Part 25: Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 - Chapter 13

An uneventful retread through the Temple of Sacrifice, where I decide to take the time to expouse on the reason behind Ninja Gaiden II original ending up the way it did, among other topics.


So we all know how Sigma 2's biggest overarching problems is the reduction of enemy group encounters and making them more comparable to something like Ninja Gaiden 1. The Staircase is one of the bigger examples of this change negatively impacting what should have been an awesome moment. You get no slowdown, which from an outsiders perspective would seem perfectly acceptable, but it misses a lot of the charm behind that moment being so memorable. Yet on the flip side, you look earlier in the chapter as well as other points in the game, but there are some encounters that despite being huge are actually incredibly monotonous. Which leads to the giant rock bridge area where you originally fought eight Rasetsus being replaced with a more diverse enemy line up and pacing between waves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Ultimately this game still finds ways until the very end to neuter the truly amazing and over the top fights it has to offer, but I still think about how there could've been an actual middle ground struck between the two games' design somewhere. But maybe that would've only worked had there been more time for other things. But alas, we'll never really know what this game could've been like had it gotten all the time and money in the world to become the best thing ever.