Published by: Tecmo
Developed by: Team Ninja
Score: 80

Back in 2004 I salivated over a game called Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox. The high paced action and penchant for bad ass looking combos (comparable to Devil May Cry sans the “cool” or “devilish”) truly made it a game worth coming back to again and again. With expansion packs, trying to see every nook and cranny and find even better, faster way to kill enemies made Ninja Gaiden inseparable from my Xbox. After a slew of re-releases in the form of Black and Sigma, we now finally have a new Ninja Gaiden game from the Itagaki era, Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword for the Nintendo DS.

The game feels like Ninja Gaiden and at times you do forget it’s a DS game. The whole “feel” is the same. You have similar music, bosses, enemies, and overall movements as the console version. In fact I guess you could say that Dragon Sword is the little brother of NG and sure, he tries to do everything his older brother can do, and can sometimes do it, though not as well. It’s still not all the same obviously. However, if you played NG on any of the consoles, then you’ll instantly feel at home, and I guess that’s how I see this game and it’s the backbone of this review.

Dragon Sword takes place after Ninja Gaiden. Ryu is training in the woods again and has Kureha’s sister, Momiji, along with him. Some fiends kidnap Momiji and attack the village, and of course Ryu has to go get Momiji and look badass while doing it. This time around, you actually meet some of the villagers, emphasis on some. There are 4 kids, an old mentor/master guy, some “maiden”, and Muramasa (a merchant). Did I mention Momiji? I did? Oh, and you also have two sister greater fiends which dress very scantily, yet are still demons with weird features, like green skin or wings. If you found yourself even slightly aroused by Alma from the console game, then things are only going to get worse and confuse you even more this time around. But anyway, back to the story. So Ryu has to get Momiji who, like her sister, protects the shrine and for some reason holds back on making Ryu’s sword really fucking powerful until the last 2 levels of the game. Thank you ladies. And that’s how the game progresses. Don’t expect any twists or turns or Rachel, it’s pretty much just an aside until Bloody Orgy 2…I mean Ninja Gaiden 2 show up.

I can’t think of any game that has used the DS’ touching in such a way. Of course there have been games where you move stuff around or blow in the microphone, but to actually have the combat and movement solely dependent upon it, is something not only new, but risky as well. But I can safely say that the risk has paid off because the result is a fairly intuitive and tightly controlled game. Using the stylus, and holding down on a point in the screen moves Ryu towards that point, jumping is a simple movement of the stylus up the screen on any area. Slashing vertically or horizontally on enemy makes Ryu swing the Dragon Sword in a similar fashion. And for the most part, that’s the gist of the controls. Some of the moves from the console game make a return such as the izuna drop and flying swallow, but not many can come in. This is the point where using Dragon Sword’s control scheme starts to have its limitations. For this type of scheme, you’re going to need a lot, and I mean A LOT, of room for error, and adding in a variety of moves that may only have minor differences from totally different moves begins to take a toll on the player especially when you enemies have filled up the screens, many with the ability to counterattack if you mess up. And it’s sometimes an issue when you’re trying to jump and you simply just move or slash an enemy across a room. I can’t knock it a whole lot for this because it’s not Team Ninja’s fault, it’s just the way things are. When you’re using a platform that uses a touch screen half the size of your palm, not everything can be as razor sharp like a console controller. Overall I would say it’s a successful control setup. Team Ninja kept the basics there and threw in some key moves for particular situations. Is there a flying enemy? Then use the flying swallow. It’s simple, but it works so well, that I’m willing to look past any flaws.

Ninpo is back again with 7 different spells you can find and use. They’re still as powerful as the console version and still require red essence that is the least found essence in the game, with blue (health) and yellow (money, sort of) being the more common versions. Rather then just simply hitting the icon on the DS’ screen, you also must draw the outline of the spell’s corresponding symbol in order to get the attack to go. Not really new, Castlevania for the DS did the same thing. Is there any point to it? Nope, just there for kicks. However, the spells do require you to guide the spells towards the enemies. For example, if you summon a fireball, you’ll drag the actual fireball around the screen into enemies or barriers. It’s actually quite useful especially if you’re trying to get a high combo, you can target closer enemies and then charge up an ultimate technique by rubbing the screen back and forth on Ryu. Ultimate techniques are back and are more commonly used, to me at least, this time. Since getting the technique to charge is so easy and with essence being all over the damn place, you can easily charge it up to the highest level and kill all the enemies in a room, have them respawn, and then kill them again using the essence from the first batch. The first few levels can in theory be dominated by ultimate techniques, but in the later levels, enemies become faster and more aggressive making it harder to do so unless there is a shitload of essence around.

