Aden
Beep Boop Meow
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I apparently had too much time on my hands this morning and wrote this in the Nioh thread but figured I'd copy paste it here since it's more relevant to general discussion and was curious if anyone had any responses to it, which would be more likely to happen here given how dead that thread is, assuming anyone reads my nonsense.
For anyone unfamiliar the modern Ninja Gaiden games pretty much started on the original Xbox, Ninja Gaiden was released in 2004, a massively improved rerelease was put out in 2005 also for the original Xbox and has remained exclusive to that to this day, which is honestly pretty indicative of how this story goes.
Ninja Gaiden Black, largely considered by the Ninja Gaiden community as the best game in the series (or even the only one worth playing, depending on who you ask), is only available physically on Xbox and then digitally as well as playable through backwards compatibility on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. There was another rerelease of Ninja Gaiden called Ninja Gaiden Sigma for PS3, this game is usually considered inferior as it removed some content, made the game quite a bit easier and the new gameplay content was lackluster at best which really hurt since it was forced on you. Friendly reminder that original Xbox remains unemulatable, as does 360 as far as I'm aware and while PS3 is technically emulatable it requires quite a machine and none of the Ninja Gaiden games are particularly playable on it at best.
Ninja Gaiden 2 released for the 360 is really a mixed bag of a sequel, it has my favorite weapon additions of the series and some great bosses and levels but also has a lot of problems going on (like the fucking water combat and that stupid god damn boss as well as the game honestly being flat out unfair in design terms in the name of difficulty), and while it's rejected by NGB purists it also gets to be "the last game in the series worth playing" by most of the Ninja Gaiden community. It also had a PS3 rerelease as Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 which is much easier, censored to a laughable degree, has absolutely awful new bosses, removes the fucking water combat and offers some new content in the form of new playable characters. I want to talk about for a second how fucking baffling this port is though, even ignoring the censorship, because in a high paced action game they decided to focus on visuals over actual performance, raising the resolution of the game and making it look much better while removing anything that would lower the framerate such as effects or much more harmful to the game; enemies. They removed all the game's large scale encounters instead of fighting hordes of enemies you now fight a few more damaging/damage sponge enemies which alters the games balance quite a bit as well as changes the experience.
Ninja Gaiden 3 was a clusterfuck no one wants to talk about, remembering that game exists now I really want to go read about why they even did what they did. Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge was a rerelease of the game for the Wii-U (for some reason) where they actually made it a Ninja Gaiden game again, though the game is still not well received by most Ninja Gaiden fans. It was later ported to PS3 and 360. (My personal opinion on the game is barely existent, I had a miserable time plaything through the half I did play but I aim to give it another shot)
Long story short
Ninja Gaiden - The most liked one
Ninja Gaiden 2 - The follow up that is debatable in quality (I personally like it more than Black other than some standout issues)
Ninja Gaiden 3 - Eugh.
Ninja Gaiden Black, largely considered by the Ninja Gaiden community as the best game in the series (or even the only one worth playing, depending on who you ask), is only available physically on Xbox and then digitally as well as playable through backwards compatibility on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. There was another rerelease of Ninja Gaiden called Ninja Gaiden Sigma for PS3, this game is usually considered inferior as it removed some content, made the game quite a bit easier and the new gameplay content was lackluster at best which really hurt since it was forced on you. Friendly reminder that original Xbox remains unemulatable, as does 360 as far as I'm aware and while PS3 is technically emulatable it requires quite a machine and none of the Ninja Gaiden games are particularly playable on it at best.
Ninja Gaiden 2 released for the 360 is really a mixed bag of a sequel, it has my favorite weapon additions of the series and some great bosses and levels but also has a lot of problems going on (like the fucking water combat and that stupid god damn boss as well as the game honestly being flat out unfair in design terms in the name of difficulty), and while it's rejected by NGB purists it also gets to be "the last game in the series worth playing" by most of the Ninja Gaiden community. It also had a PS3 rerelease as Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 which is much easier, censored to a laughable degree, has absolutely awful new bosses, removes the fucking water combat and offers some new content in the form of new playable characters. I want to talk about for a second how fucking baffling this port is though, even ignoring the censorship, because in a high paced action game they decided to focus on visuals over actual performance, raising the resolution of the game and making it look much better while removing anything that would lower the framerate such as effects or much more harmful to the game; enemies. They removed all the game's large scale encounters instead of fighting hordes of enemies you now fight a few more damaging/damage sponge enemies which alters the games balance quite a bit as well as changes the experience.
Ninja Gaiden 3 was a clusterfuck no one wants to talk about, remembering that game exists now I really want to go read about why they even did what they did. Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge was a rerelease of the game for the Wii-U (for some reason) where they actually made it a Ninja Gaiden game again, though the game is still not well received by most Ninja Gaiden fans. It was later ported to PS3 and 360. (My personal opinion on the game is barely existent, I had a miserable time plaything through the half I did play but I aim to give it another shot)
Long story short
Ninja Gaiden - The most liked one
- Best version: Black, only playable on Xbox consoles through backwards comparability or your original Xbox copy
- Lesser version: Sigma, on Playstation 3
- I forgot these existed and had to come back to add these version: Sigma Plus, released on the Vita PS3 version with small additions and a 30fps cap that it struggles to meet at times
- Not emulatable in any form
Ninja Gaiden 2 - The follow up that is debatable in quality (I personally like it more than Black other than some standout issues)
- Best version: Original, only playable on Xbox 360. Is not playable on Xbox One.
