On the left is how Ayane appears in NGII Σ and on the right is how she appears in NGII. As it's been pointed out back when she was revealed for Σ, gone is some of the cutesy baby fat for thinner, more grown-up features. All of this is, of course, makes total and complete sense!

The designer who worked on NGII is different from the designer who's making NGII Σ. That, and time has passed between the two games. Maybe Ayane aged or went on a diet or something?

『NINJA GAIDEN 2』、Xbox360版とPS3版の「あやね」グラフィック対決 [はちま起稿]

It has a few new game modes (including online co-op), some new characters and a whole range of fixes for the problems that plagued the 360 edition such as better camera control.

The game will be released October 1 in Japan and priced at ¥7,800 (US$81). Those who pre-order the game will get a "starter guide book" and a code for an original downloadable Ryu Hayabusa character costume.

New Team Ninja lead ninja Yosuke Hayashi hinted to website Kikizo that there very well could be more in store for Ninja Gaiden. "Regardless of what Itagaki-san said before," Hayashi said, "in time, what the consumers, the gamers are looking for is going to be the next chapter — the future of an outstanding series."

And that future is? Hayashi kept his cards close to his vest, but added, "We feel that we're in a position of being able to make that call, and to provide pure entertainment that's going to be enjoyed by action gamers and our fans. That calling is already there — we feel it, and therefore we will continue to work towards a future for the series."

Just promise us one thing: You'll act surprised when Tecmo announces Ninja Gaiden III, IV and V. Oh, don't forget to get up in around about those future PS3-only Ninja Gaiden Black ports.

Hayashi Interview [Kikizo]

For starters, the action scenes don't look like a butcher shop. In place of decapitation, the trailer shows innocuous red slashes and vaporiffic blood. Since when is "Sigma" Greek for "toned down"?

The game will have PSN support as well as new content.

Like the original title, Ninja Gaiden Σ 2 is being developed by Tecmo's Team Ninja. However, Ninja Gaiden II was designed by former Team Ninja lead ninja Tomonobu Itagaki, who has since left the company. Itagaki was known for his preference for developing titles for Microsoft's game consoles. That, and drinking booze.

Yosuke Hayashi, director of the first Ninja Gaiden Σ, will once again take the reins for this Sigma remake sequel. As with Ninja Gaiden Σ, NG Σ 2 is a remake of an Itagaki designed game.

When asked about the first NG Σ title, Itagaki did not seem impressed in the least, saying, "All you need to do is play Ninja Gaiden II and then try and play Sigma afterwards and you'll see why. Despite the fact that it's on a 'next-generation' console there's no evolution whatsoever. That was made not by me, but one of my sub-ordinates who basically tried to copy the success of Ninja Gaiden."

In Ninja Gaiden Σ, it was possible to play as voluptuous character Rachel for some of the missions. In Ninja Gaiden Σ it will be possible to play Dead or Alive's Ninjutsu expert Ayane as well as Ninja Gaiden's Ryu Hayabusa — which makes sense as Hayabusa and Ayane are friends.

The game is currently half done.

The electronics retailer is ringing in 2009 with some serious price reductions, including a ten dollar asking price on Facebreaker, Turok, Condemned 2: Bloodshot and Major League Baseball 2K8. Most are multi-platform, so this includes you, PlayStation 3 owners.

Here's the full list, courtesy of Slickdeals.

Ninja Gaiden II (Xbox 360) - $9.99
Facebreaker (Xbox 360, PS3) - $9.99
Condemned 2: Bloodshot (Xbox 360, PS3) - $9.99
MLB 2K8 (Xbox 360, PS3) - $9.99
Turok (Xbox 360) - $9.99

Guitar Hero III ((Xbox 360) - $19.99
Guitar Hero Aerosmith (Xbox 360, PS3) - $19.99
Battlefield: Bad Company (Xbox 360, PS3) - $19.99
Quake Wars (Xbox 360) - $19.99
Unreal Tournament 3 (Xbox 360) - $19.99

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (Xbox 360, PS3) - $39.99
Rock Band 2 (Xbox 360) - $39.99
Mercenaries 2 (Xbox 360, PS3) - $39.99
Red Alert 3 (Xbox 360) - $39.99
Saints Row 2 (Xbox 360, PS3) - $39.99

In store or online — it's your choice.

Thanks, Doug!

Ninja Gaiden II skewers 1M [GameSpot]

Microsoft is aware of the issues that players are experiencing with the title update to “Ninja Gaiden II” and are currently working to resolve them with Tecmo/Team NINJA. Please stay tuned for a new update. We thank you for your patience!

There is currently no ETA for a new update. Their suggestion for the meantime? Clear your cache and play the game offline. Doing so will remove all game updates and disable the mission mode DLC, but you'll be able to complete the main game without locking up while we wait for further updates. Hit the jump for cache clearing instructions.

