If you include Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for the DS, the newly-announced PS3-exclusive Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 will be the sixth release for the franchise since Tecmo relaunched it on the Xbox in 2004. That's a lot of games in only five years' time, but during their announcement of Sigma 2 at GDC, Tecmo got to explain how this latest slash-em-up will live up to their concept of the "ultimate Ninja Gaiden game."
While Momiji and Ayane will be locked from the start, requiring a play-through with Ryu if you want to experience their single-player campaigns, they will be immediately playable in one of Sigma 2's other big new features: online co-op. With two friends taking the roles of Ryu and one of his beautiful female companions, you'll be able to connect on PlayStation Network and run through co-op missions for the first time in the series' history. This is pure co-op – fighting your buddies is not allowed – but if decimating demons is as fun with a pal as it is solo, this game mode should provide another satisfying way to rack up combos.
While we're yet to actually touch the game ourselves, Tecmo made it very clear that Sigma 2 is more than just a port. Along with the game-changing additions mentioned above, they're also promising new weapons for Ryu, tweaks to the camera and difficulty issues that plagues the 360 version, and more. Ninja Gaiden 2 had a ton of promise but ended up falling short. If Sigma 2 can genuinely deliver on both fixing those problems and adding a mess of new content, Ryu Hayabusa could be a contender once more. We'll find out for sure when Sigma 2 arrives for the PlayStation 3 this fall.
Mar 25, 2009
