Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 - PS3 (2009)

With Itagaki leaving Tecmo and Team Ninja assigned to develop games in "new genres", as Tecmo's following press announcement goes, the future of the Dragon Ninja Ryu Hayabusa lies once again uncertain. Will we see another remake in ten years? Or can we expect Ryu Hayabusa's shuriken throwing range and katana fencing mini game collection for Wii in 2009? Only time will tell...

Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PS3)

... that is what I wrote in mid 2008, and since then Team Ninja indeed has shaped up again, and presents us now their newest coup - another update to one of their former games. Please note that this autor doesn't have the opportunity to play the game yet, so this section remains a stub for now, covering just the hard facts. The screenshots are at this time all promotional ones as well, with the most notable difference being the camera more zoomed in compared to real gameplay. If one followed the advertisement campaign in Japan, one might assume that this release would be all about female secondary sexual characteristics - the most bizzare piece of advertisement being a pair of curves poking out of a poster wall, with the small game logo in the corner. The main commercial spot shows nothing but male Japanese gamers hypnotized by Ayane's jiggle, as well (this all is documented on the current official home page for the game).

The new feature Tecmo is obviously most proud of, as seen in an official commercial.

What lay behind this dubious marketing strategy are the three new playable characters, this PS3-exclusive update brings. Momichi from the DS game, the fiend hunter Rachel, and for the first time in the series Ayane, all get their very own new chapter in the form of intermissions between Ryu's mission (that take place mostly on old maps), all with their cup size adjusted upwards once more. But it doesn't end here, they're also available for the brand new co-op feature, which brings back the challenge mode in more than full glory. Sadly, it's online-only, without a splitscreen option (but to be honest, no one really wants to see how the camera would behave with that). However, the AI can assume control over your partner, if you can't find any players or just don't want to bother with strangers on the PSN.

There's a total of 30 cooperative missions, where you get to select your two characters freely. Cooperative gameplay is mostly realized through the ability to revive each other, as well as a superpowered combined Ninpo explosion. There's missing more advanced techniques, like saving your partner from an enemy grab, though.

The New Playable Characters

Besides the new characters with their own new weapons and moves, Ryu's arsenal gets improved one more time, too. Though his only new close combat weapon is a heavy, two handed sword called Enma's Fang, he also get's a big f-ing gun, and his use of ranged weapons is changed a lot. There's no further need to worry about ammunition, and Ryu now can do something the Resident Evil heroes can't: Walk an shoot at the same time.

Other than the Xbox360 version, that forced you to buy every outfit that went beyond a palette swap, Sigma 2 offers a bunch of alternate costumes for everyone to unlock. Some come from former games in the series (Ryu's classic outfit is back), others are borrowed from Dynasty Warriors, thanks to Tecmo's merger with Koei (DLC costumes are available too, of course). Not to speak of all the new cutscenes, enemies and bosses, even for Ryu's old chapters, like Tengus, the Statue of Liberty or the Black Spider Clan witch from Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword. The stages have been rebalanced overall, with more savepoints throughout. The game is generally acclaimed as being much more friendly to less proficient players, but don't take my word for it, as I couldn't yet verify it myself.

Dynasty Warriors Costumes

Basically, Sigma 2 offers much more of everything. Well, more of everything except one: Blood. Ryu and his gang still slice enemies into handy pieces, but instead of red fountains, all you see is some strange purple smoke emitting from the vanishing limbs. Boss Yosuke Hayashi can babble all he wants about "the point about Ninja Gaiden 2 was violence, and now with the completely different Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 we follow another point, so of course, we can't have the violence anymore", he can't conceal the fact that Sigma 2 faced a severe case of self-censorship. It doesn't take away anything from the gameplay, but the action surely seems a lot less tangible.

Visual changes are much more subtle than the last time around, but after all, Sigma 2 is a port among the same console generation, other than its predecessor. A few upgraded models here and there, dynamic lighting, pixel shaders, that's about it for improvements. In turn, there's even a few aspects where the port is doing a less impressive job. Since the PS3 has more problems at pushing a lot of polygons, there's significantly less monsters around at a time, most notably in some of the crowded cut scenes (look here for a detailed comparison between the two versions). Most of the new enemies look extremely detailed, though. Sigma 2 will also most likely be remembered in the history of the PS3 for the most ridiculous use of the Sixaxis controller ever: Shaking the pad during cutscenes makes the female protagonists' chests jiggle. No, really. It's that embarassing.

As most games for the PS3, it requires to be installed on the harddrive, and you get to read a prologue story to the game in form of a digital comic during the process. The collector's edition of the game contains a printed version of this, together with an artbook and the OST.