To clear cache:

- Go to the system blade and then select memory.

- Press Y on the HD symbol and then press X, X, Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X, X. Once you do this, a message will appear saying: Do you want to perform maintenance on your Xbox 360 storage devices? Select yes.

A relatively simple fix for the issue, and really your only choice if you wish to complete the game before a new patch.

The team believes they have isolated and fixed the Mission Pack problem that some of you reported earlier this morning. They will continue to test it over the weekend and are hoping to get it back onto Marketplace on Monday. If you already downloaded the pack, go ahead and sign into LIVE. Your achievement should update allowing you to continue playing. The freezing issue is still being investigated.

...and some bad news. That's what you get for paying $60 to invite deadly killing machines into your home.

More Ninja Gaiden II Missions for Your Pleasure! [Gamerscore Blog via Eurogamer]

Ryu is clad in a lovely black leather ensemble, standing a whopping 18 inches above his base of artificial grass, with the full piece measuring 31 inches tall once you figure in the Eclipse Scythe. As with all things First 4 Figures, Ryu is extremely limited and rather pricey - only 1,999 pieces are being made at a cost of $349.99 each. Each model comes with a certificate of authenticity that allows you to purchase the same numbered version of the next in the series. Grab those bonus checks and head over to First 4 Figures to preorder!

First 4 Figures Acquires the Ninja Gaiden II License to Produce High Quality Statues!

First 4 Figures is thrilled to announce that they have been awarded a license from Microsoft and TECMO/Team Ninja to create high end 1/4 scale statues based on the characters from the Ninja Gaiden II video game exclusive to Xbox 360. The first statue release is the video game’s super Ninja warrior, Ryu Hayabusa. In Ninja Gaiden II, Ryu must battle the evil Black Spider Ninja clan and Four Greater Fiends to avenge the honor of the Hayabusa Clan and protect Humanity from destruction.

Ryu Hayabusa, in his default NGII black costume, is coming soon from First 4 Figures. Based on the official Ninja Gaiden II box artwork and in-game 3D model, First 4 Figures has painstakingly captured Ryu Hayabusa’s intensity and deadly demeanor. The base is covered in artificial grass and features Ryu walking through a graveyard of swords from fallen warriors. He comes equipped with his signature Dragon Sword, Eclipse Scythe, and a Falcon’s Talon. At 1/4 scale, Ryu stands at 18 inches tall and when you include his Eclipse Scythe, he stands at 31 inches tall (that’s over 2½ feet)!

Height: 31 inches to the top of the Eclipse Scythe (approximately 80cm).
SRP: $349.99
Available: Q1-2009
Limited: 1,999 pieces worldwide

To place your order, go to: https://www.first4figures.com/component/option,com_myphp/Itemid,3/product,68/

This is the first in the Ninja Gaiden II series so low numbers will be given on a first come first served basis. Comes in deluxe full color packaging, hand numbered base, and includes a Certificate of Authenticity which allows you to purchase the same number of the model next in the Ninja Gaiden 2 series. Qty is strictly limited to a highly limited 1,999 units only worldwide. For more information on “Ninja Gaiden II,” please visit www.xbox.com/ng2.

The pack will be available tomorrow for 800 Microsoft points, or the price of your standard Xbox Live Arcade title. Is it worth it? Not a clue. A real ninja does not pay to go on missions - we get paid for them, and then kill the guy who pays us, taking the rest of his money.

More Ninja Gaiden II Missions for Your Pleasure! [Gamerscore Blog]

"I needed a sounding board," says Tokyo based localizer and former Team Ninja member Andrew Szymanski. "So it was great having Matt and Hiroko." Andrew, who joined Tecmo after college and recently left the company last September, did an excellent job localizing the first Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox, but felt it was somewhat stilted. If game development is a group effort, why should localization be solitary? He was able to convince Tecmo and Microsoft to let him bring in Matt and Hiroko for the NGII localization.

It was a reunion of sorts as the trio had previously worked on Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword and Dead or Alive Xtreme 2. "One of the things that helped me convince the higher ups," recalls Andrew, "was that Matt and Hiroko both are authors and write books together.” Both are best known for titles like Yokai Attack! or Hello, Please!. “For localization, your skill at writing English is actually more important than your Japanese," says Matt. If you don't know a Japanese word, you can always look it up or ask someone. But if you can't string together a sentence, you can always, no wait, you're screwed.

Team Ninja knew Ninja Gaiden II wasn’t aimed strictly at the Japanese market. "The main target for Ninja Gaiden II was the West," says Andrew. “The market is global, and Japan is more global than ever before.” And since it’s a game targeted for a Western audience, it needed to be written in a Western language: English. The game’s story was conceived by Ninja Gaiden II’s director Hiroaki Matsui in highly detailed, manga-like stories boards.

