This is the most 50/50 I have ever felt about anything in my entire life
There IS a good game here! The combat is smooth and rewarding, I actually feel like I am getting better at the game by playing it, not only through actual skills developed, but literally in the terms of the gameplay, they will spawn more and more of an enemy that you struggled with in the past to the point where you are mowing them down like they are insignificant.
The game has a ton of superb boss fights too!! I won't go to much into detail for lack of revealing spoilers but I believe that the boss fights were the best part about the game.
I really like how the map of the game changes as the events of the story unfold into your world, opening up new paths.
The few positive things I have to say about the game vastly outweigh the negative things I have to say...
First off, you and the enemies you encounter are both able to use projectiles, which stunlock you once you are hit. It adds a degree of difficulty, and I won't deny that it adds an interesting layer to the combat system but holy shit, there is no limit to the amount of projectiles an enemy can lob at you at any given moment. There were times in my playthrough where I would be at full health and get a projectile stuck in my back, only to be stunned onto the ground to be surrounded and die. It is usually manageable but most of the time it leads to you losing health and having to use up your valuable supply of health potions.
Speaking of which, you are able to effectively soft-lock yourself if you do not manage your health potions correctly, as there are a limited amount of them in chests and the only other method of receiving them is to purchase them from, the very few and far between, shops. The currency that you use in these shops are yellow orbs that are dropped by the enemy. At a point near the end of my playthrough, near a point where you fight multiple bosses at the same time, I had managed to barely scrape by in the boss fight and make it out with a sliver of health, with no potions or money available. I was forced to take on the final boss of the portion flawlessly. Admittedly, I was able to do so and felt pretty badass conquering it, but it took me a very long time and there should have been a way to gather more currency or health in some way.
They address this issue later in the game, making the enemies drop the blue health orbs more often and giving you SPOILER: a weapon that drains the health of enemies if a correct combo is input, which honestly became more hassle than what it was worth. Near the end of the game, you are swarmed with these annoying ass enemies that are a really good source of currency, and it feels kind of cheap grinding those out to go into the final few fights with maxxed out health potions and gear. I presume that is why the enemies are put there but it left a nasty taste in my mouth, grinding money off cheap kills.
There are a myriad of other small nitpicks I could get into, such as the lack of information surrounding the games "trial rooms", where you have to kill upwards of 60 enemies to progress, or the fact that you have to be completely still to interact with anything, because the interact button is the same as the projectile button and failure to do so will result in Ryu shooting instead of doing the command, the fact that you and the enemies are both able to block, and whilst they can break your block you do not have any attacks that can overcome a block, or even the fact that the continue screen will CHANGE RANDOMLY so you can’t just press “A” to continue, you have to read what they are asking you before continuing or you will end up going back to the main menu instead of continuing. Instead, I want to talk about the story/characters.
The story isn't much to write home about, which is fine, I doubt anyone is playing this for the story. Ryu was the highlight, as the protagonist he did not have much to say but the few lines he does say are super corny and awesome in the best way possible. My biggest gripe comes from the female character designs. All the women have jiggle physics and even when standing completely stationary they will continue to move in other ways, and their outfits are designed to project that. I guess some people enjoy that but it felt really out of place in a ninja hack n' slash game.
I am curious if the next games in the franchise fix the issues with the gameplay that I had and will probably give them a shot in the future. Not anytime soon though, this game was way too frustrating.
There IS a good game here! The combat is smooth and rewarding, I actually feel like I am getting better at the game by playing it, not only through actual skills developed, but literally in the terms of the gameplay, they will spawn more and more of an enemy that you struggled with in the past to the point where you are mowing them down like they are insignificant.
The game has a ton of superb boss fights too!! I won't go to much into detail for lack of revealing spoilers but I believe that the boss fights were the best part about the game.
I really like how the map of the game changes as the events of the story unfold into your world, opening up new paths.
The few positive things I have to say about the game vastly outweigh the negative things I have to say...
First off, you and the enemies you encounter are both able to use projectiles, which stunlock you once you are hit. It adds a degree of difficulty, and I won't deny that it adds an interesting layer to the combat system but holy shit, there is no limit to the amount of projectiles an enemy can lob at you at any given moment. There were times in my playthrough where I would be at full health and get a projectile stuck in my back, only to be stunned onto the ground to be surrounded and die. It is usually manageable but most of the time it leads to you losing health and having to use up your valuable supply of health potions.
Speaking of which, you are able to effectively soft-lock yourself if you do not manage your health potions correctly, as there are a limited amount of them in chests and the only other method of receiving them is to purchase them from, the very few and far between, shops. The currency that you use in these shops are yellow orbs that are dropped by the enemy. At a point near the end of my playthrough, near a point where you fight multiple bosses at the same time, I had managed to barely scrape by in the boss fight and make it out with a sliver of health, with no potions or money available. I was forced to take on the final boss of the portion flawlessly. Admittedly, I was able to do so and felt pretty badass conquering it, but it took me a very long time and there should have been a way to gather more currency or health in some way.
They address this issue later in the game, making the enemies drop the blue health orbs more often and giving you SPOILER: a weapon that drains the health of enemies if a correct combo is input, which honestly became more hassle than what it was worth. Near the end of the game, you are swarmed with these annoying ass enemies that are a really good source of currency, and it feels kind of cheap grinding those out to go into the final few fights with maxxed out health potions and gear. I presume that is why the enemies are put there but it left a nasty taste in my mouth, grinding money off cheap kills.
There are a myriad of other small nitpicks I could get into, such as the lack of information surrounding the games "trial rooms", where you have to kill upwards of 60 enemies to progress, or the fact that you have to be completely still to interact with anything, because the interact button is the same as the projectile button and failure to do so will result in Ryu shooting instead of doing the command, the fact that you and the enemies are both able to block, and whilst they can break your block you do not have any attacks that can overcome a block, or even the fact that the continue screen will CHANGE RANDOMLY so you can’t just press “A” to continue, you have to read what they are asking you before continuing or you will end up going back to the main menu instead of continuing. Instead, I want to talk about the story/characters.
The story isn't much to write home about, which is fine, I doubt anyone is playing this for the story. Ryu was the highlight, as the protagonist he did not have much to say but the few lines he does say are super corny and awesome in the best way possible. My biggest gripe comes from the female character designs. All the women have jiggle physics and even when standing completely stationary they will continue to move in other ways, and their outfits are designed to project that. I guess some people enjoy that but it felt really out of place in a ninja hack n' slash game.
I am curious if the next games in the franchise fix the issues with the gameplay that I had and will probably give them a shot in the future. Not anytime soon though, this game was way too frustrating.