The next game, Dead Space 2, isn’t as terrible as Ninja Gaiden 3. In fact, it's a great game; it's just not a great sequel.
Dead Space 2 had a lot to live up to, since the original Dead Space was an excellent horror game filled to the brim with atmosphere, and it included a unique way to kill enemies to boot. Dead Space 2 takes a different approach, almost abandoning the horror elements and the moody atmosphere of the previous game.
Rather than a full-fledged horror game that just happened to use third-person shooting, Dead Space 2 is a third-person shooter that happened to have some horror elements.
The main problem with Dead Space 2 was that it took place on a populated colony, as opposed to the first game, which prided itself on a sense of isolation. While there were some people for Isaac to maintain contact with, there was that scary feeling of being left alone. In the sequel, the colony has quite a few people in it, and there isn’t a sense of isolation. Even if you’re not actually running into anyone, knowing you’re in a setting where other people are going bonkers right alongside you just sets a different and less dire tone.
The atmosphere is also ruined due to Isaac’s voice. Despite Isaac being a distincitive character with his own personality, it was easy for players to project him or herself onto Isaac in the first game. For all intents and purposes, you were Isaac. By giving him a voice in the sequel, there is a disconnect between the player and the character. The human voice can be a powerful tool, but in this case it hurt the game. Isaac was the anchor that kept the player immersed in the game. Now that this anchor is gone, gamers are simply controlling a character rather than being the character.
Dead Space 2 also focused less on strategic dismemberment. The previous game’s combative encounters were extremely different from other third-person shooters due to its focus on dismembering enemies' limbs. While Dead Space 2 still contains strategic dismemberment, the combat had been slightly changed. It was still highly advised to take down enemies by removing certain limbs, but there were enemies where it’s better to just outright kill them by filling their bodies with lead. The combat system just didn’t match the enemy types at all sometimes.
Dead Space 2 failed to live up to the expectations that gamers had for the sequel to such a well-regarded title. It doesn’t build on the elements that made the original great in a way that makes sense to longtime fans, and it puts action at the forefront. However, this doesn’t mean that the game was bad; Dead Space 2 can still be called a worthy successor to the original Dead Space.
Ninja Gaiden 3 and Dead Space 2 are only two examples of sequels that didn’t particularly follow up their predecessors well. It’s inevitable that sequels are going to be the flavor of the day going into the next generation. Trilogies are all too common, and judging by how the industry is moving, we might even end up having trilogies of trilogies. Who knows? So let’s hope the sequels to successful games are great sequels and not poor ones.
I often complain about games, but I think it might be time to complain about the community that follows it. Join me next week as I tread dangerous water with online communities.
Simon Chun is GameZone’s freelance writer and RPG buff for all things new and old. Check out his twitter @kayos90.
When I was a child, I clamored for sequels left and right. After all, who wouldn’t want a sequel to an excellent game? Sequels can great things in the game industry, since they appease the insatiable appetite of gamers while allowing publishers to play it safe.
However, not all sequels are created equal. Some are so atrociously bad, or just fail to meet their predecessors' standards, that they get left in the dust. Additionally, there are games that change things that made the original great, making them not sequels so much as something else entirely.
This week we’ll take a look at two sequels that don’t do their predecessors justice.
The first is Ninja Gaiden 3. The Ninja Gaiden series has been known for its visceral combat, excellent enemies, deep tactical fighting, and brutal difficulty. Ninja Gaiden 3 has none of these things. Perhaps everything went wrong when Tomonobu Itagaki left Team Ninja. Either way, the sorry excuse that is Ninja Gaiden 3 tarnishes the developer’s great history. Ninja Gaiden 3 isn’t simply a bad entry in the series but a bad game period. It throws out everything that made the series great and just runs with a barebones version of the game. In fact, it was barebones enough to justify a re-release under the name Razor’s Edge.
The enemies aren’t challenging in the slightest. In previous games, they'd hit Ryu hard and fast. The diversity in enemy types helped as well, since it further complicated each encounter. In Ninja Gaiden 3, however, there are only a handful of enemy types that all do pretty much the same thing: shoot guns or hit you with melee attacks. Cutting down all projectile-based enemies first and then dealing with the melee ones becomes tedious. In addition, the enemies don’t do much damage, so getting hit doesn’t mean life or death. Rather, it’s a simple process of how much can you take until you survive the encounter.
Dispatching these enemies is also relatively easy considering the game gives you a free kill move that you can take advantage of quite frequently. Using it will kill any enemies within a certain distance of you. Since you get it so often, there's no reason to hold back.
In addition, the combat feels empty. Each attack feels like any other, and there's no “oomph” in the hits. As a result, there is no real depth to the combat system, so it relies more on cool aesthetics to catch the gamer’s attention.
Perhaps the most offensive thing about Ninja Gaiden 3 is that the boss fights are horrendous. All of the bosses in the game are extremely large, and since their attacks are so limited, it’s easy to predict what they’re going to do and plan accordingly. Instead of a game of quick reflexes where you have to carefully analyze each boss, it’s a simple game of “can you dodge this huge attack?” It’s not a culmination of all the things you’ve learned in the game thus far – though, in reality, there isn’t anything of value to be learned in the first place – but a bonus question at the end of an exam to make you feel smarter about yourself. In this case, it just makes you sad that the test was so easy. At the end of the day, Ninja Gaiden 3’s bosses just leave an awful aftertaste.
Nearly every facet of Ninja Gaiden 3 is horribly executed, destroying the series’ prestigious legacy.
