A good friend of mine gifted me this game minutes before showing his empty bank account in an ongoing delinquent child support payment court case. It seems like it was less of an act of charity and more of a last ditch effort to do everything he can so that as he puts it "Her and that rude baby will never see a dime of my money". Still a good friend and a good game I can't be happier.

For my Ninja Gaiden Journey, check my Reviews of The Master Collection and Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z so far...

I will keep it very brief for the Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Review.
Took me ~10 hours to complete on Hard (0 Deaths), 24/38 Achievements.

So NG 2 Black is basically the best version of Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma. Since it's newer and uses Unreal Engine 5 it looks better of course, they re-added the blood and splatter effects (which were very satisfying; I said in my NG 2 Sigma Review that it didn't bother me but playing with splatter effects made the experience better) and they cut some unnecessary bosses from the Game which is fine by me.
I also think that a few encounters (Staircase) were different.

But yeah, it is basically the same Game, just better looking and with a few QOL improvements and I really enjoyed myself. I still have to play Ninja Gaiden 4 and Ragebound but so far, this is my absolute favourite from what I played...

This is 100% a recommend, even though I wouldn't pay full price, especially if you are familiar with NG2/NG 2 Sigma...

This is a really damn good action game. I never finished the 360 original when I was younger, but I can safely say that I recommend this game for stylish action game or 3D Ninja Gaiden newcomers.

The combat is super smooth and satisfying with a variety of weapons and techniques at your disposal while focusing on the . It also gives a decent challenge since the game WILL make you use everything you have. This game is pretty much 90% fighting, but it never feels stale since the combat system is just THAT engaging.

There's some small hiccups with the system though, mainly the camera. It never cooperates without manual adjustment and enemies can still attack you when they're off camera which is especially painful when there are guys shooting you from a long range - not really the most fair or balanced. Pro Tip to help deal with this: The Camera Reset Button (RB on controller) is your best friend, so make liberal use of it.

I also wish this game was a bit better with it's story. You can basically just sum it up as "Ryu Hayabusa goes to random places, does cool things and stops the bad guys". There IS some sort of appeal to seeing Ryu be a stoic badass who takes everything dead seriously - it's way better than having a bunch of cringey dialogue trying too hard to be cool since it gives everyone a lot more aura. But the Ninja Gaiden series was a pioneer in video game storytelling, so it feels a bit lackluster that this game doesn't have much of an engaging narrative. It's also really noticeable that Rachel and Momiji's chapters have NOTHING to do with the plot and just come out of nowhere.

I feel it's also worth bringing up what most people don't like about this version of Ninja Gaiden 2 - it's more of an updated version of Sigma 2 than a proper peak version of the OG game. To be honest, I don't mind it all that much. I find this to be a well-rounded version of the game as it removes the worst bosses in the original game (god forbid anyone put up with that awful Worm boss) and doesn't have any of the stupid replacement bosses in Sigma. And while a lot of people have gripes with the decreased enemy count, I personally find the current enemy count to be okay since the original enemy formations could be annoyingly overwhelming - plus I hear in Sigma 2 they were annoyingly more durable, here I never had too much of an issue with it. Still, I guess it does kind of suck that in order to improve on some content, the only solution was to remove it entirely. I also prefer the more stylized UI of Vanilla 2 more.

Overall, a really fun action that's super chaotic that may lack a bit of substance and occasional has some jank. I think it's a solid package if you need some good single player action.