After more than 15 years since the last debut of the Super Ninja on a Nintendo system, Team Ninja has delivered some love to the fans and creating Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword for the DS. The control scheme has caught the attention to many, since the gameplay is solely based on the touch screen of the NDS like in Phantom Hourglass. Not only that, but you also must hold the portable like a book, like in Brain Academy or Hotel Dusk. Will the new control scheme succeed? Does Itagaki & Co. deliver the same frantic hack 'n slash as in the X-Box games? Let's find out.



The game centers 6 months after the events of the first Ninja Gaiden for the X-Box, and starts telling how the Dragon Sword was created and that how it's passed from generation to generation. It also tells the tale how the Dragon Sword destroyed the Evil Dragon. After that, the story continues when Ryu and Momiji, a kunoichi, are training on the rivers, near their village. For a action game, the story is OK, but not as great as the past games, but it works well for a portable game and after all, it's a action game. The way the story is presented is in form like in a Manga book, giving it a different style but fitting, for this game.



Now here comes the important aspect of the game, that is, the gameplay itself. Somehow Team Ninja managed to fit most of the things that makes the past Ninja Gaiden games great, it's fast paced and really brutal. All your actions is solely driven via the touch screen, you drag your stylus to make Ryu run, point at a enemy various times to throw his shurikens or arrows and you literally slice the DS to attack the enemy. The control scheme works almost perfectly on the DS, since doing this actions are forgiving, specially trying to do specials like Izuna Drop or the Flying Swallow techniques. The buttons or the d-pad is used only to block, and START to open up the menu to see your stats and abilities. There are some flaws of course, specially trying to jump it's a bit hard, it feels kinda stiff and hard to pull it at the first time, but nothing that practice can do. Another thing is throwing the shurikens, sometimes you feel it doesn't go where you want to throw them, making it a bit hard to hit the enemies. Also added is to use Ninpo magic, where you use Ninja Spells to kill enemies more efficiently or to simply resolve a puzzle. All this, the gameplay is really fun, and it's one of the strongest aspects of the game.



Graphically the game is just beautiful for a NDS game. Sure, the background is pre-rendered, but it does a good job to barely notice it since the game runs in a incredible 60 fps, making it as fast as the other games. Also, this pre-rendered backgrounds helps the game in another way, that it would be that the graphics wouldn't be so choppy. Even though the backgrounds are pre-rendered most of the time, in boss battles it will be full 3D with constant changing the camera angle to look always at the back of Ryu, and works really great. Again, there are some faults though, one is that sometimes you can't see Ryu and what's attacking him when they are out of focus in parts when Ryu is trying to get to the next area, but this is just sometimes so don't worry. It doesn't have videos, but as I said before, the Manga style fits really well to the game, since you are holding the DS as a book.



One of the things I noticed from reviews from other pages, is that they don't or barely mention the music and sound effects, since personally, I think it is also one of the strongest points of the game. I simply just loved the music, it's great as most of the other Ninja Gaiden games, it has a arrange from orchestral, bit of techno, rock and of course, some Japanese folklore, it wouldn't be a ninja game without the folklore style. Most of the tunes are really catchy, and every boss have their own song, which makes the soundtrack even wider. The quality of the music can be expected as games as Elite Beat Agents or Taiko no Tatsujin, which is using almost at full power the sound chip. Most of the sound effects are recycled from the Xbox games, like Ryu's cry attacks, grunts and the slashing and blocking. Also, there is no full voice overs, just some words and names that are said, and it could have been even more epic.



For a Ninja Gaiden game, must of the "purists" will feel the game easier than the NES or the Xbox versions. It is indeed a bit easy, specially the boss battles, and maybe you will have some rough time with them and even more because there are many save points to refill your life bar. But what is a Ninja Gaiden without selectable difficulties? After Normal mode, you can get more settings that is beyond hard, so for you gamers that is seeking for a challenge, this is it. There are many other things unlock, but I won't spoil it. The game also has a leaderboard via Wi-Fi connection, a leaderboard for each difficulty settings, and don't get surprised if the leaderboard is hacked, since nobody can get over trillion of Karma in just 2 hours. The games is a bit short, from 5 to 6 hours, but then again, the difficulty settings and the stuff to unlock makes for it, and maybe you will play this game more than short sessions.

Other than that, the game is great, it is also a great achievement made by Team Ninja, they did something that many developers don't, making the game from scratch to create a new and exciting form to play Ninja Gaiden. Please, buy the game so we can get more Ninja goodness for the DS once more.

Score: 9.0

BUY IT

I hope you have enjoyed mi first review on Dtoid, haven't done one in a while so I hope this is good.