I love how Onimusha 2 begins. Showing the Yagyu village getting decimated and then having you traverse through the foggy aftermath as an eerie voice repeatedly calls out Jubei's name, it leaves such a strong first impression.

It's also during the opening that Onimusha 2 shows off its improved combat. Not only is it much faster here, there's also plenty of new additions like running attacks, charge attacks and even unlockable secret techniques. Because of this, the combat is much more varied here compared to Onimusha 1. Onimusha 2 also adds purple souls and collecting 5 of them transforms Jubei into an Oni and when in this state, he is invincible. It's neat when it works but I wish you could choose when you could trigger it. The moment you get the 5th soul you're forced to transform. So, if you want to save the transformation for bosses, you have to avoid the 5th soul which just gets cumbersome.

Even with that said, the additions to the combat are all welcome, but the biggest addition Onimusha 2 has is the gift system. Once in Imasho, you'll get a bunch of random items that you can give to other characters to befriend them. Befriending different characters leads to them showing up to help you at different points in the game. This is where Onimusha 2 gets it replayability factor from, since it's impossible to acquire every scenario on a single playthrough. This is cool in concept, but honestly, this system is handled really poorly. Firstly, the game doesn't explain how this system works at all. It gives you a few hints, like saying Ekei likes drinks and Magoichi likes books, but when it comes to items like Parrots, Coins, Fork etc, you just have to guess or follow a guide. Another issue is that if you want to give as many gifts as possible, it requires a lot of early game grinding since you get the items by buying them for gold. My final issue with this system is that it just feels so artificial and shallow. I never felt like I earned the trusts of the characters I befriended because all I did was shower them with useless presents. Because of this, later in the game when the game is trying to get an emotional reaction from the player, it completely fails because I don't really feel like I bonded with the cast of characters. As a whole, the story doesn't do much for me, it retreads old ground only with a less likeable protagonist.

Atleast the reward for having friendships is cool. If your friendship with someone is high enough, they'll save Jubei at different points in the story. In these segments, you'll control the characters you befriended and they're handled way better than the Kaede sections in Onimusha 1. The characters feel distinct from Jubei (except Oyu) from Kotaro's shadow clones to Magoichi's emphasis on long range combat and the sections are short enough to not overstay their welcome.

Onimusha 2 is twice the length of the first game, which is welcome, but a large chunk of the game is simply you revisiting the castle from Warlords. The game as a whole is much more linear, and yet I got lost here a few times near the endgame since the Gifu Castle just isn't as well designed as it was in the first game, where I never got lost.

Onimusha 2 does have things going for it, like the improved combat, its immense replayability and the character of Gogandantess who is always fun to watch. However, I'd say I prefer Onimusha 1 due to its superior OST and it feels like a very complete package, whereas 2 feels a little undercooked in many areas.

The main thing that stood out to me when playing NGB was just how well designed the game is from its difficulty curve to the way you explore Tairon. NG2, is essentially the antithesis of that, though it's still a really fun time.

Where it's especially fun, is unsurprisingly in the combat. Its so fucking good here, it feels twice as fast as it was in the first game, the UTs got a major visual boost and they're so over the top awesome that they never get old and best of all, the weapons here are even better than in NG1. Most of the coolest weapons from the first game return here like the Lunar Staff and Vigoorian Flails (I wish Kitetsu made a return though) but the new weapons are even better. I love the cc you get with Kusari-Gama and the damage of the Eclipse Scythe especially.

I'm glad they nailed the combat because it's all you do in this game since the RE style exploration is gone in favour of linear levels. It's pretty disappointing since it was one of my favourite parts of the first game but at the very least it allows the game to have a wide variety of locations.

Outside of combat, the game makes notable quality of life changes over the first game. For example, essence will come to you even from long distances now, so killing enemies from far away doesn't feel like a waste. You can swim indefinitely without needing an item for it. Controlling Ryu just feels way better here, especially wall running and you can now hold up to 30 arrows instead of 15 and holy fuck, you're going to need them.

My least favourite boss in the first game was the helicopter because using the bow just feels awkward with a controller and this game has about 4 bosses that can only be damaged in that way. In general the bosses here just suck, the Greater Fiends and the Genshin fights are good but everything else is beyond forgettable from the worm in chapter 9 to the turtles that spend more time turning around than fighting you. It's made worse by the fact that you end up fighting most bosses in this game twice without much changing and it just reeks of laziness.

Another aspect that feels pretty lazy is the amount of enemies the game throws at you. NG1 had you fight 3-4 enemies at most and you really had to calculate your approach on how to fight them. Here, the enemies are easier, so to compensate the game throws a shitload of them at you. It's a pretty cheap way of making the game harder, and it does make the game pretty exhausting. I was burned out at the end of each chapter, but honestly, I couldn't get enough of playing this game. Seeing 10+ enemies on the screen at once all get torn to shreds with the new dismemberment mechanic feels so good and the combat never got old because I was too busy utilizing all the different weapons to see what I like best.

As for story, there's not much to say since it follows the exact same beats as the first game just with different characters. The cutscenes are way more hype here though.

For all its flaws, I can weirdly admire NG2. The game has this confidence to it were it doesn't care about telling a story, having memorable level design or even running well since it slows down all the time with how much enemies are onscreen at once (especially when you use the phoenix ninpo). All the game is concerned with, is having fun and exciting combat and it achieves that in spades but I can't overlook the fact that I feel the game is a downgrade from NG1 in every aspect other than the combat.

Having been trying out the higher difficulties on this version I have to lower by half a star. If you can beat Master Ninja on the PS3 with THAT controller you are a gaming god. That shit is just not made for Ninja Gaiden. The PS3 controller was already a big piece of crap on release but rotate-Y is going to shred your analog stick.

Also it's interesting how almost every new addition to Sigma is terrible on the enemy front. There's a second, terrible Dynamo fight, a Gamov fight that sucks, motorcycle guys, and fucking mermen. It's no wonder that the director of Sigma would direct NG3 because he is bereft of any good ideas.

I'm not the biggest fan of most of Kojima's works, but prior to the Phantom Pain I was able to finish most of the mainline MGS games. I bounced off this one pretty hard, sadly. The base gameplay is pretty tight, but I think this is the game where I really started to loathe the open-world game design being shoehorned into everything, as this game felt especially barren.

No matter how you try to spin the story, be it one that was cut short before it could be completed, or some auteur meta take on MGS sequels like MGS2 (yadda yadda "PHANTOM PAIN" yadda yadda), this one feels half-baked in a really apparent way. I think that's probably due to both Konami being shitty and Kojima being shit at properly allocating funds, but either way this one's incomplete.

I dunno, the game is not bad enough to be 'bad', but I'd struggle to say if I'd ever be willing to pick it up again.

Pretty much panzer dragoon but with more powerful hardware, tries to wrap up all the lore of panzer dragoon but i never understood any of that shit in the first place. Game is short and sweet and looks fantastic both graphically and artistically. Its even on xbox backwards compatibility so you can even play it officially in HD which is kickass. Comes with the first game as well so it works pretty well as a beginners panzer dragoon. Absolutely worth a play if you have any system with "Xbox" in its name lying around.