Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z – How To Unlock Hidden Potential Like A God :D

I mean as a real kickass you’re supposed to have enough edge to push a feeble inordinate rancorous rot off of it — face first even :P. So that’s not the real issue period.

See when it comes to yaiba, he’s supposed to be so over-the-top that what he does often makes what he says look so trivial that he rarely even speaks because of it, or that when he does speak, he usually says something really epic that’s in direct relation to something even more awesome that he’s about to do. That’s my idea of over-the-top characters that say stuff.

The bad random remarks to a feminine counter-part, every couple of minutes, just really doesn’t cut it for me, while at the same time I also don’t give a colorful frock what the name of the game is since I’m cool with that, and the theme is awesome lol.

He can be the bad guy in pursuit of ryu hayabusa and want to “take him down” etc — that is totally cool and I would even say a mind-boggling idea since I never thought of this angle of rivalry in a ninja gaiden related game before. I mean, I didn’t even see ryu hayabusa as unstoppable because I actually have an imagination and actually think that my ninja I.P is where you’ll find the best ninja hands-down :P. So I don’t whimper like a baby over the thought of ryu hayabusa being opposed since it’s all in good fun and all of these things are fiction to begin with, which means anything is possible and any “perception” can easily change and thus they are not really to be taken seriously unless you’re some sort of obsessed fanatical clown, in which case, that’s not my problem and you’ll just have to get help somewhere else since all killa knows how to do is; “kill it” :P

Now I loved the action I saw in the latest trailer. There definitely doesn’t seem to be a shortage of ideas on that end as far as combat goes which is excellent!. Now the zombies thing — it’s probably a difficult thing working with a bunch of empty-headed “life-forms” that aren’t really good enough to be remotely considered competitive by any stretch of the imagination, but rather merely as low-grade special effects essentials for “gore” xD. It’s lovely to be able to really get competitive with the skills of such a character(yaiba) on interesting adversaries more often than not, that encourage you to actually use those great skills to the fullest in situations that make them fun to have. The special attacks that the character has wouldn’t be meaningful if you are only able to use them on the same kind of “worthless” enemies that are so weak that just about anything you do, kills them and seemingly has the same effect.  So I definitely encourage some out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to zombies and hopefully there would be a host of interesting “mini bosses”, seamlessly integrated into the mix. Now as far as atmosphere goes, make that aspect of the game “dynamic” by making it range from the very hilarious, maybe even sensual, right down to having very dark moments that shows the darkside of him being how and who he is, and why he’s truly doing what he’s doing. Make all of his emotions and dedication sort of have profound impact, of certain segments in the game as they are expressed through his handling of the zombies/enemies or how he and the environment reacts, and surroundings behave. Add some intensity into the mix of his journey in realtime that actually unfolds more profoundly as you playthrough the game — making it feel more than just mindlessly doing something with zombies, as is usually the thoughtless case with almost all other zombie games out there. Make this not only an action horror game but one of the most exciting ninja and hack-and-slash games out there with a ninja character that’s phenomenally interesting. I mean it’s not far-fetched, the power is actually in your hands. As the developers, you all have the skillsand tools to do it, and so far, the team behind this game are on the right track overall, but it’s clear that as with anything, the team working on the game can use some help to see areas in the game that needs some more depth and contrast, to go along with many of the wonderful things it has going for it. I mean if this was my ninja game, I would definitely be implementing alot of the things I’ve mentioned. Now it’s not my ninja game and the ninja I.P I do actually own has a totally different “theme”, but as someone who tends to get really creative, sometimes I think when I’m thinking of stuff that could make other people’s games stand out more, I think it’s best to share those views, which is what I’m doing here over a game I’m really excited about.

Yaiba does have the potential to blow the main ninja gaiden games out of the park — make no mistakes about that, but beyond that, I think they should really focus on making the game truly over-the-top and really “awaken” it’s true anime formation :D. Don’t just see it as competing with ninja gaiden. Think beyond that — make it into something truly phenomenal that can really rival some of the best anime shows out there like Naruto and bleach and dragon ball z. Create your own fun universe, rich with all kinds of interesting things, ranging from different personalities and different realms, aswell as him discovering he can do things that he wasn’t aware of. Also have different clans and major figures, that aren’t necessarily ninja(which would make him all the more unique), for instance, you can have encounters with ryu hayabusa and you can have encounters with monks and kung fu masters and all kinds of different beings that would make the yaiba universe full of life, so that when people hear yaiba they wouldn’t have such a narrow perspective of it limited to just a guy who says “creepy” derogatory stuff to women and they wouldn’t just think “ohh someone who once lost to ryu, and ryu hayabusa who is the person he lost to, is the main protagonist of the ninja gaiden series”. If it were my game I would actually make that incident yaiba had with ryu look like the least of his worries and infact as basically a very small “chapter” compared to the absolutely brutal monstrosities that he has yet to face, that he discovers after his dual with ryu hayabusa in pursuit of other objectives that are entirely unique to the Yaiba universe that no ninja gaiden fan of the previous games should even be expecting…..

