There's Easy, and There's Team Ninja Easy

[Susan Arendt]

There's Easy, and There's Team Ninja Easy

Susan Arendt curses Tomonobu Itagaki and his filthy, filthy lies as she walks the Path of the Acolyte in the "easy" Ninja Gaiden II.

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[Cousin_IT]

Theres a line between making a game easy enough for anyone to acess & making it so dumb that it alienates people who are willing/wanting/capable of putting serious effort into being good at it. It doesnt sound like Ninja Gaiden II crossed that line, & frankly I dont think any game should for the sake of sales alone.

 

[SaintWaldo]

The presence of an "Easy" mode that is actually, you know, _easy_, doesn't necessarily affect the definitions of "Normal" and "Hard". Making a game that can be tuned to the player is neither new, abhorrent, nor overtly greedy. You still get to brag just as hard about completing the game on anything above "Normal", so why complain about anything done to an "Easy" mode?

 

[Mstrswrd]

It is indeed an easier game then Ninja Gaiden. Mostly because your Ninpo energy actually gets recharged occasionaly, and 'cause of the rebounding Health Meter. Still freakin Hard, but yeah, I was able to beat it on Acolyte. Now, I'm torturing myself with Normal difficulty.

 

[ccesarano]

I got this game on launch day, and though I sucked at Ninja Gaiden on normal (never beat it; I'll probably go back and play it on Ninja Dog someday), I decided to try Ninja Gaiden 2 on Path of the Warrior. I got up to Chapter 8 (out of 14), and while I still feel I could've beaten the game on my first playthrough of "Normal" mode, I just got tired of seeing the Game Over screen.

So I restarted the game on Path of the Acolyte, and lemme tell you, if you jump down in difficulty, the game does a fine job of making you feel like less of a man (or less of a gamer, to be more gender friendly). Where once you fought Ninjas there are now a shit ton of bats. Where once you fought a higher-fiend with wings, you now fought one of the easier henchmen that gets its ass kicked easily. Where once you fought a dozen fiends at once, you know fought three or four at a time.

Going from Warrior to Acolyte is a lot like playing Call of Duty 4 on Veteran, or Gears on Insane, or Halo 3 on Legendary, and then jumping down to Normal/Casual/Normal (respectively). Well, actually, not THAT bad, but I have completed 10/14 chapters on Acolyte mode, and I have yet to see a game over screen. Hell, I had so much essence-cash that I was able to purchase all my weapon upgrades halfway through the game and still have plenty left to sit in the bank, whereas on Warrior I was always strapped for cash.

There is one thing Ninja Gaiden 2 has going for it, though: it's still challenging enough to be fun. When I first grabbed Devil May Cry 4, it was the first time I had played a DMC game (sort of: played the first for fifteen minutes). Knowing that the series was supposed to be hard as balls, I started it on Human mode. The game was barely fun enough to keep me playing, and after completion I decided to try Devil Hunter mode with all my gained skills and health from the first play through. NOW I had a challenging and fun, addictive game, but I also can't imagine playing the game without the gained health and abilities that I grabbed from the first playthrough. Ninja Gaiden 2 also allows you to roll your leveled weapons and boosted health to a new game on a harder difficulty, and will probably offer the most pure experience for the game on Warrior, but at least playing through Acolyte isn't going to bore you like Human did with DMC4.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

There is one thing Ninja Gaiden 2 has going for it, though: it's still challenging enough to be fun. When I first grabbed Devil May Cry 4, it was the first time I had played a DMC game (sort of: played the first for fifteen minutes). Knowing that the series was supposed to be hard as balls, I started it on Human mode. The game was barely fun enough to keep me playing, and after completion I decided to try Devil Hunter mode with all my gained skills and health from the first play through. NOW I had a challenging and fun, addictive game, but I also can't imagine playing the game without the gained health and abilities that I grabbed from the first playthrough. Ninja Gaiden 2 also allows you to roll your leveled weapons and boosted health to a new game on a harder difficulty, and will probably offer the most pure experience for the game on Warrior, but at least playing through Acolyte isn't going to bore you like Human did with DMC4.

No, no. You misunderstand the DMC franchise, the entire franchise isn't known for being extremely hard, just DMC3... and trust me... that game will seriously test your skills... and temper.

 

[Mstrswrd]

[

No, no. You misunderstand the DMC franchise, the entire franchise isn't known for being extremely hard, just DMC3... and trust me... that game will seriously test your skills... and temper.

Well, that was because Capcom, for whatever reason, made the Japanese DMC version of Normal our easy mode, there hard our normal, there very hard our hard, and our very hard, they didn't have, apparantly.

 

[ccesarano]

Well, that was because Capcom, for whatever reason, made the Japanese DMC version of Normal our easy mode, there hard our normal, there very hard our hard, and our very hard, they didn't have, apparantly.

Now that's just a complete reversal of how difficulty is handled in localization.

 

[stompy]

Well, that was because Capcom, for whatever reason, made the Japanese DMC version of Normal our easy mode, there hard our normal, there very hard our hard, and our very hard, they didn't have, apparantly.

Now that's just a complete reversal of how difficulty is handled in localization.

Isn't it because the Japanese aren't so great at action games, or have heard the wrong thing?

Anyways, I'll see if I can find Ninja Gaiden in a bargain bin, or borrow it of a friend or something. Sounds interesting...

 

[Susan Arendt]

Isn't it because the Japanese aren't so great at action games, or have heard the wrong thing?

As a rule, the Japanese versions of games are far, far harder than ours, and not just action titles. I played the Japanese version of Lumines for several weeks, then had to review the American version. I figured they'd be identical, but was shocked to discover how much easier the American one was.

The Japanese Normal mode of DMC is our Hard.

 

[Sentox6]

The Japanese Normal mode of DMC is our Hard.

Afaik, there is no difficulty differences between DMC localisations.

In the case of DMC3, the Japanese Hard is the US Normal, and so forth; which is indeed unusual for this genre.

As for DMC4, there is no difference (at least that anyone is aware of).

 

[shadow skill]

The thing about DMC and Ninja Gaiden is that in DMC it's the bossess that are hard not so much the levels themselves. It's the opposite for Ninja Gaiden. Protip Learn to use "on land charge." if you are going to play Ninja Gaiden it is an invaluable trick.