Table of Contents
Page 1 - Intro & Arcade Game
Page 2 - The NES Trilogy
Page 3 - Ninja Gaiden Shadow & Sega Gaiden
Page 4 - The Reinvention Part 1 - The Dark Dragon Blade Incident
Page 5 - The Reinvention Part 2 - The Story Continues
Page 6 - The Reinvention Part 3 - Super Ninja Gaiden 2' Turbo?
Page 7 - Ninja Gaiden Old & New
Page 8 - Misc.
Page 9 - Interview
Ninja Gaiden Old & New
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Ryu Okay, this one's a no-brainer, but in Ninja Gaiden Black or Sigma, you can even unlock his classic ninja outfit. His father, too, returns in 360 Ninja Gaiden II. |
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The Difficulty Level Back then, it was a damn hard action game among other hard action games, but now it has returned to make all the wimpy casual gamers cry while vigorously defending core gaming itself. According to Itagaki, easy games are for dogs, but before the old Ninja Gaiden, pretty much everyone's a dog... |
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The Dragon Sword Ryu's ancient blade, carved from the bone of a dragon, which holds the secret power of the Dragon Ninja clan. It even has its evil counterpart in each series, though it's called the Dark Sword of Chaos in Ninja Gaiden II, and the Dark Dragon Blade in the new game. |
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The Destruction 2004 wasn't the first time Ryu's hometown was destroyed by evil forces. They obviously got their inspiration by the fairly unknown Ninja Gaiden for Sega Master System. |
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The Art of the Fire Wheel Christened Invincible Fire Wheel in the old games, no ability of Ryu is common to more episodes than this ninja magic of rotating fire balls. |
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Air Destruction Slash This move was a rather costly special attack in the first NES game simply called Jump & Slash, and now made its comeback as one of Ryu's standard moves. |
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Guillotine Throw This time the developers of the reimagined series got inspired by the original arcade game. It still looks a bit odd, but it sure is effective. |
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Wall Climbing Surprisingly, once again the developers didn't look at the Trilogy for Ryu's abilities, but made this rather a combination of the arcade game on the one hand and Sega's Master System "reprogramming" on the other one. |
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Windmill Shuriken If you keep an eye out for secret passages in Tairon, you can rediscover this familiar weapon. Not quite as effective as it was back in the day, though. |
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Claw Demons Admittedly, this one is just a little bit far fetched, since they weren't demons or fiends in the arcade game, but their fighting behavior is strikingly similar. |
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Ryu's Evil Twin Once again not an obvious adaption. The new Ryu clones can't transform into big monsters like the old one, and the color of their blood suggests that they're fiends. |
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The Demon Statue The key item in the plot of the NES Ninja Gaiden makes its return... but on the Xbox it's just the last of many keys you need to get through the imperial palace. Only in the 360 Ninja Gaiden II, it retrieves its role as host to the sealed power of a mighty demon/fiend. |
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The Demon Itself Not enough, same demon statue also means same demon. While it is more similar to its NES Ninja Gaiden II form with the wings and arms, there are other striking similarities to the NES Ninja Gaiden 1. The Demon is summoned by the Jaquio/the High Priest Dagra Dai, who commands The Malice Four/The Four Greater Fiends. So Genshin would be the only genuinely new villain, and Foster got left out instead. |
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The CIA Chick It's been a while since Ryu had a love interest... I guess he digs US secret agents. Considering all the other parallels between Ninja Gaiden II and the NES Ninja Gaiden, Sonia is probably supposed to be a blond, chest implant post-op, retconned version of Irene. |
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Locations After dropping you in the single connected area of a fictitious realm in the Xbox Ninja Gaiden, for the sequel Tecmo reclaimed the concept of sending Ryu around the world like they did on the NES. To that effect, a few of them somewhat seem like they where included with the classic game in mind. |
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The Ending If you're still not convinced that Ninja Gaiden II retells the story of the first NES game, take a look at this. |
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Spider Cyborgs Even Ninja Gaiden III gets some love with the resurrection of these disgusting abominations. |
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