This is my first play of a Ninja Gaiden game. Back in the NES days I was aware of the series but at the time I pretty much only played hop-and-bop platformers. I did buy the original title on the Virtual Console, but VC games are at the bottom of my backlog pile. So, Dragon Sword is my series introduction and it's a pretty darn good one.
Highly Visible Ninja Ryu slices and dices his way through nicely aggressive swarms of foes and fiends. This is a DS game where, oddly enough, you hold the system sideways to play, like it was a book. No worries for my fellow lefties, you can set the game to either hand. Why the developers decided to go with this layout I do not know. It works but I can't see what advantage it has over the traditional DS position. Dragon Sword also makes almost exclusive use of the stylus for control. It works just fine, though I find myself doing the stylus equivalent of button mashing (screen scribbling?) more than trying out different techniques.
Currently I'm pretty early in. The game's design really fits the portable game philosophy of pick up and play and I've been playing it in short bursts. It hasn't been terribly difficult yet though I was killed once by this guy-
Screen shots don't do the game justice, it's a real looker on the DS. I know there are some who disparage the use of prerendered backgrounds, but I couldn't disagree more. Interaction with the environment simply isn't part of the game-play so why not use a very lovely matte painting to set the stage for the action? The 3-D models are also quite detailed, something I appreciate since characters can get quite close to the camera during combat. Ninja Gaiden – Dragon Sword is keeping my DS close at hand for a quick ninja fix. I'll recommend it to anyone who loves action games.
Ninja Gaiden 2 Review part 1
Ninja Gaiden 2 Review part 2