Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (0)

Overview

Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos is a 1990 action platformer developed by , and is the to the popular first title. Ninja Gaiden II retains many of the original's concepts and expands upon them. In the first Ninja Gaiden, players jumped and clung to walls, slashed enemies with a , and collected an array of . In this sequel, players can also scale the walls-up and down, recruit up to two which mimic his moves and are impervious to damage, and use several new secondary weapons. Once again, we catch up with the ninja , this time on his quest to save his girlfriend from the hands of a named Ashtar. A licensed port by was released later for DOS-based and . It was also released on in in 2007.

Gameplay

Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos retains the most of the core gameplay from the original while making few changes and additions to it as well.

Ryu retains his various which consume ninja power. In this sequel, any attacks that Ryu performs are mimicked by his Shadow Clones, including the projectile attacks:

• (5 points) - the most basic attack
• Windmill Throwing Star (10 points) - acting as a , this star flies back and forth across the screen, taking out enemies until returned to Ryu
• The Art of the Fire Wheel (8 points) - tosses a wheel of fire diagonally upwards.
• Fire Dragon Balls (8 points) - fires dragon balls diagonally downwards.
• Invincible Fire Wheel (15 points) - a circling version of the Fire Wheel which renders Ryu . Unlike in the previous game, the wheel can be called at will.

In Ninja Gaiden II, Ryu has the power to climb any wall by pressing Up or Down on the control pad. In the previous game, the player could only "stick" to a wall by jumping towards it, but was unable to scale in any direction without jumping to an opposite wall or by using a climbing technique that involved

The most innovative new feature is the ability to create "Shadow Clones," also referred to as "Phantom Doubles" or "Split Clones," which are orange shadow versions of Ryu. The Shadow Clones constantly follow him and attack at the same time as Ryu. These clones are immune to damage; enemies and projectiles pass through them. If the player stops moving, the clones freeze in place, whether on the ground or in mid-air. The player can have one or two Shadow Clones following after picking up the that summons them. In the adjacent screenshot, the player has jumped to the left of the enemy, while his spirit clone remains in mid-air in Ryu's previous position. Frozen in place, the clone copies the attacks of the player.