Let's Play Ninja Gaiden Black Part 2 - Skies of Vengeance
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Game Description:
Ninja Gaiden is a 2004 hack and slash game developed by Team Ninja and published by Tecmo. It was released in March, originally for the Xbox. Players control Ryu Hayabusa, a master ninja, in his quest to recover a stolen sword and avenge the slaughter of his clan. It was inspired by Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden series, and is set in the same continuity as Team Ninja's Dead or Alive fighting games.
Tecmo developed Ninja Gaiden for five years, targeting a western audience. The game's violence created difficulties obtaining content ratings, and it was censored in some regions. Making use of the Xbox's internet connectivity, Tecmo promoted Ninja Gaiden with a series of international online contests; record-breaking numbers of players competed for places in the live final held at the 2004 Tokyo Game Show.
Ninja Gaiden was critically acclaimed and sold 362,441 copies in North America in the first month of release; however, Japanese sales were poor. Team Ninja released two packs of downloadable content, which were also incorporated into a reworked version, Ninja Gaiden Black (2005). In 2007, Ninja Gaiden was ported to PlayStation 3 as Ninja Gaiden Sigma, with extra content and graphical improvements; this was released on the portable PlayStation Vita as Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus. Ninja Gaiden was followed by Ninja Gaiden II (2008) and Ninja Gaiden 3 (2012).
Ninja Gaiden Sigma was released for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One as part of the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection on June 10, 2021.
Post-release
Team Ninja kept working on the Ninja Gaiden project after its release, with the aim of pushing the action genre and their first such game as far as they could. To this end, they released downloadable expansions, known as Hurricane Packs, free of charge. Itagaki said that since the packs were born out of his team's interest, they did not care to charge players for their efforts. The two packs were available over Xbox Live in the third quarter of 2004.
Hurricane Pack 1 was a revamped version of Story Mode; Team Ninja tweaked the encounters and artificial intelligence (AI) of Ryu's foes to increase the difficulty of the game. The pack introduced additional foes such as humanoid cats, giants wearing dinosaur skulls, and cyborgs, and Team Ninja made a key change to the camera system by which the on-screen action is displayed; players could now control the camera and change its viewing angle. Another feature of the pack was to enhance the combat engine; the new "Intercept" skill let players counter any enemy attack with the proper timing.
Hurricane Pack 2 kept the enhancements of the first, but took place in an alternative world comprising only two regions, where players have to fight through several encounters to rescue Rachel from two new bosses (Nicchae and Ishtaros). This expansion introduced fiends who wield giant swords and cast fireballs.
Team Ninja later compiled both expansion packs, and added new features, to create Ninja Gaiden Black. This game, which Itagaki viewed as the final version of Ninja Gaiden, went on sale on September 20, 2005. A few years later, Team Ninja upgraded the graphics of the game and ported it to the PlayStation 3 (PS3). This version was released as Ninja Gaiden Sigma on June 14, 2007. Black became an Xbox Original game on February 11, 2008.