Man, you know those games that you just kind of lose the drive to play part way through and gradually chip away at over the months? Ninja Gaiden Sigma was kind of that for me. I dedicated early 2022 to getting the great Ninja Gaiden 2 and absolute dogshit NG3 off the backlog, after having played Ninja Gaiden Black in 2020. In addition to having to work a soulcrushing warehouse job, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, the PS3 remaster of the original title, fell to the wayside and I'm only just finishing it now.
"But hey, Ninja Gaiden Sigma is just Ninja Gaiden Black!" I hear you call. "Why even bother giving it a separate review?" Well, Ninja Gaiden Sigma might look like Ninja Gaiden Black to the unasumming eye. It's got the same crunchy, visceral sound design, the same weighty, brutal and satisfying combat, the same mostly crappy bosses, the same tendancy tell you to go and fuck yourself with things like the unreactable grabs and the Ghost Fish. At its core, the average player would think they'd just played a straight one-to-one remaster of Ninja Gaiden Black, with a few extra bells and whistles.
But alas, Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2's Sigma rereleases aren't just the series' variant of Devil May Cry's Special Edition rereleases. Rather, they serve as incredibly strange sidegrades to the titles in question, with additions and subtractions across the board. They also aren't helmed by the original director, alledged creepy sex pervert, and current NFT grifter, Tomonobu Itagaki, who was pretty outspoken on his less than positive feelings about these versions of his directed titles.
Rather, they're both directed by Yosuke Hayashi, who isn't any stranger to the series. He worked on the enemy AI for the 04 release, is listed as a project lead on Black, and would go on to direct Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for the DS, and then serve to absolutely shit the bed when the time came to direct Ninja Gaiden 3. He was also one of three directors on Metroid Other M, but on the plus side, he also went on to direct Nioh, so he's had some good and bad days.
So, what's NG Sigma got for itself to call its own? Well, there's the dual katanas that would later go on to be in NG2! They're super fun to use there, and super fun to use here, so that's neat. You can cycle through and use potions on the fly, which is super handy because anything to do away with additional menuing in a game like these is nice. Also means that you're way less likely to die from getting grabbed because of the game preventing you from pausing when you're getting caught by a nigh-unreactable, untechable grab. If you're playing the Vita version, or the Master Collection release, you also get additional accessories to play around with, mostly allowing you to increase attack in return for lowered defence or vice versa. Nice for the players who might need to take a few extra hits, even better for the pros who can effortlessly tear their foes to pieces with nary a scratch, increased damage be damned.
But then there's the attempts to readjust the foundation that Ninja Gaiden was built upon, with changes to the level design. Various puzzle rooms are tweaked if not outright replaced with simple fights, which might seem like a weird thing to complain about in a game where the combat is the defining feature, but it's coming at the expense of the original vision of Team Ninja, and Itagaki. There's also a lot more shops and save points littered around the game, but I don't mind that too much. I think that the original kept its save points where they were for a reason, but I'm also the kind of guy who saves any time a save point is around. Nice for people like me to have as an option.
But ya know what really brings Sigma down? Rachel. Originally an NPC and fanservice jobber in Black, she now gets 3 tacked on stages that you have to play through whenever you're going through the campaign. I'm usually all for extra playable characters in action games, provided they all feel unique and fun, and Rachel really isn't. She's only got one weapon, her big ass hammer that Ryu also gets, and lacks the ability to wall run, Izuna Drop, or be fun. Her stages also fall into just being retreads of stages Ryu already ran through, which is only a bigger issue. She's the kind of content where you can tell it was thrown into a rerelease to say they had more content, except she isn't relegated into her own small side campaign or being unlocked upon completion to be used in a repeated playthrough, like Vergil in DMC3 or Jeanne in Bayonetta. Just crammed into the main playthrough with zero rhyme or reason, and that's a shame.
I also really wish Sigma addressed the single most annoying issue I personally have with NGB that could've easily been remedied here; which is the lack of both level select and New Game Plus. Every playthrough, on every difficulty, you've gotta start back at mission 1 with base Ryu, needing to collect all 50 Gold Scarabs and Life of the Gods, and level up all your weapons from square one. It's one thing if you're looking to climb the difficulty levels to experience how NG changes even its most basic combat encounters up, but it's another beast if you're choosing to brave the weather of Ninja Gaiden's kind of awful ranking system and chase all the Master Ninja rankings, as you've basically got to save scum through the entire game if you miss a single MN rank. Even if you're just wanting to replay a specific chapter in your own time, it's no dice.
