The Shrine

My buddy finally got around to buying the game (2 month XBox Live trial, he wanted to get all the downloadable content he could then since he lacks broadband), so I ganked his XBox and the game for a few days.

Holy christ, the game owns. Arguably as good a 2D-to-3D conversion as Metroid Prime. Just hard enough for a Ninja Gaiden game, too - and that was on Normal. The Hurricane Packs are completely owning me.

Great, great game.

Devil May Cry 3 > Ninja Gaiden in terms of difficulty @_@

Jeez, that's a big call.

The game does indeed own. I need to play it again, with the Hurricane pack. I'm just not sure I can face the emasculation at the moment :).

The Lunar staff makes up for the fact that you'll be dying too often to get much use from it.

Hell, where is the Lunar Moon weapon? I went through the game but didn't find that one at all. Most of the two-handed weapons just didn't have enough moves, though.

It sucks that in order to get the 50 scarabs, you have to find the ones you missed, cuz I'm still missing about 10 of them and I don't exactly know where.

The Lunar is a Hurricane Pack (online downloadable content) only weapon. Master Ninja Tournament 1 doesn't have it. Master Tourney 2 has you find it very early on in Stage 1 (one of the rooms in the Ninja Fortress, can't miss it). You start with it (upgraded to level 2 of 3) in Tourney 3.

So you can't use it normally, but it's there for the harder downloadable content. It's really fucking insane - easily racked up a 63 hit combo with it, only stopped by the fact I killed all the ninja there. Granted, this is compensated by the fact that you'll probably be dead soon anyway.

Also, I agree that the 2H weapons (War Hammer and Diblahro) lacked moves. That being said, I used the Diblahro pretty much full time after I got it except for certain enemy swarms and boss fights, simply because it was the best way not to get absolutely slaughtered by mobs of fiends.

The counter-attacks will become your best friends.

Again, read the Advanced Combo FAQ. Just the fact that you can an instant charge when you land is handy knowledge, but there's other good bits of information there, too.

A simple combo to do with the Sword is XY, [in air], XXXXB, [on land] Y. You'll do the standard launcher, do most of the 5-part combo, throw an incendary shuiken (or any other projectile) instead, and land with an Instant Charge Straight Slash, which may even turn into an Extinction or Hundred Wing Blade if there's enough essence around you. I use this combo all the time to put Spider Ninjas in their place. The Violent Windmill - (6)+X, X, X, [,X,] r6 is also very good and simple to do.

Beat it on Hard mode.

Easily one of the hardest games I've ever played. I'm proud of myself now, heh.

Just have to decide whether I'll play Very Hard, or just go with Master Tournament 2. I understand they're pretty comparable in difficulty.

Think you're a man? Try beating Mega Man Zero 2, that game was freakin' hard. Then go to Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts, just ridiculous (to get the real ending)

Mega Man? Meh.

And yes, I beat SG&G way back when it was fairly new.

Ok, now try Devil May Cry 3. Hard as cheese!

Never been all that interested in that series.

Maybe I should try NG in Hard Mode with the Laser Sword suit, because I'm sure I'm just going to get pissed off trying to find all 50 scarabs. Too bad, because I'd love to play the original NG games.

Hard had some really bloody infurating parts, and some of the enemies have new moves or are generally smarter. Potions also cost more.

That being said, it's not too bad, because you have a better idea of how to handle bosses/enemies.

Also, you have a better idea where to find a lot of the scarabs, so you can get the good bonuses early - I got the Diblahro two stages early and the healing amulet in chapter 12 instead of 15 - and taking a minute or two to just rest and heal can save you a lot of essence in potion costs. I also had an extra Ki point and all six of the Ninpo powerups this time.

It's a good challenge, and some parts will piss you off beyond belief, but it's more than doable if you've already won on normal.

the hardest game in existence is the original ghosts and goblins...

Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts for SNES was a harder game than the original for NES. Once you got used to the original, it wasn't so bad. The SNES one was just masochistic. Took Gray and I four days to beat the freakin' thing

I hated Battletoads.

Zeus wrote:Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts for SNES was a harder game than the original for NES. Once you got used to the original, it wasn't so bad. The SNES one was just masochistic. Took Gray and I four days to beat the freakin' thing

no way man...i beat the snes one, i think i did anyway...the extra jump helped a LOT. though playing the game through twice was a bit masochistic