I'm playing Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox 360 version) this week. It was a little fiddlier to set up emulation for but it does run well in Xenia Canary albeit with some minor graphical glitches. I'm playing on "Path of the Warrior", the harder of the two modes available to a new player.

I have mixed feelings about it so far, 9 chapters in out of 14. I can see why people call Ninja Gaiden Black a masterpiece and this game a "flawed gem". They're also surprisingly different: NGB was an adventure game with great combat - it had exploration, puzzles, platforming and even an almost Metroidvania-like hub area you backtracked back and forth through. Ninja Gaiden 2 feels like Itagaki watched a Best Action Movie Hallway Fight Scenes compilation DVD, snorted a humongous line and said "watch this drive". It's just linear murder hallway after murder hallway in a story that doesn't even pretend to make sense or have chapter-to-chapter coherence anymore.

It does have some really good design ideas though - I love the way health works in the game for example. Taking damage also reduces your maximum health, but after each combat you're healed up to your reduced maximum. The first time you interact with a Save Point restores and fully heals you, which encourages aggression and creates a similar feeling of "gotta push to the next bonfire" and imminent relief when you do find it that you get in Souls games. The rare item that increases your Max HP also fully restores and heals you, which creates an interesting decision point: can you afford to wait to cash in the HP increase in order to effectively have an extra Max Potion for a tough battle?

There is also definitely something to be said for the frenetic combat, for better or worse. NGB was still fast, but always remained measured and deliberate. NG2 combat is just pure amphetamine-fuelled rabid frenzy. When it works right it's amazing - the first chapter for example is pretty much perfection. Fighting human enemies like ninjas that let you use your whole toolkit of techniques and dismemberment strategically is where NG2 shines. However, you can see the game's famously unfinished and rushed state pretty much everywhere. Lots of fights and chapter stages feel unfun in an untested way.

Some bosses - like Genshin and Volf - are pretty good, but lots of bosses are downright bad even for a series famous for bad bosses. Gigadeath and Water Dragon are among the worst bosses I've ever had the displeasure to fight in all of gaming.

The best way to describe it then is this: 50% of the time it feels like the best action game ever made, and 50% of the time it feels like the worst action game ever made. Is that tradeoff worth it? I don't know, but the highs are damn high and getting into the combat flow in a fun fight and seeing the carnage after is something special.