as it's constantly moving and will sweep Ryu away.
  
• Another annoying attack is when you're in front of its head. Obviously you'd be attack the head as it takes the most damage, but this is also where it will often trigger a command grab that is extremely hard to react to. The armadillo will bite you with its mouth, chew on you, then spit you out along with some fire.
  
• Very rarely seen, but does happen when at mid to long range, the armadillo can do a fire breathing attack that has absurdly far reach and the only way to really avoid it is to close the distance and get to its side or behind. It does a lot of damage.
  
• At around 45% health, the armadillo starts glowing with the most eye searing bloom effects the game can must, and every attack it does is accompanied by meteors shooting out of its shell.
  
• And when you think it's down and out, the armadillo blows itself up and this explosion will always kill unless you are holding block. Yes, that is correct. Ryu can block a nuclear explosion with a sword.

With all these attacks, the thing that can't be emphasized enough is that chasing after this thing in a giant ass snowy arena is not a good time, and while other fights in the game go at a pretty steady pace whether or not you are playing efficiently, the Nuclear Armadillo fight is one that can either be over in less than 30 seconds or take upwards of a few minutes, just on how often it likes to use attacks and moves that keep it from being damaged. It's a pain.