Well, I felt the same way the first time I played Sigma (never had an original XBOX). However, I can tell you that if you like action games and can get thru the hour or two hour learning curve, the game is amazing!!

I dabbled with Sigma on and off, but finally after a few chapters, it just clicked and the game became unbelievable. So I suggest keepin at it, and don't get too pissed at the bad angles and sometime cheesiness. "Don't give up...don't ever give up!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jluv2HxFEqs

@ ajaxender
I agree. I think some game devs think they're being all hardcore by making their game stupidly hard, in reality they're just making the game less accessible.

But isn't it unfair having no reasonable difficulty curve? I know that the gameplay itself isn't cheap, I thought the setup of how you're suddenly thrown into a balls hard game was.

I love your avatar.

Yeah, NG2 definitely has alot more "cheap difficulty". Sure it's frustrating at times (Armadillo, I'm looking at you!), but since you get most of your health back at the end of every group, I found the fact that enemies often hit you first because they are off the screen and you can't see them to be bearable. But overall, Sigma is the best of all versions. It has very little is terms of cheapness and is just a much better overall game.

On my first playthough of NG2 I've already glitched thru the map and into places I couldn't escape 3 times. And now with the new "patch" that makes it freeze at certain cutscenes and make the game unplayable (without resetting the cache and playing it offline), it seems like they are going out of their way to get ppl not to play the game. Seriously, 2 weeks now with the new patch that makes the game worthless and they still haven't fixed it? It's quite absurd...

@ Hamza CTZ Aziz

I love you.

I beat Ninja Gaiden 2. It's easier than the first one, definitely.

Brutal difficulty is a motivator when it's fair; e.g. Ninja Gaiden Black. You're fucking batshit crazy if you're gonna tell me that game is easy even on Master Ninja, but, despite being so brutally hard, the game was fair. There wasn't any projectile spam. There sure as hell weren't any bullshit enemies like the ninja dogs.

Brutal difficulty is a demotivator when you're in Chapter 1 on NG2 and being horrendously raped by IS spamming ninjas while trying to kill Rasetsu.

OP: Don't be a pussy; instead, be a man and beat Ninja Gaiden.

I talked about this a bit in my latest blog entry. If I don't feel like I'm improving at all, then I won't bother with it. So the challenge is making a game that is very difficult, but involves trials that you can actually practice at and become better over time.

That's probably the biggest difference between "Cheap" difficult and just plain difficult: whether or not you can actually affect your chances of success through practice.