--Rachel, Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus
A port of Ninja Gaiden Sigma with some new features added, Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus offers Vita owners an experience that, while lacking in some regards, is not an easy or brief one by comparison to many other games for the system. Where it succeeds, it definitely delivers: the ninja action is fierce, brutal, and challenging. At the very least, it brings intense hack and slash gameplay to a handheld system.
Production Values
It doesn't boast the most detailed graphics on the Vita, but it has a mostly smooth frame rate that can hold up even during a lot of action. Environments can be animated rather blandly. It's not that there is a lot of pixellation; there isn't, but most objects in the game engine have little detail. The voice acting is fine, not particularly noteworthy, but not poorly executed either. The game does port a console title to the Vita very effectively, though. It just does not have the most lore-rich story or the highest quality graphics on the PS Vita. It's not that the production values are subpar, it's just that they're often mediocre. When it comes to production values, this is no Killzone Mercenary or Uncharted: Golden Abyss.
Gameplay
Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus showcases very ninja-like gameplay--players can experiment with acrobatic swordplay, employ a variety of dodges, run on walls, walls, and even run on water. Really, it's God of War meets Prince of Persia (the Sands of Time trilogy). It's a hack and slash game that can be downright brutal. The combat can be frenetic and even frustrating. This is due to the fact that even minor enemies can sometimes sap the health from you quickly, and not even blocking will protect you from certain enemies forever. To successfully navigate fights, you have to strategically engage enemies and, often, keep moving. Standing still can allow opponents to bypass your blocks by coming up behind you and slitting your throat, or by launching projectile weaponry at you, or by charging you.
You can play as two characters: ninja Ryu and Fiend Hunter Rachel. Rachel is only playable in a handful of chapters, and she wields a scythe-like weapon that is slower than Ryu's blades, yet can be devastatingly powerful. Ryu can collect a variety of weapons, ranging from dual katanas to nunchucks to a staff and more. Both characters can access magic attacks, called ninpo. This enables them to harness elements like fire or ice in battle.
And (despite the sometimes frustrating touch controls) ninpo can be very useful for dispatching annoying enemies. The enemies are extremely varied to the point where new players might find them very random, ranging from soldiers with guns to giant beetles, a dragon, a dinosaur skeleton animated with consciousness, ninjas, ghost fish (use ninpo, button mash when attacked, and use jump attacks!), sorcerers, and samurai.
Although the game has great action, poor camera and controls interfere with fighting and exploration, sometimes being sluggish and unresponsive. The camera prevented me from properly executing many attacks, jumps, and maneuvers. If players can overcome these two obstacles, though, hack and slash gamers will likely enjoy this title a lot.
Like Legend of Zelda and God of War, Ninja Gaiden is known for its bosses. And in Sigma Plus they can be difficult. However, they attack in predictable patterns that allow for evasion, once you identify their behaviors, that is. Each of the story chapters (to my recollection) includes at least one boss. Some of them can be quite challenging depending on how equipped your character is with items.
A bonus mode called ninja trials supplements the main campaign, letting players use alternative costumes for Ryu and Rachel and complete objectives like killing enemies as quickly as possible. It is difficult, just like the story mode, but it can add some additional playtime.
Story
(Spoilers)
The story may strike newcomers as a very random mixture of things. Lore-wise, it is random. A ninja named Ryu infiltrates a fortress and fights another ninja with the Dragon Sword he stewards, which belongs to his father, who is training elsewhere. A sister sword called the Dark Dragon Blade is held at Ryu's village. Once Ryu finishes sparring with his master, a woman runs into the meeting to tell Ryu that his village, Hayabusa Village, is being attacked. He rushes down to save the community, but a samurai clad in black armor named Doku defeats him.
Ryu gets on an airship to travel to the Vigoor Empire, the land Doku came from, to avenge his village. The Vigoor Empire is a dictatorship with exclusionist foreign policies that make entrance for outsiders difficult, and Ryu does indeed enter with difficulty--the airship crashes near Tairon, capital of the empire. While there, Ryu meets Rachel, a Fiend Hunter, telling her he seeks to kill Doku. She aims to kill her sister Alma, who changed into a Fiend, a class of malevolent spiritual beings. During this time a pair of villains, one masked, searches for the Dark Dragon Blade.
Ryu fights and overpowers Alma, Rachel being unable to bring herself to kill her sister. Meanwhile, Tairon soldiers scour the streets. Throughout a lengthy sequence of events, Doku kidnaps Rachel, Ryu travels across quite a bit of ground, defeats Doku, and Rachel follows his spirit through a series of portals. She is eventually overpowered by two ancient goddesses.
Ryu completes a fractured stone tablet to open a portal to near the area where Rachel is being kept, a place where Doku's disembodied spirit prepares to use Rachel as a sacrifice to bring back Alma. But Ryu defeats the resurrected Alma who has a newly structured insectoid body but Alma rushes to save her sister from Doku; Alma becomes human again. It is soon revealed that the man who has been searching for the Dark Dragon Sword was Murai, Ryu's master, and he now has it in his possession. Ryu kills Murai, breaks the Dark Dragon Blade, and leaves Rachel.
Intellectual Content
The story lacks serious intellectual depth, but the collectibles sometimes require care and thought to discover, although this isn't the most exploration-heavy game of its type. However, I must say that the combat will require quick thinking, focused hand-mind coordination, and general mental competence. This is certainly not the easiest game to complete.
Conclusion
It easily took me at least 10 hours to beat the game on normal difficulty. The completion time could be much longer or shorter depending on the player's skill, adaptiveness, and familiarity with the series mechanics. Although this game is full of difficulty, I'd certainly recommend it to lovers of fantasy, action, and hack and slash games in general. Since I purchased Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus alongside this game, you can expect a review of that title to come soon!
Content:
1. Violence: Ryu and Rachel skewer and assault enemies with a variety of attacks, some leaving enemies decapitated, and all of them releasing blood, which often stays on the ground once an enemy dies. The combat is violent, but, aside from the cutting off of heads, limbs, and tentacles from certain enemies, is never graphic.
2. Nudity: Two goddess characters have exposed breasts during a fight, but there is nothing sexual about either the scene or female breasts (or full nudity in itself).
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