With a satisfying crunch, my sword skewered into the bowels of my opponent.
Everything happened at once: Blood poured forth with enough profusion to shame a Tarantino film, the camera dramatically zoomed close to the point of impact, and time slowed to a crawl. An on-screen prompt urged me to mash the attack button as fast as possible. The payoff: A spectacularly theatrical coup de grace animation.
I've just earned my first kill in Ninja Gaiden 3's multiplayer mode.
Until now, developer Team Ninja's formula for shinobi savagery stuck to charting the single-player saga of shadowy protagonist Ryu Hayabusa in a franchise known mostly for its controller-busting difficulty. With the inclusion of eight-player multiplayer, NG3 wants that same level of action in a competitive scene — a monumental task at best.
After trying out the game at a recent hands-on demo, I came away with an experience tempered by doubt. Make no mistake, throwing a bunch of ninja into a brawl sounds amazing – on paper, at least. But a few noticeable elements during my session showed telltale signs of the industry-wide predilection for tacking on multiplayer as an artificial franchise life extension. Thus, here's three of my most concerning observations.
Maps
First things first: NG3's multiplayer whisks players off to locales perfectly fit for the art of throat-slashing. The preview version I played consisted of a single town map, but that was enough to gauge Team Ninja's dedication to its craft.
Nestled among the thick canopies of the Japanese countryside, the tranquil village looked like it jumped right out of a Hokusai woodblock print. Tiled, slanted roofs and geometrically precise woodwork completed the look with excellent flourish.
Sadly, any such potential for visual allure falters by way of map design. I eagerly anticipated frenzied duels within rice paper corridors; balletic dances with brushed steel in the murky darkness of the rafters; whispering a knife through a sliding door into the back of a hapless foe.
What I got instead was a stuffy, boxy arena. Both four-player teams spawned on opposite sides of a small square in the middle of the village – and that's where most of the carnage took place. Rooftops were fair play but summarily forgotten once everyone zeroed in their targets. Of course, geek law states that a ninja's actions automatically look cool – even standing around a square patch of dirt – but the lack of interaction with the surrounding environs really crimped my drive for stabbing people in the face. We'll get more maps at launch, obviously, so hopefully we'll see some more complex playgrounds.
Balance
As any veteran ninja knows, balance begets perfection. NG3's multiplayer contains a leveling system similar to Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed. Unlike those games, however, NG3 lacks any sort matchmaking system so far. As a result, unlockables – cosmetic clothing and masks along with new weapons and abilities – greatly skew the tide of battle in favor of seasoned Gaiden veterans sinking boatloads of time into their characters.
Fresh players thrown into the fray have no choice but to bite the throwing star and take the punishment for a chance at equal footing – a frustrating chore due to deadly one-hit-kill abilities like a massive ninpo energy ball blast. (Case in point: My entire team got flattened in seconds by a developer using a maxed out character firing off just that ability.) It isn't too late for some major balance tweaks before release – unless Team Ninja actually wants a mass harakiri on its hands. (No, seriously: You can commit an honorable death in-game at low health that denies the kill to your opponent.)
Combat
Predictably, players have access to a sizable library of flashy evasion moves including flips, wall runs, and invisibility. Everyone's a damn ninja, after all. Unpredictably, I found escaping surprisingly tough after someone touched me just once. Yes, you can block, but that feature turns largely ornamental after you're slapped with a 12-hit Ki-strike death-adder lotus mega-combo that leaves you clinging to life.
I suppose this is NG3's special way of rewarding those fortunate souls who actually connect with one of the many flitting bodies, but the resulting chaos ultimately doesn't call for much strategy. Indeed, I noticed a tendency for players to circle around each other like a couple of moody chickens, eventually charging into a single-button hack-fest until someone collapsed in a bloody heap. Shadow Contracts – optional objectives with bonus experience gained for nabbing kills using a certain move – are a good initial solution, but NG3 needs an incentive for players to explore assassinations beyond spam-fests.
Ninja Gaiden 3 has a planned March 2012 release for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Do you think the franchise benefits (or suffers) from the addition of multiplayer? Take it to the comments below!