It's a shame, and something that would've really helped in Sigma's favour. There's definitely a certain mistique to being able to tackle the higher difficulties on a fresh save file, to be sure, and I think it should always be an option in an action game. Let those players who want to push both the game's mechanics and their own skills to the fullest, give them the ability to flex. But in action games, a NG+ feature has been standard since Devil May Cry 1, and stage selects since Devil May Cry 2. Just skipping over them, especially when 2, Sigma 2 and 3 gradually went on to include these features, feels like a really strange oversight in a game with a mission by mission structure. As great as any action game having a mission mode with a ton of unique and specialised encounters is, and Sigma especially has them by the truckload, it isn't quite the same as being able to pick Mission 19 in DMC5 and just going to smack up Vergil.
I probably came off super harsh towards NG Sigma throughout this review, and I want to stress that it isn't a bad game at all. Far from it, it's just a worse way of playing Ninja Gaiden Black, and the main crux of the issue really is Rachel's few levels serving as really annoying pacebreakers that put me off from giving it quite as strong a recommendation as I would NGB. A lot of the other changes I can take or leave and aren't going to be noticed by a new first timer, and there's a few issues that are more just holdovers from the original release and are disappointingly left unaccounted for.
Would I recommend you snatch a copy of Black and play it on the Xbox Series X? Yeah, if that's a possiblity for you. But Sigma isn't a halfway bad way to experience the OG NG if you're unable or unwilling to buy an Xbox to just make it your Ninja Gaiden machine. Personally, I wish a perfect world existed, where both versions of the titles could exist in perfect harmony, with both vanilla and rereleases of 1, 2 and even 3 all bundled together in a snug little collection, so new players don't have to buy a console they otherwise might have no interest in, or fumble with emulators in hopes of maybe getting them to work. But, either due to missing source code, Team Ninja seeing these as the definitive releases of the games, in spite of fandom disagreement, or just being easier to port, the Sigma releases are all we've got. It is what it is, and what it is, is kind of a bitch.
"But hey, Ninja Gaiden Sigma is just Ninja Gaiden Black!" I hear you call. "Why even bother giving it a separate review?" Well, Ninja Gaiden Sigma might look like Ninja Gaiden Black to the unasumming eye. It's got the same crunchy, visceral sound design, the same weighty, brutal and satisfying combat, the same mostly crappy bosses, the same tendancy tell you to go and fuck yourself with things like the unreactable grabs and the Ghost Fish. At its core, the average player would think they'd just played a straight one-to-one remaster of Ninja Gaiden Black, with a few extra bells and whistles.
But alas, Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2's Sigma rereleases aren't just the series' variant of Devil May Cry's Special Edition rereleases. Rather, they serve as incredibly strange sidegrades to the titles in question, with additions and subtractions across the board. They also aren't helmed by the original director, alledged creepy sex pervert, and current NFT grifter, Tomonobu Itagaki, who was pretty outspoken on his less than positive feelings about these versions of his directed titles.
Rather, they're both directed by Yosuke Hayashi, who isn't any stranger to the series. He worked on the enemy AI for the 04 release, is listed as a project lead on Black, and would go on to direct Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for the DS, and then serve to absolutely shit the bed when the time came to direct Ninja Gaiden 3. He was also one of three directors on Metroid Other M, but on the plus side, he also went on to direct Nioh, so he's had some good and bad days.
So, what's NG Sigma got for itself to call its own? Well, there's the dual katanas that would later go on to be in NG2! They're super fun to use there, and super fun to use here, so that's neat. You can cycle through and use potions on the fly, which is super handy because anything to do away with additional menuing in a game like these is nice. Also means that you're way less likely to die from getting grabbed because of the game preventing you from pausing when you're getting caught by a nigh-unreactable, untechable grab. If you're playing the Vita version, or the Master Collection release, you also get additional accessories to play around with, mostly allowing you to increase attack in return for lowered defence or vice versa. Nice for the players who might need to take a few extra hits, even better for the pros who can effortlessly tear their foes to pieces with nary a scratch, increased damage be damned.
