PSA: Sigma 2 is a HUGELY butchered version of II. In-depth details within.

[Neonetik]

A lot of people are throwing around an absolute boatload of misinformation relating to just how different Sigma 2 is from the original. it's exceptionally disappointing to read all the comments from people saying the equivalent of "it's just missing gore, who cares?" or "PLZ BRING BACK GORE!!!", when the reality is DRASTICALLY worse, and is being completely ignored. Sigma 1 is often considered an inferior version of Ninja Gaiden, with Black being the best. I'd agree with this, though many would admit that despite this, Sigma 1 and Black are MOSTLY, at their core, the same game. This could not be further from the truth for Sigma 2.

Here is a single video comparison of the same level between games. One from Sigma 2, and one from base II.

Sigma 2 starts from 2:00, II starts from 4:25. I'd recommend watching II first, then the Sigma version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDAiYc_sy8A

See how the vast majority of enemies were removed and replaced by 2 easily killed dogs? See how this completely changes that entire section of the game from what used to be an incredibly fast-paced high difficulty action section, to something that is more akin to a walk through a park?

I'll grant this is a severe example, but what if I told you that even this, if applied to a large part of the game, doesn't even come close to explaining what went wrong with Sigma 2?

NGII was basically crack in videogame form. It was a non-stop action thrillride with some of the most intense and difficult combat ever created in an action game. Sigma 2 on the other hand is like walking through a park of flowers by comparison, except occasionally you just slip and just immediately die.

>About 70% of the total enemy count was removed
>Enemies that remained were given several times increased HP to compensate, as a result, the carefully crafted dismemberment system that affected weapon balance was also indirectly changed.
>This by itself completely screwed up the established balance of the weapons and combat system. Not being able to delimb reliably, along with having enemies be far, far more tanky, and far fewer, makes many encounters far more of a chore than an actual fun experience,
>Gore completely removed and replaced by purple mist (honestly a very minor, but still very annoying change in the grand scheme of things)
>Game was rendered DRASTICALLY easier as a whole due to how the combat was affected by these changes, and turns what is generally considered the hardest ninja gaiden game, into by far the easiest.
>Custom weapon upgrade system was completely removed. Now you just get the upgrades when the game decides, and can't even choose to focus on maxing out certain weapons. Not only does this limit what you are able to do early on, but in addition, making the game's currency almost completely pointless.
>You will now always have full HP potions, along with all other consumables, because money is now basically infinite due to not having weapon upgrades be a concept any more. Some may like this, but it doesn't excuse the fact that upgrading was made far more limited.
>Several weapons were removed for Sigma 2 from II. Yes. Really. Just removed. Absolutely disgraceful. Not sure if I should even expand on this.
>New Game + system from base II removed as well. God knows why, but it's gone.
>Enemy grabs, for god knows what reason, now do an INSANE amount of damage, almost to the point of one-shotting you from full health in many cases. This comes out of nowhere, and is one of the most jarring things considering how much easier other aspects of the game were made.
>This is especially big, as it basically invalidates several strategies of the game that involve using counters, as ninja throws are instant, and are now insanely risky.
>Can't even charge the bow any more
>Tests of valor have been completely removed.
>Bunch of other very minor stuff was altered, but it all adds up.

Some of these changes were made with positive intentions, as the game didn't run all that well on the Xbox 360, but nowerdays, it runs absolutely perfectly on the xbox one x and onwards. Sigma 2 did make SOME positive changes, but the fact is, they don't even come close to matching what they ruined. I don't personally consider Sigma 2 an awful game, but it is without question an awful version of Ninja Gaiden II that bears little resemblance to the glorious game that it tries to "improve".

Oh, and in addition, this "Master" collection?

>Online coop removed
>Certain aspects of jiggle physics removed

That's right. You're not even getting the best version of Sigma 2 in this package. Welcome to your Master collection. At least II is still available for purchase on Xbox. At LEAST we have that, and other certain communities who seem to care more about game preservation than the publishers do, and work hard on making it possible to play these games in the future on PC. Even sadder is the fact that if they removed stuff like this, this means they could have at least made an attempt to fix some of what was wrong with the Sigma 2 release, but instead, chose not to do anything about it.

