Ninja Gaiden II improved upon the classic just a year later. While certain aspects of the title are better, there are other things it fell short on…

Graphics:

1990 was the peak of Nintendo’s graphics. See for yourself: Super Contra, Double Dragon III, The Mafat Conspiracy, Mega Man 3, Top Gun: Second Mission, Journey to Silius, & Castlevania III each had the most unbelievable details ever seen on the NES console. Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos was released in 1990 as well, and was no exception.

Ninja Gaiden II (NG2) progressed visually. Now the backgrounds are detailed with moving objects; they’re not a bunch of drab tile pieces put together that form confusing-looking patterns. NG2 does an excellent job in providing better graphics while still avoiding that 2D look: the ground that Ninja Ryu walks on is similar to action-type, beat-em-up games. The scenes also improved, well sort of. The characters look smoother, but it’s upsetting not ever seeing again such detail that was put into Walter Smith’s animation.

Sound:

The SFX is much similar to that of the first installment with minor improvements. The music is on par with Ninja Gaiden. But the songs DURING the cutscenes aren’t as remarkable; the ones I found most unfitting were “Ryu Fights Back” & “To the Rescue.” Others still stir up emotion, but are used too frequently and are quite repetitive. This is all a matter of opinion, of course. The music during play compares the same to Ninja Gaiden, with one improvement: pausing the game doesn’t reset the music.

Gameplay:

NG2 is quite similar to its predecessor. NG2 relieves you of a little annoyances by adding a wall climb. Wall-to-wall jumping is used very rarely now when you cannot possibly climb to the top, so it still keeps its original feel at times.

NG2 adds more abilities (the best being the shadow ninjas) & enhances preexisting ones: The time freeze can be used more than once now, allowing you to save it when you need it most. The fire wheel can also be used more than once, and it’s made more useful if you have a shadow ninja with you. Just about all of the original items are back in this sequel.

Overall:

The replay value of NG2 is about the same as Ninja Gaiden. The story is okay, but not quite as enthralling as the first.

Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos outnumbers its predecessor & sequel in the following attributes: Overall Graphics and Gameplay.

This is a complete Spanish (European) translation of this great game. This translation has some enhancements over the original English version.

Please read the information file for some incompatibility problems with some emulators.