He's back and more violent than ever. I got a chance to taste test Ninja Gaiden 3 last week at E3, and I must say, it was fairly delicious.
The game has added and tweaked some features that make it feel a tad more fresh and better. My favorite modification I noticed was the ease of holding down the Y (or Triangle) button for the charge attacks. NG3 has done away with the orbs, so no more holding it down for crucial seconds to build it up. Instead, Ryu's arm, which has something going on with it, will turn red after enough kills and after holding the button down for a mere split second, you can unleash a devastating 3 kill combo. And as long as there are 3 enemies around, he will kill them, jumping to any part of the area to gloriously chop them up.
Another great addition was the ability to slide. It is very welcome. It can be used in QTE-esque sections to dodge incoming vehicles that are thrown at you or seamlessly in combat to knock enemies into the air, leaving them vulnerable to your sword.
The game will also break the pace of just running around by including climbing sections that require you to time trigger pulls. You can also throw stars if an enemy is in your way.
Did I mention the game is bloodier than ever? Because it is.
Even with all these tweaks, the gameplay remains essentially the same. The demo didn't offer any other weapons besides the sword and throwing stars.
The game is being produced by Yosuke Hayashi, not Tomonobu Itagaki, and he seems to be taking the series in a good direction. In a recent interview with OXM, Hayashi stated how he wants to take a different approach with Ryu, making him seem more emotional about his kills. Could this possibly mean a deeper, more understandable story for the series? That would only be a plus in my eyes. Hell, bad stories never seemed to hurt it anyway, amirite?
You can expect NG3 to run at a constant 60 FPS, be as difficult as ever, and arriving some time in early 2012.