The only thing i’d say as the series progresses that it should have “noticeably” in common with the ninja gaiden games as the universe of yaiba becomes richer, is the intricate and complicated combat style that ninja gaiden is known for, which in my opinion is a lost art that not everyone is able to archive, it actually helps them to greatly bring true meaning to what a real hack-and-slash game is all about, but yet Yaiba should still have it’s own unique mechanics/gameplay aspects that get upgraded as yiaba is driven deeper into the yaiba universe which would make his own unique styles in combination with “some” adopted techniques from the main ninja gaiden series create some of the most diverse and unbelievably skilled over-the-top action, ever seen in a hack and slash game to date.

Now I don’t mind many games having a female presence or some “mature” content, but my honest opinion on some of the stuff in that new trailer is that it was “soft”, very lightweight and close to classless. As I said, in particular, the way he was talking to the lady was clownish and tasteless — I mean he can be flirtatious and what’s not but there is nothing even remotely funny or sexually appealing about a female being disrespected. I’m already not a huge fan of such honey desperate psychedelic perverted stuff in games, and what I saw in that trailer, just isn’t appealing at all to me as far as some of his out of place remarks to the female character goes. I don’t know if it so much what he said or how he said it, but something needs to be worked on there. There is absolutely no way anything of that nature is going to capture people in the way that thinking big and getting really creative and coming up with really unique ideas would, which is a perspective I shed some light on earlier about making the Yaiba universe much bigger than a game that has a ninja gaiden theme with the protagonist of the main ninja gaiden game in it, or a guy who keeps using every opportunity he can to disrespect a women who’s seemingly helping him.

Now overall, I love the new yaiba game and that’s my honest opinion and that’s final — I speak for myself lol. It must be very difficult to make a game that’s similar to ninja gaiden but not exactly like it and also make zombies appealing in  a hack and slash game about a ninja all at the same time. That’s one of the major problems I saw in the game, where you have a ninja that can literally dispose of zombies faster than he can do a backflip. Now I don’t believe the game has to be exactly like a ninja gaiden game in terms of difficulty, since I believe that you can do your own thing and still make a game that’s very difficult, in other words, you don’t have to “copy” ninja gaiden’ difficulty, but I do wish to see a challenge and it would be great to have different modes of difficulty that relate back to his ninja status but more in an antagonistic fashion(as he is somewhat of a “villain” compared ryu). So for example in terms of difficulty modes for this game, you can start off in lets say “rage ninja” mode and make your way up to unlocking “Terrifying Ninja” mode(which is a play on the games horrific theme) or something like that — maybe even have a deadly ninja mode. That’s another thing, REPLAY VALUE — work on the replay value of this game which is a game that has incredible potential. Make every single boos battle re-playable aswell. 

Now as far as I know, he can do some incredible stuff with just his one special robotic arm alone and ofcourse being able to use zombie limbs and the zombies themselves as weapons, is a an added bonus, but having some classic ninja weapons and tools either in this or in future Yaiba games, should be more then welcomed and ofcourse almost everything he would be able to do with them should relate back to how over the top him and the nature of the game is.

Now the voice acting; for some reason he sounds different in the “beginning” of this trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS7G8DdEHyI, compared to all-through this one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyTWzhZoFpo,,. compared to the “end” of this one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljgk-fawu24 where he says “I’m coming for you ryuuuuu!” — what on earth is up with that? lol. Find “a” really good voice actor for this character and keep him. Yaiba should sound like a real dangerous an energetic guy in his voice filled with aggression and vengeance, like evil ryu from street fighter, kratos from god of war or asura from Asura’s wrath, just to name a few examples so that you’ll actually get a good idea of what I’m saying. Surely you can find voice actors that would actually put some effort into it xD. This guy should sound like a much darker nemesis of the most legendary kind — the total opposite of ryu.

On a personal note. please! properly optimize this game for PC. At least make it possible for I an others to tone down some of those “motion blurs” and “soft shadows” and “fogs” and “self shadows” and “particle effects” and “vsync” and a whole lot of other unnecessary things, if it’s possible, so that who actually loves the game, can have fun with it’s core essentials without major lag and shutdowns and slow-motions occurring because of said needless stuff (added in “excessive” amounts, since i’m not actually saying atht tehya re irrelevant), that just drains the crap out of computers for no good reason other than “excessive” eye-candy. It’s being made on the unreal engine — it shouldn’t be impossible just to add a couple of graphics “sliders” or an editable .ini file so that PC gamers can do a little “tweaking” where need be lol. If the game is well optimized for PC in terms of PC standards as much as it’s usually optimized for consoles whenever a game is built to console standards, then there is no doubt that it(teh game) will atleast “forever” be in the PC community and be well supported :D.

Also don’t lock the PC version to 30 frames per-second. I plan to do some real special gameplay videos of this game and it would be good to have those precious “Frames Per Seconds”  GAINS(not limitations), when recoding and when generally trying to maintain decent momentum throughout the game. Atleast on PC that’s the standard when it comes to these things thus they are more significant issues for PC gamers like me that have to deal with this stuff on a technical level especially when it comes to games being “ported” to the platform lol.