Summary
- Ninja Gaiden 3 has always been the low-point of the series and a game I’ve not looked forward to revisiting.
- Time and Razor’s Edge have been kind to it, though, and I found myself enjoying the bits that are actually Ninja Gaiden.
- If you can ignore the story and get over the quick-time events, it’s basically just a trimmed burst of Ninja Gaiden 2 that even has some improvements.
I’ve mostly had a great time with my recent self-assigned mission to replay the Ninja Gaiden trilogy in the wake of the fourth game’s long-awaited reveal. Ninja Gaiden 2 is one of my all-time favourite character action games and one that I don’t need an excuse to dive back into, while revisiting Ninja Gaiden Black after a few years finally made me appreciate it more and understand why some prefer it over the bombastic sequel.
As great as it’s been to revisit two icons of a bygone genre that’s primed to make a comeback now Ryu has awoken from hibernation, there’s been one massive part of the journey that I was dreading. Both Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden 2 are tough as nails, but their challenges seemed like a breeze compared to the thought of going back to the game that jumped the shark and quick-time-evented itself into a coma – Ninja Gaiden 3.
Related
After Ninja Gaiden 2, We Need A Remake Of Ninja Gaiden Black
Ninja Gaiden Black still holds up, but it could benefit greatly from some small tweaks and a fresh new look.
I’m a Dead Rising fan who has had the misfortune of suffering through Dead Rising 4 multiple times, so believe me when I say I’m used to franchises with one game no one likes to talk about. Yaiba is the worst thing to come out of Ninja Gaiden (and something I’m not touching with a ten-foot pole, sorry), but the third entry misunderstood the series so much — and didn’t have the excuse of being a spin-off — that it’s a much bigger disappointment.
Ninja Gaiden 3 Missed The Mark In Two Key Ways
The list of problems with Ninja Gaiden 3 is incredibly long but its two cardinal sins are the focus on storytelling and messing with the series’ formula to try and make it more cinematic. As I noted in my Ninja Gaiden 2 Black review, the series has never been known for having a compelling story, but that clearly wasn’t the focus.
That excuse can’t be used for Ninja Gaiden 3, which tries to both humanise Ryu as a father figure and make you question his morality, despite him clearly being a hero in other games. I love the idea of Ryu having more personality, but it’s handled poorly in Ninja Gaiden 3 and just makes our favourite ninja feel less defined.
It’s pretty hard to take Ninja Gaiden 3 seriously when we already know that Ryu is trying to do good, even if his methods are a little messy.
This results in an incredibly messy plot that’s impossible to ignore. This attempt to make Ninja Gaiden more legitimate and appealing to a Western audience also impacts the gameplay, which is stuffed with quick-time events and scenarios that are supposed to be epic but feel uncharacteristically simple when control is ripped away from the player.
A lot of this was changed for the Razor’s Edge re-release of Ninja Gaiden 3, but my visceral feelings from playing the original version spring to mind when the game is mentioned. Those feelings might have been a little too harsh, though, as replaying the game through the Master Collection wasn’t anywhere as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, if you can get over the story and constant interruptions, there’s a lot to love.
Razor’s Edge Does Wonders For Ryu’s Third Outing
The main thing that changed my mind about Ninja Gaiden 3, if only a little bit, was replaying it through Razor’s Edge on the hard difficulty. Not only does the improved re-release add in a bunch of the weapons and features missing from the base game (including my beloved, the Falcon’s Talons), but playing on a higher difficulty essentially makes it more akin to Ninja Gaiden 2.
It’s unbelievable that Team Ninja ever released Ninja Gaiden 3 with just one weapon, but that was exactly the case until Razor’s Edge.
On the base difficulty, it’s easy to completely zone out and obliterate your enemies unlike any other game in the series, but by turning things up a notch, you’re forced to engage with its new combat mechanics. One such mechanic is steel-on-bone, which is essentially a counter for heavy attacks that can be chained to insta-kill enemies.
In the vanilla version of Ninja Gaiden 3, this move is incredibly overpowered and boring to watch considering you only have the one weapon to use it with, but it becomes a life-saver in Razor’s Edge and a great new tool in Ryu’s arsenal. It feels like a natural evolution of the returning execution mechanic from Ninja Gaiden 2 that’s just as satisfying and important to master. Outside of that, combat is basically the same gory goodness as in Ninja Gaiden 2, which is never a bad thing.
NG3 Is Still The Weakest Ninja Gaiden, But It’s Better Than I Remember
I love the new upgrade system being based on karma and think Ninpo being rechargeable instead of based on resources is the perfect evolution of the mechanic, but health items being removed is frustrating on higher difficulties. Ninpo does heal you if you use it right and I get the idea of adding a bit more tension as a bar recharges, but it just ends up being annoying.
At certain points, Ninja Gaiden 3 can actually feel harder than Ninja Gaiden 2 thanks to the lack of health items. On higher difficulties, it’s definitely a worthy challenge.
Overall, the improvements (or rather, reintroduction of removed mechanics that should have been there in the first place) that Razor’s Edge makes to Ninja Gaiden 3 make it a marked improvement over the original that’s closer to the other two games, but it doesn’t fix every problem.
The story is still absolute pants that tries too hard and falls on its face without any sense of direction, and the quick-time events feel like the antithesis of how the series made a name for itself – challenging action that’s completely in the hands of players. Those issues could never be fixed with Razor’s Edge or any update and keep Ninja Gaiden 3 as the weakest in the trilogy.
Even with that in mind, if you can get over the story or skip all of the cutscenes, accept the quick-time events, and make peace with the strange attempts to add more cinematic flair, Ninja Gaiden 3’s strengths still make it worthwhile. The worst Ninja Gaiden is still Ninja Gaiden, after all. If nothing else, I hope Team Ninja went back to it and took the best parts for Ninja Gaiden 4.
Next
I Wish I Cared More About MultiVersus Going Offline Again
MultiVersus was once my favourite live-service game, but its demise was simply inevitable.