But where did former Team Ninja lead ninja Tomonobu Itagaki factor in? According to Andrew: "Itagaki-san's main responsibilities are, of course, overseeing the development of the whole game, but he is often focused on combat design, enemy AI, level design, and other key gameplay elements. He trusts Matsui-san implicitly for art and story direction, and thus we mainly worked with Matsui-san to develop the dialogue, worldview, and key story points. He also relies on my judgement when it comes to the localization and the entire English version of the game as a whole, so it was great having the freedom and support to bring on Matt and Hiroko and create an English script that we were all proud of. It goes without saying that Itagaki-san has final say over everything that goes into the retail game, and it was a tremendously satisfying feeling to hear his words of praise when it came to our finished voiceovers and other localized assets. It was great seeing him say ‘Submit, or die!’ in English as he watched the cutscenes!"
At work and after work over bottomless beers, Matsui gave Andrew very vivid instructions of how he envisioned Ninja Gaiden II’s story and world. “These Team Ninja guys live and breathe this stuff,” says Andrew. “So much stuff happens outside the office because they’re always thinking about whatever they’re working on.” Andrew then typed up a rough English draft. Andrew then reconvened with Hiroko and Matt to punch up the first draft — which was also in English. Meaning? That the script Team Ninja was working from was in English and all the motion capture and voice acting was in English.

Even though it was being written in English, the trio were striving to make sure it stayed in line of what a ninja would actually say. Explains Andrew, “The question we always asked ourselves was ‘Is this ninjy?’” Basically, would a ninja actually say this. Continuing, he adds, “So I ninja would never say ‘I am going to kill you.’ Instead, a ninja would says, ‘You will be the bloostains on my blade.’ That’s ninjy.” Andrew, Matt and Hiroko weren't simply pulling out a dictionary and digging through to find words that “match”, but rather, entrenching themselves in the game from head to toe and back and again. “The first rule of localization,” says Andrew, “is to integrate localization into the development process.” But this wasn’t *just* localization — Ninja Gaiden II was something else entirely, somewhere between translation, collaboration and straight-up writing.
Ninja Gaiden II is the game as Team Ninja conceived it — no compromises. “It turned out exactly the way we wanted,” says Andrew. Team Ninja’s plan, the original impetus, was to create a throw-back — you know, a spiritual successor to something you would’ve played on the Nintendo Entertainment System. “This is a game where ninjas fight dinosaurs,” says Andy. “If you can’t have fun with that, where can you?”

"The hardest projects I've worked on have been the ones where the client doesn't appreciate the value of a good translation." says Hiroko. "Or ones where the contribution of a native Japanese speaker to the English version isn't appreciated, which happened more often in the early days. The easiest ones are the projects where the dev team welcomes us in as part of the process, because the closer the you can work with the people who designed the game, the smoother the whole process goes."

No matter how good your localization skills are, nothing can compare to working directly with the team that made the game to ensure that their vision makes it to gamers outside Japan. That's exactly what happened with Ninja Gaiden II. If any of the localizers had questions about what the developers originally intended, then Hiroko and Matt could immediately turn to Andrew. If Matt or Andrew had any questions about the intricacies of Japanese culture or nuances, they could refer to Hiroko. “It's so rare that a native Japanese speaker confronts an English speaker about their English translation,” says Matt. “I'm not talking about errors, necessarily, but more like nuance.” You know, the stuff between the lines, not on the page. The ninjy.

[Andrew, Itagaki Pic]

According to the report, two types of self-contained missions will extend the life of your Ninja Gaiden II experience: "Karma Attack missions task you with obtaining the highest score, while Survival missions give you a single weapon to fight off as many enemies as possible." What? No camera battle missions? That's the best part!

Ninja Gaiden DLC details [Gamersyde]

I personally want to thank Microsoft for making Ninja Month every bit as special as they did Pirate Month. Oh wait, there wasn't a Pirate Month, now was there? FACE!

コスチュームパック [IT Media]

Earlier this month Tomonobu Itagaki, who leads/led Team Ninja, announced his intention to quit Tecmo, effective July 1. In his announcement he was PO'd about a company decision not to pay bonuses on a completed game, so, chances are his comrades feel the same. Tecmo, for its part, says the bonus to Itagaki that is in dispute was approved by a previous management team, not the current one.

1Up also writes:

Another problem for Tecmo is that in Japan, any lawsuit filed against a publicly-traded company must be immediately reported to its shareholders on the same business day. The fact that Itagaki had actually filed a complaint against Tecmo in Tokyo District Court on May 14, but Tecmo management withheld this information from shareholders, possibly as late as when the notorious developer released his high-profile public statement on June 2, creates even bigger problems for the game publisher.

Of course Tecmo still owns Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, and can hire developers to make all the games it wishes off of those franchises. But if this is true, it's absolutely a fair to wonder what they'll be like without, and how faithful they'd be to the gaming experience so many have come to expect to this point.

