Fate of Fantasy

With the release of ‘Ninja Gaiden 3′ we finally got a look at what Team Ninja is going to be like with out Tomonobu Itagaki behind the wheel and so far I’m very divided…

Let’s start with Ninja Gaiden 3, this game has been getting Really harped on by critics, and I can kind of see why, this doesn’t feel like a Ninja Gaiden game it feels more like a Dynasty Warriors game. We have lost the insane difficulty which has been a staple in the franchise, the story is even weaker then before, the dialog is terrible, the graphics are a bit lack lust and the gameplay… Ugh the gameplay, while at first I didn’t mind the mindless button mashing it grew very boring very quickly and the ‘quick time events’, please kill me now these have NEVER been a good gameplay element and Ninja Gaiden 3 WAY over uses them, they show up in the middle of combat for crying out loud.
Maybe had this game come out under a different name it might not have gotten as much heat but there are certain expectations put on the Ninja Gaiden name and Ninja Gaiden 3 falls very far and very flat, But is not an awful game, it is still fun and worth at least a rental or a $45 purchase.

Now onto the other glimpse we got thanks to Ninja Gaiden 3, bundled with each copy of the game was access to a early Alpha demo of ‘Dead or Alive 5′. When I said I was divided on the New Team Ninja this is why. What we get to see in this demo has me more then excited for the release of Dead or Alive 5.
First off the graphics are stunning, the DoA girls (at least Ayane and Hitomi so far) look realistic, gone is the comic book insanely large boobs style that DoA had been known for (Fans of that style should not worry it looks like that torch has been passed on to Soul Calibur).
The environment we got to see was very cool the way the level changes and how it interacts with you reminds me a lot of what Super Smash Bros has done but on a much more intense, closer and personal scale.
The controls seems to be a lot more fluid then pervious DoAs, but still keeps the simplicity that the series in know for.

My verdict so far for Team Ninja: Version 2, On the Ninja Gaiden front a great deal of work needs to be done, Go back to what made Ninja Gaiden so bad ass cool and lets not try to force the fans into something new and aimed at a wider audience, Ninja Gaiden IS for a niche market and a large one at that, don’t forget the fans who kept this series alive, Go back to what Itagaki did with the last two games.
And for Dead or Alive 5, OH MY GOD KEEP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING! To me as a fan of the series, it looks like DoA is finally in the hands of someone who truly cares about it and wants to make it something more then just a T&A game, DoA has always had a very awesome universe and story but it was always overlooked because of the character designs, We now have someone in charge who seems to want to move pass that. Here is hoping that the Story that will be wrapped around DoA5 will be just as Solid and Amazing as the graphics we are seeing in the Alpha demo.

Rented Street Fighter x Tekken the other night. If you have ever played Any of the versions of Street Fighter 4 then you have a basic idea of what your about to get yourself into, since the game for the most part IS Street Fighter 4 with a good selection of Tekken characters tossed in.

I put in about 5 hours into the game last night, most of that playing in arcade mode, which continued to show why I have a love/hate relationship ship with Capcom fighters, I was doing fine progressing well then I hit that final boss and 10+ pissing me off losses later I FINALLY beat him, I don’t understand why Capcom makes it so the final boss is always 10x harder then any of the pervious matches, why not have it gradually get harder?

As I stated this game is pretty much just Street Fighter 4, so the game looks and feels the same as the last 3 versions. The game did add 2 new features to the game with the Gem System and Pandora Mode, while I didn’t get around to playing with Pandora mode as that much, I did get to use the Gem system a bit and did find that for someone like me who isn’t the greatest with fighters it actually helped me out a lot. The gem system provides stat boosts depending on the gem you have equipped, you don’t get these boosts until they are activated which is when certain conditions happen during the fight (e.g You get 10% more attack power when you when you block 5 attacks.) What I really liked were the Assist gems, which don’t require anything to activate them but make it ALOT easier to pull off special moves.

In this day and age most games now have a major focus on Online play, but for me I tend to avoid this mainly because even thou I love to play fighting, I really suck at them. I tried my hand at about 5 online battles and had my ass handed to me within secs… Not fun at all. In fact that would have to be my biggest issue with this game (and most online fighting games) is that there is no real area for the inexperienced and just plain bad at fighters to go to play online.

Overall Street Fighter X Tekken is a pretty solid fighter but brings very little to the table. The game could have just been called Super Street Fighter 4: Tekken Edition. I can’t say I was surprised with the few changes that were made this is Capcom after all and it is the Street Fighter franchise, very little changes between versions in a generation. I look forward to seeing what Namco will do when they release Tekken X Street Fighter.

– 8 out of 10 –