6. Ninja Gaiden 3
The first two Ninja Gaiden games were some of my favourite games ever; they melded badass action with a high level of difficulty that, while often frustrating, was always fair in how it treated the player. I couldn't wait for the third game, though the fact that Tomonobu Itagaki was not directing it definitely proved a bit worrying, and given the final product, rightly so. As is common of far too many sequels these days, developers are trying to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, and as a result risk alienating their core fanbase, which is precisely what happened with the pared-down Ninja Gaiden 3, a streamlined, all-too-easy effort that just feels empty and inert compared to the previous games. The game is now not only too easy, but the combat has become far too repetitive and dull; in previous games, it felt like a technical fighter, in which you had to concentrate on each fight, given that a relatively generic soldier could end your life if you didn't pay attention. The storytelling is also thoroughly mediocre, appearing to question the violent nature of our protagonist while giving us no choice whether to spare our apparent foes. Does the game want to give us a choice? Then
give us a choice. A failure both narratively and in terms of gameplay, this is one of the worst sequels of all time.