Ninja Gaiden 2 Black | Review

KEY TAKAWAYS

• Never played any of the prior recent Ninja Gaiden 2s
• Challenging, fun gruesome visceral combat
• Loved how the weapons felt
• Characters were all cheesy and fun kinda
• Looked great visually via Unreal Engine 5
• Varied level designs
• Voice acting bad
• Camera was atrocious at times
• Great boss fights
• Basic upgrades for weapons
• Art style
• Ryu Hayabusa slow walk explosions cutscenes
• Enjoyed playing as the female cast
• Story was meh
• On Gamepass (win!)
• $49.99 can be too high for some
• Some replayability
• 10 hour campaign

Introduction

My familiarity with Ninja Gaiden exposes my age a lot. I remember playing the original Tecmo classic in the arcade back in the 80’s. I almost beat the first NES Iteration. I I refused to give up and beat Ninja Gaiden 2 on my NES as a kid. The latter was during my middle school years. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Video Playlist

Ninja Gaiden has always been a challenging including Ninja Gaiden Black which I did manage to complete on my original Xbox back in the day. I personally love third person action games ever since I played Devil May Cry back in 2001 on my Playstation 2. I love the action, gore and cheesiness, all of it.

Presentation

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is a remaster of 2008’s version for current gen hardware utilizing Unreal 5 and let me tell you I never played the 2008 Ninja Gaiden 2. With that said it has to look like ass compared to 2025’s “Black”.

A gripe with Ninja Gaiden 2 Black much like many early 2000s third action games were terrible camera floating. Well, guess what? It still sucks, the camera. Unreal Engine couldn’t fix the camera 🤣

Asides the terrible camera zooming in and out, getting trapped in corners in first person mode most of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black’s presentation was great. Sure the voice acting and dialogue were archaic and pedantic. However the visuals, sound, atmosphere and gameplay are masterclass in my opinion.

Story

You play as Ryu Hayabusa of the Dragon Clan protectors of powerful artifacts that quell evil. Genshi along with Elizebet respectfully of the Black Spider Clan and Blood Crimson faction are trying to resurrect the great evil Archfiend.

Ryu along with Sonia, Rachel and Ayane must try and gather stolen artifacts and stop the evil duo from resurrecting the Archfiend destroyer of worlds at Mount Fuji. The story is below average and filled with cheese that I would’ve probably loved when the game originally released in 2008.

Gameplay

Gameplay is Ninja Gaiden 2 Black’s strongest asset hands down and it’s amazing. Third person slicing, dicing Ninpo arts, speedy gore-fest is what makes the gameplay click. Ryu has a plethora of weapons upwards of ten I believe. All weapons have great movesets and “felt” good accordingly to how they looked.

Enemy variety ranged from huge bosses to small ninjas, creatures, monsters of all sorts. I loved the enemy variety and movesets of all enemies including the ghost fish. You can upgrade weapons by collecting orbs and visiting shops.

Chapters and level design were all varied and fun to explore even with it’s shitty camera helping me get my ass kicked. Difficulty ranged from three types with me playing on the easiest (for making gameplay videos etc).

I had a blast pulling off Ryu’s Ultimate Technique ability for different weapons. Action was so fast, gory and visceral. You really do feel like a ninja in Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. Campaign took me around ten hours give or take and I played it on my Xbox Series X via Gamepass.

Visuals | Graphics

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black was a pleasure to look at in 4K sixty. Utilizing Unreal Engine 5’s assets probably makes this one of the best looking action games I played in a while. Textures weren’t perfect however the lighting and volumetric effects looked really impressive throughout.

Sound | Music

Music and sound design were serviceable. The voice acting was terrible. I’d say the music was metal often at times during fights to more Asian influence melodies during others. Thanks for reading – Jason