rating:2.5
Anytime someone takes over a franchise that has become a success runs the risk of making the wrong decision, and I can't help but feel that this is the case with Ninja Gaiden 3. Intentions were good for the new development team's vision, but ultimately Ninja Gaiden 3 feels like the highly untrained brother of Ryu Hayabusa. Poor level design, mind numbing repetition, and a D movie story line never succeed in highlighting Ryu's emotional side and newly found conscience, as a reason to strip the game down then never never build it back up. The attempt to incorporate and explore these new themes through gameplay fails thanks to incessant repetition and poor execution.: much of the time you find yourself slowly approaching your prey hearing them speak of your evil or their loved ones. As you inevitably slice them down you feel bad for a moment, but then you realize these people were terrorists and they were just killing innocent people. Instantly you snap out of the ridiculous story and poorly executed attempts at capturing your emotions. Team Ninja often introduces new characters, forgets them, then brings them in when you thought they were gone, the writing is so jumbled, it's all too easy to get confused as to where the story is really going. You find yourself asking whether it will even make sense by the end. Betrayal is an ongoing occurence throughout the story, and somehow it never really surprises you. Ninja Gaiden 3 never succeeds in tying the package together: the story does make sense by the end, but the question of Ryu's morality never really has a point. You're left with more questions than experiential joy. Like why did I fight the same boss 3 times: didn't I already blow it up? The repetition leaks its way over into nearly every aspect of the game, and gameplay is no different. While standard action game fare would be successful with the elements the game uses, Ninja Gaiden 3 uses them
so often that by hour 3 you've pretty much done nearly everything you'll be able to do. Lack of variety and an over-riding simplicity weighs a heavy burden on the gameplay - Ryu wields only a katana the entire 8 hours or so, and the game demands you perform the same attacks repeatedly. Combat has been dumbed down so much that the majority of the time all you need to do is attack on repeat, Ultimate Techinque, Ninpo, and the area is cleared with a full health boost. Taking on a group of 10 enemies no longer brings fear of survival, only a severe case of deja vu.
You will find yourself slicing your sword through the same NPCs, repeating boss fights, enemy types, combat, and even the same gameplay mechanics. At the start of nearly every level, you find Ryu diving out of an aircraft of high point, gliding in stylishly, and slicing into an opponent with a QTE, and indeed many of the game's most memorable times can be found in the QTE's. It's a criminal shame that you never truly feel in control at some of the greatest and exciting moments. Frequently, you feel as though you're fighting mindless cloned drones, which severely hurts a game trying to bring more humanity and emotion to the story by adding these ideas to NPC's as well. It never makes sense that Ryu is supposed to be questioning whether he's a murderer or not when the game never really gives you a clear sense that there are any real consequences for wielding his sword. The curse that falls upon Ryu is what the developers attempt to use as a sign of the consequences. Slowly hatred from every soul Ryu has cut down is slowly infecting him, spreading through his arm, as it slowly begins to rot from the inside. Team-Ninja uses this as a reminder of the morality issues they are trying to forefront, but it is implemented poorly into combat sequences. In all honesty, it only succeeds in raising your blood pressure for the wrong reasons. Clinging desperately to his arm, Ryu's infection slows you down to a crawl as the camera tightens and blurs with each heart beat, but what is intended as an intense experience for players, ultimately fails as it shakes you so far out of the combat you forget you're supposed to be questioning if Ryu is truly a murderer.
This inconsistency only fixated me on how hard it was to kill the enemy, rarely remembering that Ryu's pain is the result of exactly that which I was mad I couldn't do: annihilate them. I concede that it makes sense to affect the player in-game because it will add to the level of immersion, but why does it stop affecting him after he's murdered
more people? It feels as though there could have been a variety of ways to implement this concept outside of combat and that this was a missed opportunity for better presentation. Anything to avoid repeating QTE's and exhausting the few game mechanics that were working for the game. Characters will often scream or beg for their lives, yet when the audio clips seem to be taken from a very limited stock-pile, it hardly inspires any real empathy. On the other hand, combat sound effects are great -relentlessly slicing across the screen, the sounds of your katana radiate brutality with each pass of your sword through flesh and bone - but then people speak and the voice acting only begs you to laugh. The dialogue is easily some of the worst to be heard in recent video games, and it's very hard to take the game seriously.
Tacked on to the single player campaign is a bare bones multiplayer mode: the idea of being able to customize and level up your ninja sounds exciting until you're actually ready to. Only a small range of options such as eye color, symbol, outfit color, and armor pieces are available, and with nothing truly new being added in the multiplayer it barely scratches by. Presenting you with modes of play such as team clan battles, and free for all matches, it serves as a nice distraction for a while, but you may rarely find yourself playing online again after a short run climbing up the ranks. Any traces of drama or tension fail to connect themselves to the player, and Ninja Gaiden 3 ultimately fails at trying to bring a new level of emotion and morality to the story. Gameplay is severely dumbed down, dragging enemy A.I. along with it. Repetition litters itself across every aspect of the title, creating gameplay that never presents you with anything that will leave you challenged, or captivated. While many problems plague the latest installment, there are moments when you'll find yourself saying, "Hey this is actually fun". Then another part of the game sneaks up, repeating itself over again until you realize you were drastically mistaken. Whether Team-Ninja likes it or not, a standard has come into place, and Ninja Gaiden 3 never feels like a true sequel. Coming together as a linear repetitive reboot, if you're curious a rental should do just fine. I just can't help but feel Ninja Gaiden 3 is a huge step backwards for the series.
Ninja Gaiden 3 is out in the US now, and in Europe on Friday for
XBox 360 and
PS3.