Ninja Gaiden II: Dark Sword of Chaos is the second installment of the Ninja Gaiden trilogy. It was originally developed for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and was later ported to many formats. It was recently re-released on such modern machines as the Nintendo Wii. This version of the game, like the others, was programmed by Tecmo, and released by GameTek in the early nineties.
Dark Sword of Chaos is a side-scrolling platform game in the fighting genre. The story begins roughly one year after the closing of the events of the original installment.
Ninja Gaiden II: Dark Sword of Chaos is the second installment of the Ninja Gaiden trilogy. It was originally developed for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and was later ported to many formats. It was recently re-released on such modern machines as the Nintendo Wii. This version of the game, like the others, was programmed by Tecmo, and released by GameTek in the early nineties.
Dark Sword of Chaos is a side-scrolling platform game in the fighting genre. The story begins roughly one year after the closing of the events of the original installment. Ryu Hayabusa’s girlfriend, Irene Lew, is kidnapped by an evil wizard named Ashtar. In an effort to reclaim his love, Ryu chases Ashtar to his shrine where Ryu watches Ashtar sacrifice
Irene on his dark blade. The sword, hence the title of the game, feeds on chaos and hatred, and Ashtar intends to use the results of Irene’s wounds to open the portal to the Realm of Chaos. Once open, the gate will flood with hundreds of demons that will overrun the world. When Ryy faces Ashtar, Ashtar is defeated, but he sends both Irene and the blade into the realm. Ryu must follow them into the Realm of Chaos, rescue Irene, and stop the next villain, Jaquio, from taking over the world using the sword’s power.
Similar to other games in the series, Dark Sword of Chaos offers Ryu many weapons from which to choose while battling the demons. All consume some amount of ninja power, depending on the amount of damage they do. Ryu can choose from throwing stars, fire wheels, fire dragon balls, windmill throwing stars, and invincible fire wheels, each doling out more damage and using more power respectively. In addition to these moves, Ryu can also climb walls and split his body into clones that will also damage his opponents.
Overall, game play using the keyboard is quite unhandy and the pixilated graphics make it difficult to tell exactly where Ryu is striking and what is damaging Ryu. The many different enemies and interesting levels are cool, but are lost in the poor DOS conversion. For some gamers, however, the action of the game might be enough to offset this challenge. Ninja Gaiden II: Dark Sword of Chaos comes recommended to those patient gamers who are willing to overlook its faults, and to those who are well versed in using the keyboard where the NES joysticks work so much more naturally.