Rumor: Three Dozen Team Ninja Members Leaving With Itagaki [1Up]

But is Ninja Gaiden II really the franchise's swan song or is Itagaki's decision to ditch Team Ninja and sue Tecmo over unpaid bonuses the real reason he won't be making any more of the titles?

Loved
Limb-Lopping Animation: The sheer level of gore is stunning when you first sit down to play the game, and later, later it's still stunning. Don't get me wrong, I love it, it is a celebration of violence that is both fitting for the title and useful in gameplay. Useful? When faced with an armless, or legless ninja they can be, like an injured animal, even more dangerous, so the glistening red stumps help you spot who can be taken out with a quick, merciless series of beautifully detailed cuts. This over-the-top gore balanced with the graceful cuts of the weapon and movements of Ryu blend to create a beautiful ballet of death that alone is worth the price of admission.

Stunning Backdrops: Brown maybe the color of first-person shooters, but you can find just about every hue of the rainbow in Ninja Gaiden II. The eclectic mix of settings and backdrops are so lovingly detailed, so scenic that I found myself stopping to look around and marvel at the spectacle of, say, a world washed red in a rainfall of blood or Team Ninja's take on a future Tokyo, complete with flying cars. This mix of beautiful backdrops also helped keep the game moving forward, avoiding the trap of sameness that often can tear a game's level design down.

Fast-Paced, Tactical Combat: There is a moment, I imagine, for everyone, when they foolishly approach Ninja Gaiden II as a button-masher, but the game's subtle level of tactics, timing and defense eventually come through and they learn the pace of Ryu's frenetic battles... or they die a bunch and give up on the title. For me Ninja Gaiden II is at its heart a game about timing. The game can approach the insanity and necessary perfection of a hardcore shoot-em-up, but instead of facing waves of bullets, players must deal with masses of enemies filling the screen. One misstep can lead to a chain of attacks that leaves Ryu depleted or dead. Never is this analogy more fitting than with the boss battles. Each of these fiends have very specific attacks and can really only be dealt with in one or two ways. Defeating them is more about figuring out how to do so than taking them head-on.

Save System: The game's new save system, which makes the save points much more plentiful and automatically saves before boss battles, is a welcome addition to a game notorious for its difficulty.

Hated
I'm Ready for My Close Up: The camera controls remain problematic at the best of times. At the worst of times it can make the game frustratingly hard to deal with. It seems that Team Ninja, when tweaking the camera, was more worried about capturing the action from a cinematic view than they were dealing with the need to make Ryu easier to control. This isn't in anyway a deal breaker, just frustrating at times, especially when you're forced into first-person perspective and the game sort of freaks out.

Blinded By the Fight: What? You're complaining about the camera angles twice? Yes, strange voice in my head, I am. Actually this is more about a confluence of problems that occurs a handful of times in the game. There are four or five major battles in the game that become so crammed with people, so lit up with bloom, effects and colors, so confused by the camera angles that you have no idea what's going on. At times you can't even see where Ryu is.

Double Down Bosses: Each boss, and there are quite a few of these in the 14 levels of Ninja Gaiden II, are painfully hard to defeat, but I can deal with that. What I can't deal with is that with the exception of a single boss, you end up having to face off with every one of the bosses two different times. It feels more like a device to lengthen the game than something meant to add to the experience.

Slooooow Motion: I like what the game is trying to do, overwhelm you with mayhem on a level rarely seen in an action title, but there's a reason it's rarely seen: It's too intense for a console to handle. It doesn't happen often, but occasionally, on the slicker levels, when the screen fills with bad guys the motion slows down to a crawl, a slow motion crawl. It manages to stay smooth, which helps, but it's annoying to see such chug in a triple A title.

Weak Community Features: It's a minor complaint, but why add something like the ability to record and playback chunks of gameplay without putting some effort into it? You can't edit, you can't control the playback at all and you can only share your full save-point-to-save-point recordings if you are ranked on the leaderboards. Seems like a waste to me.

Ninja Gaiden II is a spectacular game but it's marred with some of the same tragic flaws that have followed the series since its introduction into the world of 3D, most notably the camera angles. Despite that and some of the most painfully hard boss battles I've encountered, I thoroughly enjoyed playing through almost every bit of the game. In fact, I've already started through a second time on a harder difficulty level.

Ninja Gaiden II is a game you should expect to frustrate and to reward, and it does both quite well, you just have to deal with a bit of design pettiness along the way.

Ninja Gaiden II was developed by Team Ninja and published by Microsoft Game Studios. Retails for$60. Available on Xbox 360. Played to completion on easiest "Path Of The Acolyte" setting. Played first two chapters on "Path of the Warrior" setting. Saved one film.

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X-Play History [Go Nintendo]