By now, we all know about the mass amounts of precision and thought that go into every story Team Ninja write. Each arc and plot twist carefully crafted to be perfectly obvious to even the slowest of people. With main characters that are so incredibly deep that they seem shallow and boring...
Probably because they are. Lets face it, the
only reason Team Ninja is still a respected company is due to their knack for enjoyable gameplay. Lets take one of their most famous franchises; Ninja Gaiden. Ninja Gaiden is a series that many adore purely for the gameplay, and it's hard to blame them. After finishing Ninja Gaiden Black I was left with a feeling of "K WUT?". I prefer games to have a decent story and interesting characters, NGB supplied neither. The story seemed randomly thrown together, and Ryu was shallow and didn't speak nearly enough to develop a personality that I cared about. All in all, the game was built on astounding graphics and gameplay. Based on story alone, the series would get no where.
As I mentioned previously, their characters are hard to care for. None of them have any strong characteristics or much backstory to base their actions on, they're just there. Originality is lacking. For example, Rachel, the eye candy of Ninja Gaiden, was no more than that, eye candy. We find out her sister turned into a fiend and now she's out to kill as many of these fuckers as she can, that's about it. The rest is all over-exagerated assets and revealing costumes.
Compare her, to the oh so different female roll in Ninja Gaiden II, and you may begin to see a pattern.
I would hope the character designers down at Team Ninja didn't get too many pats on the back for designing NGII's Sonia. I'll be blunt, they look exactly the fucking same. Aside from some very minor changes, the Team didn't really go out on a limb to create an original character.
She also seems to play the same role as Rachel in NG. From the cut scenes in the demo, the story is a highly compressed version of NG. Sonia (/Rachel) gets attacked, holds her own for a while, gets beaten, Ryu comes to save her ass, fails, and Sonia (/Rachel) becomes the damsel in distress to motivate Ryu on his quest for buttsecks.
To conclude (yes, I won't go on for much longer >_>), although I can look past these faults and enjoy Ninja Gaidens truly pathEPIC gameplay, some more innovation/originality in their characters and an intruiging story to finish the pair would create an even more immersive experience. One that could possibly elevate the Ninja Gaiden series into a higher regard than it already is.
~Snake
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While I agree that their story usually sucks, I see no fault in that. It's like watching a bad ninja movie but with amazing action. You'd watch that movie regardless of the story.
I like how they focus on the gameplay over story. It's a throwback to old-school games.
I see nothing wrong with it myself. I just thought it was quite half-assed of them to go from Rachel to Sonia.
~I never said I wouldn't play the game due to the story, just that it would be a welcome improvement.
I get what you mean and where you're coming from, I was just stating my opinion. I suppose it would make it that much better.
Team Ninja is horrible at story telling. Yes they synch the gameplay but it seems like they are trolling out the same games they made for the xbox instead of expanding on the games.
Team Ninja females looking alike is no surprise, look at the Dead or Alive series. All the females in that game are the same model, different hair, different eye color, and varying boob sizes (I say that just because Tina's are fucking larger than anyone else's)
But I don't play Team Ninja games to dispute the characters looking the same, I play them because they're fucking fun. Dead or Alive is such a great fighting game while Ninja Gaiden is fucking action packed and just the definition of the word "awesome."
Now excuse me... I have to continue gifting swimsuits to Leifang, my life long goal of the 360 is to get 1000points in DoAX2.
That was important? I was just looking at her tits.
Actually, after watching the GameTrailers review... I'm willing to bet Sonia is Rachel or has something to do with her. They conveniently showed how the two look a like then said something about how plot twists are easy to predict and while they said that they just had a shot of Sonia.
I thought the same thing myself, it seems like the kind of twist they'd pull.
Before I read into NGII I thought it was Rachel, I thought she was just re-appearing in the sequel, just with a slightly different look. After looking into it and finding out she was a different character...it struck me as odd they decided to create a near copy of Rachel.
It wouldn't surprise me if they ended up being the same.
Be careful what you wish for. GTA recently pushed story above gameplay and they "had" to sacrifice many of the extra elements that made the previous games so fun.
Zing.
i was gonna ask what game you were playing but after a good read i agree. the story in ninja gaiden is fncking stupid and very dmc like. the story was good until i was on that airship that it all fell apart. and rachels half assed character with big tits was the final strawberry for me. they think they've revolutionised action games when they've never changed to begin with minus leveling up your fncking weapon like its alive.
i was gonna ask what game you were playing but after a good read i agree. the story in ninja gaiden is fncking stupid and very dmc like. the story was good until i was on that airship that it all fell apart. and rachels half assed character with big tits was the final strawberry for me. they think they've revolutionised action games when they've never changed to begin with minus leveling up your fncking weapon like its alive.
B-Radicate: Although you have a point. I wouldn't say GTAIV wasn't fun, and I wouldn't blame it entirely on a good story either. Granted, I miss parachutes and planes, but that can't exactly be blamed on the story.
But of course, gameplay>story, it would just be nice if TN put some thought into it.
Qraze: The story is rather randomly thrown together, it was a good thing the gameplay motivated me to continue, since the story sure as shit didn't.
Ninja Gaiden has never done anything new, and you shouldn't expect it to. It's still fun and challanging. Go play God of War(series) or DMC 3 if you want a good/entertaining story in a spectacular action game.
That's very fanboy of you...
Did you even look at my description section? I play all games mentioned, and they are all good. Even NG, GTFO.