NINJA GAIDEN 2 Black Review (Steam)

by Jim Smale · Published January 30, 2025 · Updated January 29, 2025

NINJA GAIDEN 2 Black Review, Take on the role of Ryu Hayabusa, a ninja who has inherited the legendary “Dragon Sword” and takes on battles across the world, in this graphic remaster of the popular high-speed ninja action title that returns after 15 years! Using Unreal Engine 5 to enhance graphic expression significantly, this is the definitive version of “NINJA GAIDEN 2,” featuring additional playable characters and enhanced battle support functions.

NINJA GAIDEN 2 Black Review Pros:

Beautiful graphics.
80.99GB download size.
Steam achievements.
Full controller support.
Graphics settings – monitor, 2D resolution, display mode, v-sync, FPS limit, FPS limit event, brightness slider, HDR, color filter mode, graphics preset, super-resolution type, DLSS, sharpness, frame generation, NVIDIA reflex low latency, ray tracing, anisotropic filtering, shadow quality, effects quality, global illumination, reflections, and foliage.
Post-effect settings – motion blur, depth of field, chromatic aberration, vignetting, noise filter, lens filter, bloom, and monochrome filter.
Can remap controls for both the keyboard and the controller along with Invert axis and sensitivity sliders.
English and Japanese voice choice.
Camera settings include sensitivity for first and third-person views, swimming controls inversion, camera warp, direction faced when drawing projectile weapons, camera assist, prioritizing the enemy when centering the camera, and camera assist in battle.
Blood and dismemberment can be turned on and off.
Hide all Hud option.
Language settings – subtitles, speaker names, sound effect captions, subtitles size, and subtitles background.
Four game difficulties – hero play (ultimate power awakens at death), normal, hard, and very hard.
Action fighting adventure gameplay.
Tutorial pop-ups as you play.
In-game cutscenes and character interactions.
Gorgeous locations.
You can cut arms and legs off enemies making them enraged and faster. Obliteration is a special move you can do to finish them off.
A full 3D game world with 360-degree camera control.
Handy recentre camera, hold it down to show where you have to go.
Blue essence heals you.
The combo counter pops up.
The combat is fast fluid, and brutal with the last hits usually resulting in a badass kill hit.
Chests to find for loot.
Healing items can be found and set to quick equip.
The levels have enough space for you to explore and find secrets.
Find scrolls for a video demo and description of a new mechanic or ability.
Collect beads to increase your health bar.
Unlock and use powerful abilities.
Massive boss encounters.
Heal and save points scattered throughout the levels.
You can skip the cutscenes and interactions.
Pick up new weapons, and projectiles.
The game pauses when you use items and swap out weapons.
Yellow essence is the currency in the game.
Red Essence charges your abilities bar.
The shop can be found on levels and is only accessible if enemies are not around. In the ship, you can buy items and use the blacksmith to upgrade weapons.
When it comes to water you can swim underwater or you can mash the button to water run on the surface.
End of level score and time played breakdown.
Many Breakable objects.
Your loadout is a melee weapon, projectile weapons, and selecting a NINPO ability.
Each weapon has its own set of combos and as you upgrade them you unlock more combos.
As a ninja, you can do crazy wall running, parries, counterattacks, mix up projectiles and melee attacks, and run on water.
Collect notebook pages for lore and story.

NINJA GAIDEN 2 Black Review Cons:

Initial compiling shades loading screen.
The game doesn’t always boot in fullscreen through the big-picture mode.
There is no benchmark test for the graphics.
Couldn’t find a button icon set for a Nintendo Switch controller.
Combat is very button-mashy and is initially a huge shock to the system with its pace and brutality.
Mastering the camera is a game in itself thanks to the speed.
It can be hard at times to distinguish who is who as your character looks like the enemy.
Enemies can just appear out of nowhere.
Any sort of platforming is a nightmare, more because of the speed.
Tight spaces are not great to experience.
It’s a bummer that you cannot smash up more of the scenery and use the environment to kill enemies like throwing them off the stage.
It’s very obvious what is going to happen and you can always guess right. Basically, open rooms always equal enemies.
The gameplay is repetitive and takes its toll on your hands if you are an old git like me.