Sadly, the Dragon Sword is the only weapon available. I was a little butt hurt at realizing I wouldn’t get access to a battle ax or dabilharo. And for your projectiles, you’re also fairly limited. You start out with the standard shuriken and then get the bow and arrow back. Eventually, the village children present you with macaroni art of a cat…oh and they also give you an explosive arrow set. There isn’t an ammo counter for these arrows, so basically, go nuts once you get it because apparently Ryu’s invisible carry all is chock full of them. To use the projectiles simply requires tapping an enemy. I thought this was the best way to go especially during heavy fighting. It didn’t interfere with normal slashing and settled alongside normal combos very smoothly.

To use the DS seems to have required a different approach to how the game would be played. In a nutshell, each place is a “room,” where you’ll either fight a bunch of enemies, or you’ll solve a “puzzle.” There are areas that act as bridges between areas or as save rooms/points, but there aren’t a whole lot of those. I think that Dragon Sword has to go this route because the DS can’t keep track of enemies in another room and you don’t want to constantly walk out of a room or do something you didn’t want to. This leads to the linear gameplay that doesn’t have real exploration. Once in a while you’ll see a breakable box, but those are far in between and really don’t add much. There are these annoying bat like demons that will be present in the room that require you to blow into the microphone to get them to appear if you hear their mocking laughter. Killing them gets you a wooden amulet which does practically does nothing. No powerups, no weapons, nothing. You do get some pointless diary entries and character bios, but really, it seems pointless to even look for them. I mean really, it’s literally not worth the air you’ll be blowing into the DS.

For those of you who whined and moaned about the difficulty of Ninja Gaiden: good news. Team Ninja caved in and listened to your blue faced bitching. The game is easy. Not Paris Hilton easy, but more like a Lindsey Lohan easy. It may require some work, but it’s a cakewalk for the most part. Enemies will usually be in clusters of 3 with a backup in the form of a mummy archer or floating eye thing in the mix here and there. Combos will rack up quickly if you can evade and strike back at another enemy. They don’t do a whole lot on the defensive side and really just prefer sticking claws and diving into you more than anything else. Bosses are even easier, aside from maybe the last 2 boss fights, including the final fight, all of them are a breeze. One of the biggest problems with the game stems from this lack of a challenge, of course there are the higher difficulties, but you really hope for a challenge the first go through so that it can at least give you a greater sense of accomplishment. But the real big problem of the game? It’s short. You could probably do it in 1 sitting if you had nothing better to do. I beat the game in under 6 hours with a few fiend challenges finished, so the main game could probably be finished in about 5 hours at an average pace. It’s a fast paced game that offers a lot of action and as a personal preference, I’ll always take a short exciting game over a game that goes for 40 hours and slows down at various points (I’m looking at you JRPGs).

DS looks and sounds great. There are complex areas filled with animation all over the damn place, but the game doesn’t lose any of its speed and still keeps on chugging along. Of course there are limits, for example you’ll notice that essence sort of hangs around and take a little time to get collected, but really I’m just nitpicking. The soundtrack is almost exactly like the console soundtrack. The same piano music accompanies you as you explore the ice caves as well as the rhythm heavy underground/sewer music. Though there isn’t anything wrong with this, they probably could’ve tried to get some new music in there. Of course this is loads better than shitty synthetic/industrial music that dominates most action DS games. However, the sound effects are pretty cool. You’ll hear Ryu screaming out chants as Ninpo is summoned, there’s a variety of slashing sounds, and really just a lot of depth to the sounds that are heard. Truly, I’m surprised that the DS was able to maintain most of the audible atmosphere that the console version gave.

For whatever reason I’ve never been a fan of the whole touch generation games of the DS or really anything that involved me doing something other than moving my thumbs, but I am a fan of Ninja Gaiden. So Team Ninja decided to make a game for a platform that has dominated Japan over any other video game system in the past few years. Dragon Sword is a mixture of the DS’ style of use and Ninja Gaiden’s signature high speed action and the end result is a gamble that has paid off. With the easy to use controls and design, the game can instantly be picked up by any gamer yet maintain face when it comes to that ever picky “hardcore” gamer. If you have a DS you really should give it a shot.