Both of the following sections contain a total over view of Plus and minus to Ninja Gaiden 2 and Devil May Cry 4, if you would prefer the quick short run down without the opinion and gibber just go straight to the bottom.
I would recommend DMC4. Ninja Gaiden is good, very very violent :) gory as all hell yeah but the story isn't even worth sitting through and in traditional Ninja Gaiden form it gets ridiculously hard even in what they deem easy mode. The bosses are the biggest one, most of the bosses have super long distance unblockable attacks, which turns most boss battles from strategic combat to button mashing fingers crossed screaming matches. The games decent and if you're looking for a insane challenge with lots of blood ok. OH, while I'm on it, the game is 50% hard because of fighting enemies and 50% hard because your fighting the camera. The game LOOKS great WHEN you can see the action, most times you'll get into a groove of hacking and slashing just so the camera can tweak out and pick some randomly obscure angle so just as things get intense you suddenly can't see anything, and just as you press R Trigger to re center the camera, it's just intime to see some guy hacking you up. The camera is horrible with not doubt, and will kill you more than any bad guy.
DMC 4 on the other hand isn't as bloody but makes up for it with tons of cool moves and a feeling of uber domination, even in hard I felt like I was really handing the baddies their @$$. I don't much like these action games rank system, you get more upgrade points for getting bigger combos BUT DMC4 makes it exceedingly easy to get big combos by throwing lots of baddies at you. DMC4 feels more paced. In Ninja baddies throw them selves at you constantly, meaning you don't get time to breath or plan, you just have to hope your reflexes press the right buttons. So in ninja you end up on your ass a lot mad cause some sucker got you in the back, in DMC4 you get a few split seconds between most engagements to breath and asess your surroundings. Aswell DMC4 has ZERO camera issues, the camera is usually pulled back nice and far, almost like a low areial camera so you can see you, the baddies and even some extra breathing room to plan your movements. Also the game is much better paced, one of the things you'll find if you read about Ninja is that bosses are totally out of wack, one boss is super easy, then the next kills you five times, then the next is easier than the first one and then the next you end up throwing your controller out the window lol. With DMC 4 Every boss feels just about right, as difficulty and complexity increase slightly with each encounter. On the other hand DMC4 has a much heavier learning curve, Ninja has four buttons basically, master them and you master combat with most of the weapons, each weapon has it's strength and weakness but pretty much you got it. With DMC 4 you have ranged combat and close AND you have TWO different characters you play as. The main guy Nero has a gun, sword and the Devil Bringer, very good hand thing. And Dante of course has Gun, Sword and Attitude... or uh, spell stuff. idk. Either way they both play very differently, while playing with nero requires a mix of sword and devil technique Dante just requires sword and timing. Plus the characters damage and speed vary and since about half way through the game you switch, you end up having to rework all of your combat stratigies since you now have new speed and strength stats.
Round up.
Ninja Gaiden 2
+ Very violent/gory - Awsome dismemberment and blood effects
+ High Speed - The balls to the wall action makes every fight feel like a fight for your life
+ Control - The Four button control layout means quick to learn giving you a lot of time to work out your own way of playing, only four buttons to actually fight but how you combine those four is up to you.
- Too Fast - The super fast gameply probably wouldn't be SO harsh if the camera wern't a issue, but since you spend half the game not able to see your enemies, the high speed combat gets to feel almost claustrophobic. Every time you try to assess your combat situation you're on the ground. Your forced to button mash without thinking.
-CAMERA - Seriously, I like challenge games, not challenging controls. Some may say thats part of the challenge is mastering controls, but seriously thats just a cover up for not putting enough work into the design. At the beginning of the game you won't notice it much and in the open areas it's not a problem, but around chapter 4 or 5 when you spend a lot of time inside you'll realize your fighting the camera harder than you're fighting the baddies.
? - Story? What story? I wouldn't say this is a bad thing, so it's just confusing. They pretend to have a story, but really just threw some dialouge and cut scenes together and went "WA LAH! Story!" Don't play this if your a heavy story driven gamer, you want action and don't care for story, this is your game.
Devil May Cry 4
+High Pace - Notice the pace instead of speed, this game is fast no doubt. But the large areas and great camera give you enough space to look around and plan your tatics but not make things so open that you spend five minutes running from baddy to baddy. You'll hit moments where button mashing is needed, but you'll have many where you can think first too.
+ Options o'my - Between two characters and a plethora of skills and abilities for each, you can play more than once and end up with different play method every time.
+Story - While it may not be ground breaking or something, the story for DMC is a good one. Not Hideo Kojima ok? But good. If you need story in your games, this ones it. If you don't most of the cut scenes are skippable if I remember correctly.
- Double Trouble - While not a serious error in the design, switching to a new character half way does pose some what of a learning curve. Dante handles differently and thus plays differently, oh and for the final fight you'll flip back to Nero. So if you don't play the game through and you skip a week or so, beating the game with a high score could prove a pain.
- Artificial Idiots - Deffinetly not the brightest AI, most of'em don't even feel threatening. They just stand there and wait to be hacked up, at least the basic dolls do.
- Wasn't I here already? - In a effort to extend game and story, once you take over Dante you're force to go back through all the levels that you've already beat as Nero and rebeat all the bosses again, all beit they're all stronger this time around.
So that's my long winded explination, if you havn't bought one already lol. I really hope this helps. Again, my personal opinion, DMC4. I will be keeping that regardless, it's in my collection. As for Ninja, I'll probably sell it someday for another game... like GoW2.
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