Ninja Gaiden II = Fucking Easy

I started Ninja Gaiden II last night. To my surprise, the game is easy. Lemme rephrase that....Fucking Easy. Yes, yes I died a few times. Yes, I am playing on Warrior mode. Let me explain before you start thinking I'm crazy.

First off, you know when someone tells you holy crap, this is the scariest game they've ever played, they build it up, and then you go play it and its not at all. I think this effect, which I'm going to name the Henderson Effect, is probably what occurred. There's a lot of stink about the first one being extremely hard and there are some challenging parts in this one but most times it's difficult because of the ridiculous stuff you have to go through.

Next, another reason why this game is easier is because of the addition of the health and save system. You health recovers an amount after each "battle" when you clear an area. This all depends on how much health you lost during the battle and I'm guessing what type of hits you took. Another change was that each save spot will refill your life the first time you reach there and save. The game has become more of a challenge where you try to hold out until the next save point and then restart fresh from there. Long gone are those days where you could only heal when an enemy drops life after defeating them. Now, besides healing, there are plenty of opportunities to regain health.

Notice in the last point I used easier and another change. That's because I'm comparing it to first game. The game compared to the first is much easier. The camera is still a little janky, but most of the major problems with the first have been somewhat aleviated. Playing through the first one not only prepared me for this to be a hard game, but I have an idea of which moves are effective and how to use them. The flying swallow is still amazing and you can now triple flying swallow. I still use my patented roll jump even though it's been partially modified to a dash jump. I could see if someone had never playing Ninja Gaiden or an action game tried to jump into this one, how they could be overwhelmed.

The real point is, I'm looking forward to finishing this game. It's been a little challenging at times, but I've fully leveled my Dragon Sword, I've got full health items and ninpo items, and I haven't had to use a heal item once during a boss battle. Actually the only time I've used a health item is when I found another one and my inventory was full, so I needed to use one to clear up space. I do want to point out that I am really digging this game and am surprised to be liking it so much.

Watch out for those Ninja Dogs (actual dogs with swords and exploding kunai)
David

Here's a video of me beating the level three fish boss, without heals.
I apologize, I get a little excited.