Ninja Gaiden (Prima's Official Strategy Guide) by Eric Mylonas
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Book Reviews of Ninja Gaiden (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)
Book Review: Less than perfect
Summary: 4 Stars
Lately it seems while most strategy guides for consoles systems claim to reveal all secrets they never own up to it and this guide is no different. It does have its uses and is somewhat better than average. For starters this guide does provide a fairly good level walk-through and strategy for battling the bosses, but it leaves out a lot of info out in particular on most of the other weapons you will acquire during the game. The strategy for using the weapons in the game is rather lackluster as it only gives a little info on the weapons you will probably be using throughout most of the game. This said its not as bad as it seems largely because weapons like the nunchaku will not be seeing much if any use once you acquire the Vigorian Flail which essentially functions like a super bladed nunchaku. Additionally the Bow & Strongbow have identical strategies in usage so that's not much of an issue. It does list some of the best moves for the Dragon Sword/True Dragon Sword as well as the Vigorian Flail and Warhammer, but this is average at best and would have better more useful if it had listed more moves and most if not all weapons. It gives a pretty accurate description of where you will find most of the essential items like health and ki items, but it lives out the picture of one of the most important items in the game being the "Life of a thousand Gods" which unlike "Life of the Gods" permanently increases your health without needing nine of them first. Additionally one nice thing about this guide is that they included info for beating the bosses of the original three nintendo Ninja Gaidens in the back of the book which will be very helpful when you eventually unlock the games.
While this one of Prima's better strategy guides in recent memory its not as useful as it could have been. It will provide you with a good basic walk-through for the majority and help you find most items in the game fairly well, but never goes into enough detail on the weapons as well as some other stuff. That said its useful when you need a picture to get you through some tight spots where online strategy guides generally can't help, but you'll probably end up going to gamefaqs at some point when you need a little info that this book left out.
Book Review: Left out stuff
Summary: 3 Stars
While this stratagy guide, does tell you the basic out line of the levels and where most of the items are, they leave many out. I want my 20$ worth man! and this guide ain't doin it for me. (What do you do when you see a headless french man running through the forest? Ya stop laughing and reload your shotgun!)Book Review: All Secrets Revealed, My Foot!!!
Summary: 2 Stars
While following this guide will get the player through the game, it's not as polished as it's portrayed to be. It's quite hard to believe that Prima let this atrocious thing out the door. Usually Strategy Guides offer more than enough information for the consumer, that's not so the case as with this one here. For starters, following this guide leaves the player at loss for several vital golden scarabs and live of the gods. I noticed points in the game where I didn't follow the guide and ended up with a larger lifebar than what was compared at the time with the guides in certain points of the game. The guide even has the nerve to have the player backtrack at times to collect life of gods and elixers that the player could have earlier on in their adventure! Another huge flaw (and possibly thus far the worst) is how Prima didn't even bother to implement an enemy/boss encyclopedia description in the guide!! Yep, so it's practically "no hold's bar" when encountering new enemies and bosses. The player is basically left to figure out enemy strategies in the cold, in the thick of battle (Imagine buying a guide for an rpg game that didn't have an enemy/boss encyclopedia, that's how stranded the player is left with this guide). It's also amazing how the guide gives the reader a brief overview on boss battle encounters for the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy, yet it offers absolutely no clue to the player as to how to access the three games (what on earth is up with that?!). Perhaps the guide wanted the players to try and think for themselves at some points in the game, however that's not what consumers pour out their hard earned cash to buy a guide for. They buy them for precise information that is more than enough to get them through their game. You'd do yourself better by simply downloading a complete walkthrough online than spending (money) on this thing.Book Review: Somewhat misleading cover
Summary: 2 Stars
This guide has printed right on the front cover "All Secrets Revealed!" Well, Prima must think the word "all" means something different from what everyone else thinks.In terms of just being a straight walkthrough of the game, the guide does a fair job. It gives general direction for players and some decent tips for the boss fights. It even has a nice bonus feature that describes each of the previous Ninja Gaiden games, and a useful boss strategy section for the unlockable SNES versions of Ninja Gaiden 1-3.
On the other hand, this guide falls short in just too many areas to seriously recommend over an online FAQ. As suggested before, "All Secrets" are NOT revealed - for example, how to unlock the hidden SNES games, costume tricks, and the successive play mode. The guide has maps for each level, which take up too much space considering there are in-game maps. Though there are a half-dozen weapons in the game, each with extensive movelists, the guide offers only a few basic combos for each weapon. Normal combat strategies are almost nonexistant, with a lot of the walkthrough saying thing like "As you round the corner, you will see four very strong zombie soldiers waiting for you. Kill them and move on" - not especially useful if you're having trouble.
This guide would get 1 star from me if it didn't have the historical stuff and the SNES game boss guide.
Book Review: Only purchase if you simply want to finish the game
Summary: 2 Stars
I rely on user reviews when buying products. So when something is really great or really crappy I feel a sense of duty to help my fellow man spend their cash efficiently. The guide for Ninja Gaiden should only be purchased if you simply want to finish the game ON THE DEFAULT DIFFICULTY. It claims that "All Secrets Revealed" on the cover and I'm sure many consumers were sold on the purchase because of this. Be assured that all secrets are NOT revealed. Many, many useful chests and battles are left out which would help the player upgrade their arsenal or unlock cool add ons. In addition most of the strategies will only work on Normal Difficulty. And you'll still get spanked on normal but at least be able to proceed through the story. In fact if you look at the pictures during boss battles you'll see the character's health being dimished by boss hits while employing those lame strategies. Now I imagine Prima gave the author a month at best to play and write this strategy. I would not have done much better in that time being handed a new, difficult game such as Ninja Gaiden. But I expect a professionally written guide that makes such strong claims about its content to be much more solid than this. I don't think I'd ever buy another Prima guide unless the reviews are rock solid. Free online guides by experienced players are way better.