Ninja Dog Days and Master Ninja Nights

After ruining the thumb joints of another generation of gamers, Team Ninja is back with a new iteration of what may be the ultimate Xbox® action game in the form of Ninja Gaiden® Black. For a little under thirty bucks, you get the entire original game, with expanded options—notably the normal-mode arrival of Lunar (the staff weapon from the first Hurricane Pack), an enhanced take on the Hurricane third-person camera, and an easy-ish "Ninja Dog" mode. And that's just the beginning of the ninja goodness that series creator Tomonobu Itagaki and Team Ninja have in store for ninja noobs and veterans alike. Ninja Gaiden Black is one of the most refined, challenging, fun, rewarding, graphically beautiful, and downright spectacular titles the Xbox has seen.

Tonight on "Fiends": Rachel slays the coffee shop.

Extremes of Difficulty

• Ninja Dog mode: Unlocking Ninja Dog mode couldn't be easier, or more emasculating. How to do it? Easy. Die three times in the first level, and when Ayane shows up to basically tell you you're a weakling who must be coddled like some kind of toddling child, say "Yes." Now those little darts she keeps tossing your way will include health power-ups and some equipment that makes Ryu a stronger warrior a lot more quickly, even at the first level.

o Obligatory NG Veteran Non-Rant: Yeah, one of the things that made beating the original (and the Hurricane content) so rewarding was the fact that this game was hard. There was no easy. There was no try, just to mix up the intellectual properties even further. But you know what? As much as I love this game and as proud as I am of finishing it "in the day," I can see why some folks didn't try it. Heck, after the first day, I was ready to take it back and insist the Murai battle (the first one) had broken the game. Then, that first breakthrough happened. Then another, and another, until I was up until four a.m., determined I Would Not Sleep Until Alma Was Dead. To object to the "easy" mode (and in typical Team Ninja fashion, it's still not that easy, especially for a complete newcomer) is to miss why Ninja Dog mode is there. It's for hooking the uninitiated, and the developers found ways to make things easier for Ryu (with power-ups) while keeping the enemies at around or the same difficulty level.

• Very Hard Mode: The punishing reward (this is a reward, this kind of pain?) is unlocked by beating Hard mode or if you have a beaten save of Hurricane Pack 2 handy already on your Xbox. And yet, compared to Master Ninja mode, it's a cakewalk. If the cake exploded, stabbed you, and tried to consume your head, neck, and shoulders every time you turned around. You must defeat Very Hard mode, no simple feat in itself, to unlock the one, the only, the nigh-on-unbeatable-save-divine-intervention ...
• Master Ninja Mode: Hell unleashed. The most difficult action game ever made. The biggest Xbox challenge of your life. Merciless enemies that never miss. First-level foes that will chop off your limbs and put them back in the wrong places, then take your lunch money and feed you a curb. If you beat this, you've done something that very few humans, perhaps even very few actual flesh and blood ninjas, could accomplish, and as far as I'm concerned is probably cold, hard evidence that you are "The One." Nothing else could explain it.

You no longer have any excuse
not to try one of the great Xbox games.

New-School Ninjas

• Mission Mode: Now this is the meat of the game. There are ten missions—broken into parts—that offer dedicated ninjas the chance to best some of the toughest bosses in the game in completely different environments. Each sub-chapter is essentially a whole new boss battle or karma challenge that will separate the wheat from the shinobi. This isn't a contest for the casual Ninja Gaiden player—you'll need to get through the game on Hard or better to unlock it, and to unlock Hard you'll have to finish the game on Ninja Dog or Normal. If you're an NG player from way back, however, odds are you still have a completed save of your first play through, which NGB can read and use to unlock Mission Mode for you. Little something for the dedicated ninjas out there.
• New foes from the Hurricane Packs: Hurricane vets, looking for your cat people? Miss those big ogres with the triceratops skulls on their heads? These and other new (or upgraded) enemies show up on the higher difficulty levels, and they're all over the Mission Mode, showing up where you might least expect them.
• Lunar: The Lunar staff was introduced in Hurricane pack 1, and was one of the best innovations in the Hurricane-powered original Ninja Gaiden. Now it pops up in the single-player game in normal mode, and can really save your bacon with its sweet reach and mighty Ultimate Technique, a cyclone of raw power. It's also a stellar way to rack up hits during combos.
• Smoke bombs: These handy grenades pop up early in the game—they won't damage anything, but they'll blind all nearby enemies when they go off. When you become surrounded, they're just the thing to give you a quick opening to unlock some combo-licious whuppin'.
• New armlets: Try the Armlet of Celerity, for example, a new piece of equipment that cuts down drastically on the time it takes to charge up an Ultimate Technique. It's great for tough fights where combos alone won't do the trick and you need to cut loose. You'll earn it at 25 scarabs from the shopkeeper.
• Ninja Gaiden Arcade: The original Xbox Ninja Gaiden had unlockable takes on earlier console versions of the series. NGB goes one better with the addition of the 1988 Ninja Gaiden arcade game, which opens up after you earn the cartridge (that's a lotta scarabs, pal) and beat the game on Ninja Dog or Normal level.

Lunar tunes.

Time to Step Up
If you have never tried stepping into Ryu Hayabusa's ninja-boots—especially if you were understandably intimidated by the game's notoriously challenging (but ultimately oh-so-rewarding) game play—you no longer have any excuse not to try one of the great Xbox games. You may not always understand the story. You might find yourself unable to stop. And in the end, you will be a better gamer for it.

Article by Ben Barker