But then there's the attempts to readjust the foundation that Ninja Gaiden was built upon, with changes to the level design. Various puzzle rooms are tweaked if not outright replaced with simple fights, which might seem like a weird thing to complain about in a game where the combat is the defining feature, but it's coming at the expense of the original vision of Team Ninja, and Itagaki. There's also a lot more shops and save points littered around the game, but I don't mind that too much. I think that the original kept its save points where they were for a reason, but I'm also the kind of guy who saves any time a save point is around. Nice for people like me to have as an option.
But ya know what really brings Sigma down? Rachel. Originally an NPC and fanservice jobber in Black, she now gets 3 tacked on stages that you have to play through whenever you're going through the campaign. I'm usually all for extra playable characters in action games, provided they all feel unique and fun, and Rachel really isn't. She's only got one weapon, her big ass hammer that Ryu also gets, and lacks the ability to wall run, Izuna Drop, or be fun. Her stages also fall into just being retreads of stages Ryu already ran through, which is only a bigger issue. She's the kind of content where you can tell it was thrown into a rerelease to say they had more content, except she isn't relegated into her own small side campaign or being unlocked upon completion to be used in a repeated playthrough, like Vergil in DMC3 or Jeanne in Bayonetta. Just crammed into the main playthrough with zero rhyme or reason, and that's a shame.
I also really wish Sigma addressed the single most annoying issue I personally have with NGB that could've easily been remedied here; which is the lack of both level select and New Game Plus. Every playthrough, on every difficulty, you've gotta start back at mission 1 with base Ryu, needing to collect all 50 Gold Scarabs and Life of the Gods, and level up all your weapons from square one. It's one thing if you're looking to climb the difficulty levels to experience how NG changes even its most basic combat encounters up, but it's another beast if you're choosing to brave the weather of Ninja Gaiden's kind of awful ranking system and chase all the Master Ninja rankings, as you've basically got to save scum through the entire game if you miss a single MN rank. Even if you're just wanting to replay a specific chapter in your own time, it's no dice.
It's a shame, and something that would've really helped in Sigma's favour. There's definitely a certain mistique to being able to tackle the higher difficulties on a fresh save file, to be sure, and I think it should always be an option in an action game. Let those players who want to push both the game's mechanics and their own skills to the fullest, give them the ability to flex. But in action games, a NG+ feature has been standard since Devil May Cry 1, and stage selects since Devil May Cry 2. Just skipping over them, especially when 2, Sigma 2 and 3 gradually went on to include these features, feels like a really strange oversight in a game with a mission by mission structure. As great as any action game having a mission mode with a ton of unique and specialised encounters is, and Sigma especially has them by the truckload, it isn't quite the same as being able to pick Mission 19 in DMC5 and just going to smack up Vergil.
I probably came off super harsh towards NG Sigma throughout this review, and I want to stress that it isn't a bad game at all. Far from it, it's just a worse way of playing Ninja Gaiden Black, and the main crux of the issue really is Rachel's few levels serving as really annoying pacebreakers that put me off from giving it quite as strong a recommendation as I would NGB. A lot of the other changes I can take or leave and aren't going to be noticed by a new first timer, and there's a few issues that are more just holdovers from the original release and are disappointingly left unaccounted for.
Would I recommend you snatch a copy of Black and play it on the Xbox Series X? Yeah, if that's a possiblity for you. But Sigma isn't a halfway bad way to experience the OG NG if you're unable or unwilling to buy an Xbox to just make it your Ninja Gaiden machine. Personally, I wish a perfect world existed, where both versions of the titles could exist in perfect harmony, with both vanilla and rereleases of 1, 2 and even 3 all bundled together in a snug little collection, so new players don't have to buy a console they otherwise might have no interest in, or fumble with emulators in hopes of maybe getting them to work. But, either due to missing source code, Team Ninja seeing these as the definitive releases of the games, in spite of fandom disagreement, or just being easier to port, the Sigma releases are all we've got. It is what it is, and what it is, is kind of a bitch.