Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (DS) review

[Da Ill One]

This is the next MUST HAVE game coming out on the DS...in april...Bluewarwolf and I both have the demo on our DS's and let me tell you this game is simply awesome...defiantely a Must buy

GameSpy: Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword Preview

We've already accrued a significant amount of play time with Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (as you can see from our preview previous coverage), but when gaming heavy Tomonobu Itagaki pops by your office to show something off you drop everything to see what he's got. Such was the atmosphere in the GameSpy offices last week, when Itagaki-san showed up to serve us up a hot plate of delicious ninja sword-fighting action. While a few things have been tweaked since the last time we got to play Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, the main focus on quick and brutal action remains thankfully intact.

If you'll recall, Dragon Sword relies on an expanded version of the combat system found in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass where you flick and stab the DS stylus at on-screen enemies in order to pull off Errol Flynn-esque feats of swordplay. Although Dragon Sword's combat system is not directly based off that of Phantom Hourglass, you'd be forgiven for drawing a parallel between the two games because their interfaces seem so similar on the surface (also, because we just made the comparison a sentence ago). Of course, Dragon Sword has a much wider array of hacking and slashing moves than the puzzle-focused Phantom Hourglass.

Executing most of Ryu's moves involve simply slashing at the DS screen, but some require some special sequences or additional techniques. Throwing shuriken is as easy as can be, all you have to do is tap the stylus on your target and the ninja star flies true. More complicated maneuvers, like Ryu's fabled Izuna Drop (a move that tosses enemies into the air and suplexes them into the hard-packed earth below), require you to slash down and then up twice on your target. The Izuna Drop was particularly tricky to pull off, even after we'd felt that we'd gotten a good feel for the controls, but then again spectacular ninja feats shouldn't necessarily be a snap to execute. Indeed, the Ninja Gaiden series has a reputation for rewarding skill, so although the Izuna Drop seems tough to pull off with regularity at this point, you're under no mandate to actually perform it... unless you want Ryu to look like the blade-whirling badass you've come to know and love.


The controls for jumping have been altered slightly to make the whole process more accurate. In previous builds of Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, you had to double-tap the touch screen in order to jump. Now it's been reworked so that jumping is accomplished by sweeping the stylus up on the location that you want to jump to. "We found that people were sometimes throwing shuriken when they really wanted to jump, so we refined the commands to make it easier for people to do what they wanted," said John Inada, Vice President of Tecmo and Itagaki-san's favorite translator. After trying it out we consider this a decided improvement over the previous method of jumping.

Apart from the changes to the jumping mechanic, the game seems largely unchanged. The graphics are still astounding by Nintendo DS standards and the action is fast and frantic. Whenever enemies appear on the screen, Ryu becomes a white-hot ball of frenzied evisceration. In these frequent situations, you also get treated to Dragon Sword's magnificent special effects, which paint each sword slash on the screen in luminous arcs that layer on top of each other, the end result being a tiny singularity of devastation erupting into being every time Ryu engages a foe (or, more likely, foes). Check out the embedded video above to get a better idea of what Ryu Hayabusa looks like in action.

With Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword set for a March release, we're fairly surprised at how complete the game seems after logging more minutes in the preview version. From the look of things, it would seem that Team Ninja has plenty of time to apply its exhaustive play-testing regimen and get Dragon Sword wrapped up and out the door. Also, we can say that the little sword-shaped stylus packed in as a pre-order bonus is pretty sweet and well worth the initial money down, provided you're planning on buying the game in the first place.

[Bluewarwolf]

Oh yea, the demo for this game was freakin sweet. A weird way to play the DS, but nice nonetheless. I am going to get this game, definitely

[mwhp13]

Well, I guess I just found out what I'm saving up for after brawl
This game looks awesome

[Bluewarwolf]

This game IS awesome. Very intuitive use of the stylus, and the sideways play will turn out to be fun

[Jamoodah]

How do you get the demo?

[Da Ill One]

Originally Posted by Jamoodah

How do you get the demo?

Couple of ways...The main way in the United States is to go to Gamestop/EBGames...Most of them have what's called a DS download station...you gotta bring your DS into the store obviously and you go to the station and you can download whatever demo's are at that station...the one I went to had the DS internet browser demo, the new Phoenix wright ace attorney demo, and Ninja Gaiden Demo..so I downloaded all of them for free =)...


another way is if you have the full retail version of the DS web browser on your DS...then you can go to like nintendo.com, tecmo.com and whatever sites...and ALOT of them have DS Demo downloads on them...just download of the site....

[Bluewarwolf]

Unfortunately though, the demos go away when you turn off your DS or play a different game, and you can only have one demo. Which really sucks

[Jamoodah]

Originally Posted by Da Ill One

Couple of ways...The main way in the United States is to go to Gamestop/EBGames...Most of them have what's called a DS download station...you gotta bring your DS into the store obviously and you go to the station and you can download whatever demo's are at that station...the one I went to had the DS internet browser demo, the new Phoenix wright ace attorney demo, and Ninja Gaiden Demo..so I downloaded all of them for free =)...


another way is if you have the full retail version of the DS web browser on your DS...then you can go to like nintendo.com, tecmo.com and whatever sites...and ALOT of them have DS Demo downloads on them...just download of the site....

Wow sweet, I'll go check that out. Thanks. I'll hold off on the web browser though, since the Wii is getting that channel that allows that feature, but I'll head over to gamestop. ... hmmm, could I download the DS internet Browser demo and then use it to download other demos? probably not, but we'll see!

[ninjask88]

I have played the demo of this too and it is pretty sweet. I lik ehow you hold the ds sideways.
The only ting I dont like is how the demo isnt very long.

[Megaman FTW]

Originally Posted by mwhp13

Well, I guess I just found out what I'm saving up for after brawl
This game looks awesome

Wait, do you mean that there will be other games after Brawl?

AMAZING!