Ninja Gaiden was a great old arcade game, one of my favorites. When Ninja Gaiden came to the Xbox in 2004, I was stoked. It turned out to be a tough, but very rewarding and enjoyable game featuring action that was fast as hell and some very memorable battles. This experience was enhanced by the release of the Hurricane packs on Xbox Live and then the release of Ninja Gaiden Black, which I never got around to playing. Now, Tecmo brings us Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Sigma features all the goodies found in Black, but also sports gorgeous 1080p 60fps visuals, new enemies, new areas, and the ability to play as Rachel. What amounts is a game that is even better than the outstanding game I remember.

Packing A Punch On the PS3

In Ninja Gaiden, you play a ninja named Ryu. He wields a powerful weapon called the Dragon Blade, or Dragon Sword. Evil forces are trying to get this blade to use its power for evil purposes; that’s obviously an overly simplified story summary, but truthfully the story in Ninja Gaiden Sigma wasn’t very clear to me. Fortunately, it’s not really all that important because the rest of the game is so good that it overshadows the fairly confusing, at least to me, story that is being told in the background. I suppose I may have just gotten too caught up in the missions to really take in the story, although from what I gather on the Net the story isn’t very clear to a lot of people.

That said, the heart of this game is in the blistering fast paced combat. In combat you will face other ninjas, the military, and plenty of supernatural foes as well. With Ryu, the combat moves at a near blistering pace, and it can be quite tough for sure. You really have to keep aware of your surroundings and always be on the move and be prepared to block. I can’t think of any other games that I have played recently that feature combat that is as fast paced as what you get in Sigma; it makes the game challenging, but it also makes it much better and once you get the hang of it the battles become really cool to play or to even just watch.

Before going any further with the game in general, I’d like to get a little more specific on mention some of the excellent new content that is in Sigma, besides the very pretty visuals. Playing as Rachel, who was just an NPC that made a few appearances in the original release, is a cool idea, but not the greatest. I personally never found the character interesting, and fighting with her is a bit of a challenge in its own right, especially having just played as Ryu who’s nimble as all hell. With Ryu, you’re running off walls, leaping high and slashing very quickly. In comparison, with Rachel, it feels like you have cement blocks on your feet. She’s not literally that slow, but just in comparison; it was a little jarring going from super fast to this. The enemies you fight are still quick, which also magnifies the difference between the two characters. That said, Rachel is actually a lot more powerful than Ryu in terms of damage dealt per hit. So you basically have the classic trade off; fast character with low power or slow character with significantly more strength. Historically I’ve always chosen the former. Anyway, her missions are pretty cool, I really like how they not only increase the amount of gameplay, but how they also help develop the story and give the player, especially fans of Ninja Gaiden like me, new experiences. Ryu will also engage in some new battles too, however, including partaking in a fight that was previously just a cutscene. Early in the game, when a village is being set ablaze, Ryu is defeated in a cutscene; now, you can actually partake in the battle that is in the cutscene, but you still have to lose. Nevertheless, I love the addition of more quality gameplay such as this.

Other new additions to the already great game include two new blades that are dual wielded. These are the Dragon Claw and Tiger Fang, two more great weapons to pick up along the way that are fast and very effective, and don’t require you to change your fighting style much at all if you use the Dragon Sword primarily like I do. There are also some new enemies that pop up at old places, and other enemies have been changed dramatically in terms of their appearance; they don’t appear to attack differently, etc., they just look different, but I’m cool with that.

Solid Ninja Action

It must have taken me a solid over twenty or twenty-five hours to complete the original Ninja Gaiden. It’s a long game, but it also proved very tough. Playing through Sigma is on track to take me as long or a bit longer, thanks to the additional content and still challenging enemies and bosses. With all of the enhancements, and given how much time has gone by since I last played it, it feels almost like a fresh game again, so if you’re a fan of the original or of Black, and you’re worried there might not be enough new content here to justify the purchase, I would argue that there definitely is. On the one hand you have the constant enhancement of greatly enhanced visuals, but you also have a lot of newness in the way of Rachel play, the new weapons, and the new enemies.