Maybe I'm not an expert, maybe I took the simple approach, but Ninja Gaiden really is all about mashing buttons and hoping you take down your enemies before they take out you. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means by the end of the game your square and triangle buttons will be a little worse for wear.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is the reworked version of the previously 360 exclusive title, Ninja Gaiden 2. This version follows the same story, and will seem very similar but some sections are in, other are out, and some bosses have been replaced with different foes. The majority of the game will see you playing as Ryu Hayabusa, descendent of the Dragon lineage, on a mission to retrieve the Demon Statue that has been stolen, and defeat the Black Spider Ninja Clan from completing their evil conquest. Along the way you will defeat countless horrid fiends and battle some pretty outlandish bosses. Through out the game you will also have the opportunity to play as three different characters for brief periods. Ayane, Momiji and Rachel are all playable female characters who control somewhat differently than Ryu and will give you slightly different feel as you dismember your opponents.

The action in this game is anything but tame. Although human enemies do not spurt blood, you can dismember them and have them come hoping at you on one leg or crawling on the ground with out an arm. For fiends, the outrageous monster like enemies, arms, legs and heads can all be cut off with amounts of gore flying out in the process. For the most part dismembering your enemies give you some visual feedback that you are indeed damaging the enemy, but too often you repeatedly hit foes without an visible signs of damage being done. This isn't a huge issue, but it seems as though if you are slashing an enemy with a sword upwards of ten times, he should at least show some faint signs of being hurt.

In order to destroy your enemies Ninja Gaiden provides you with a variety of weapons that range from giant swords to sharpened claws. You also have a limited selection of projectile weapons such as a bow or cannon. Each weapon has its own style and depending on which you equip it will alter your style of attack. Each weapon can be upgraded three times but you will need to find a blacksmith within a Muramasa's Shop, and depending on where you are in the game, your ability to upgrade a weapon past a certain point may be limited. Muramasa's Shop are little statutes that when the area is clear of enemies, you can access and buy items that will refill your health or Ki (basically mana). With your Ki you can use Ninpo, which are essential spells that can be either offensive or defensive and can be used if you're in a tight spot. They are a neat mechanic but using them isn't really essential to success.

Ninja Gaiden is neither original or innovative. It's unlikely that when you sit down to play this game you'll be tempted to power through and play for hours. That in itself doesn't equate to Ninja Gaiden being a bad game, rather it is more indicative of its gameplay. For the majority of gamers level after level, encounter after encounter of the same repetitive button mashing will become tiresome and will likely only be fun in short bursts. That's exactly how it was played for this review, and in moderation the hack and slash, button mashing can be quite enjoyable. You can pull of some pretty impressive looking moves and if you actually put some effort in, there are some button mashing sequences that make your character pull off special moves. You do have the ability to block and dash away but for the most part, as long as you're able to kill all the enemies before they kill you, your health is replenished at the end of each fight and blocking becomes a novelty more than a necessary gameplay element. This brings up the point that although at points when you're being attacked by multiple enemies, the game can be a challenge, overall, depending on the difficult level you're playing under, simply going full out and attacking everything insight with little regard to strategy or blocking is quite sufficient to beat the game. It is unlikely you will die that frequently during the normal course of the game, and while fighting the bosses of the game, unless you aren't able to figure out the key to their defeat, they as well will not present too much of a challenge.