- Fuck off version: Sigma 2, available on PS3
- Seriously fuck off, holy shit version: Vita, has everything wrong with the PS3 version (except they added gore back) but with the added bonus of a 30fps cap that you'll almost never see since the game is barely able to maintain double digit FPS
- Not emulatable in any form, not available on anything other than the systems it was directly released on (360, PS3, Vita)
Ninja Gaiden 3 - Eugh.
- Best version: Razor's Edge, Wii-U/PS3/360
- What the fuck happened version: Original, PS3/360
- Not emulatable in any form
Now, why is this important? Simple; access to a great series of games is extremely limited and completely finite. All of these games, regardless of release quality are only available on systems a gen old or on the Vita (which I don't think I need to explain the issue with, and I love my Vita) with the sole exception of one (albeit what is probably considered the best one by the people who care about the series, which is only available on the Xbox One). I don't buy into console war shit, which includes the "PC master race" thing, but this is a big part of why releasing games on PC is important. I have a 360, it's at least my second one because that system dies at an absurdly high rate (Red Ring anyone?) for a game console. I also have a PS3 which is also not my first one because they also have a decent death rate. Sure, 360s and PS3s are cheap right now but manufacture of them will stop and they only last so many years. While I replaced both those consoles at the time they were relevant, I certainly can't justify the price of replacing them now if they were to die, especially for the 360 which doesn't have a whole lot of exclusives in its library to justify such a purchase, not to mention the expenses of replacing peripherals or the fact that there is a subscription fee to access some game features.
This is true for many games and game series at this point, but since we're talking about Ninja Gaiden it boils down to this, the only way to actually play the series is on an Xbox 360 and even then it may be up to personal preference if you're getting the best version of NG 2. What started out as me lazily going "I want to play NG but I don't want to go set up X console" became a reminder of what utter bullshit the whole exclusives system is and the fact that many of the best games of last gen and certainly anything exclusive to the original Xbox is capable of actually being lost. Sure, Xbox One started rolling out Xbox backwards compatibility but hey Jet Set Radio Future isn't there, Phantom Crash isn't there, Otogi and Otogi 2 weren't playable on 360 and aren't on Xbox One, I'm sure you can come up with many other examples of actually good games that aren't coming back if you actually owned an Xbox. I'm still completely shocked we were so lucky to see Phantom Dust actually get a remaster for Xbox One and PC, and it was actually free for some reason.
And yes, I understand why games that are made by the console manufacturer are exclusive and that that isn't likely to change for the most part, but what is surprising is that exclusives as an idea has changed to a large degree this gen with Microsoft who are releasing almost all Xbox One exclusives on Windows (though some unfortunately locked to their garbage store) and even Sony to a degree who are much more open to the idea of third party exclusives ending up on PC than before (Nioh, Street Fighter, Helldivers, SG2E content, etc.). The main holdout on the issue is obviously Nintendo, who is honestly much less harmful in this context since for the most part they either don't have third party exclusives, the ones they do are more likely to actually be made in a way that uses the system its on in a way that may be hard to translate (The World Ends With You, Etrian Odyssey, The Wonderful 101 to a small degree, etc.) or honestly offer some sort of reason to buy their hardware since they do something other than just being a worse computer (Dual screens, Handlheld/console hybrid, etc.) and while I could then bitch about availability of some things they do get to hold hostage like Fatal Frame (Hey, the best version of Fatal Frame 2 is Xbox exclusive and backwards compatible to 360 but not Xbox One), that's an entirely different discussion.
This is true for many games and game series at this point, but since we're talking about Ninja Gaiden it boils down to this, the only way to actually play the series is on an Xbox 360 and even then it may be up to personal preference if you're getting the best version of NG 2. What started out as me lazily going "I want to play NG but I don't want to go set up X console" became a reminder of what utter bullshit the whole exclusives system is and the fact that many of the best games of last gen and certainly anything exclusive to the original Xbox is capable of actually being lost. Sure, Xbox One started rolling out Xbox backwards compatibility but hey Jet Set Radio Future isn't there, Phantom Crash isn't there, Otogi and Otogi 2 weren't playable on 360 and aren't on Xbox One, I'm sure you can come up with many other examples of actually good games that aren't coming back if you actually owned an Xbox. I'm still completely shocked we were so lucky to see Phantom Dust actually get a remaster for Xbox One and PC, and it was actually free for some reason.
And yes, I understand why games that are made by the console manufacturer are exclusive and that that isn't likely to change for the most part, but what is surprising is that exclusives as an idea has changed to a large degree this gen with Microsoft who are releasing almost all Xbox One exclusives on Windows (though some unfortunately locked to their garbage store) and even Sony to a degree who are much more open to the idea of third party exclusives ending up on PC than before (Nioh, Street Fighter, Helldivers, SG2E content, etc.). The main holdout on the issue is obviously Nintendo, who is honestly much less harmful in this context since for the most part they either don't have third party exclusives, the ones they do are more likely to actually be made in a way that uses the system its on in a way that may be hard to translate (The World Ends With You, Etrian Odyssey, The Wonderful 101 to a small degree, etc.) or honestly offer some sort of reason to buy their hardware since they do something other than just being a worse computer (Dual screens, Handlheld/console hybrid, etc.) and while I could then bitch about availability of some things they do get to hold hostage like Fatal Frame (Hey, the best version of Fatal Frame 2 is Xbox exclusive and backwards compatible to 360 but not Xbox One), that's an entirely different discussion.