Frankly, it's an absolute disgrace, and is an insult to Itagaki, and those work worked hard on the true Ninja Gaiden II experience. Source code lost or not, this information should be made clear to the public, instead of touting this release as some overall superior product. It's a huge shame that anyone who points these qualities out for the purposes of ensuring people know what they are getting into is usually immediately called an elitist who doesn't want people to enjoy the game, when the truth is, we care about Ninja Gaiden so deeply, and to see it be treated the way it has just breaks our hearts.

Very disappointing. Very disappointing indeed.

EDIT:
If you want even more info, check out the following articles made by a truly dedicated fan.

Part 1: https://stinger-magazine.com/article/ninja-gaiden-ii-pursuit-of-perfection/

Part 2: https://stinger-magazine.com/article/ninja-gaiden-sigma-2-a-touch-up/

In addition, here are some more good videos, suggested by some helpful people in the comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h0D6t9AAcw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePJPXqXKXh8

"Farnham TheDrunk" on youtube also made a good list of changes, which I will copy paste here. FULL credit to them for this list.

- Game got censored (99% of spilled blood was changed into purple mist)
- Completely censored Cutscenes
- Reduced enemy count
- Increased enemy health
- Increased enemy delimb resistance
- Reduced enemy aggression
- Reduced enemy IS throwing
- Addition of one hit kill grabs on MN from all bosses and most enemies to compensate for the lower enemy count and easier difficulty
- Changed weapon upgrade system (upgrades are for free and the game mandates when and to what lvl the player can upgrade. Infuriating)
- Easier game overall (most of the fights were deleted or altered, f.e. Sigma 2 on Master Ninja starts with 5 grey
Ninja instead of 5 IS Ninja, CH 11 lacks the first 6 fights ENTIRELY, more save points / shops were added, and more)
After some research, we found that the enemies were cut by 2/3. Enemy count in Vanilla 2: 4300-4600. Enemy count in Sigma 2: 1550. Simply pathetic
- Removal of all water combat (cannot fight the Water Dragon on water in Sigma 2)
- No NG+ anymore (original had 2 different NG+ modes)
- Cut (or exchanged) Bosses
- Easier and slower bosses
- Ability to Izuna Drop Genshin (destroys the entire bossfight)
- Removed the ability to counter strong attacks (f.e. Genshin's Haze Straight Slash and his FS, or Mechs)
- Removal or Incendiary Shuriken, Windmill Shuriken and Underwater Gatling Gun
- Removal of Bow UTs
- Unlimited Arrows and addition of a gun to compensate for the lack of Bow UTs
- The Bow has an autoaim system now (the autoaim is completely broken and does not work and aims at all kinds of things sometimes, and manual aim does not work correctly as well, the bow snaps to things or simply does not even let the player change targets sometimes)
- Addition of 3 Mandatory Female Chapters (HORRIBLE)
- Game forces life / Ki upgrades on pickup (when u pick up a Spirit of the Devils or a Life of the thousand Gods, then the game uses it automatically and robs u of the choice of when (or if) to use it). Also, those upgrades do not refill health or ki anymore
- Even tho Chapter Challenge was added, it reduced the max Ki slot count to 5 instead of 10 and is in general no replacement for a proper NG+ mode
- Removal of all keys / keycards in the game, including all lore that came with them, as well as having all doors already opened for the player
- Increased in-game loading times (when opening chests, change weapons, etc)
- Guillotine Throw is not a 100% delimb anymore, and performing a Flying Swallow on in air / crawling enemies is not a 100% insta kill anymore
- The Izuna Drop is in Ryus arsenal from the start with a lvl 1 sword (as well as all other lvl 1 weapons) making an already easier Master Ninja mode even MORE easy
- Logically, the Izuna Drop does not enough damage anymore to kill some of the lesser Ninjas
- Removed the ability to shoot 2 arrows in the air after a normal jump
- Heavenly Justice is not moving towards the attacked enemy when performed without directional input, making the followups clunky or wiff entirely
- Removed the ability to turn the camera during an Izunda Drop and during all "Rope" shimmy sections
- Removed the ability to switch between free and locked on cam during bossfights. It is always on lock on now. Pure r*****ation
- Removed the ability to switch between manual save slots and autosaving (seperate slots). The game will always autosave at statues and the player can only manually save after a chapter. Furthermore, all difficulties in story mode share a single autosave, and in chapter challenge each chapter has its own autosave, tho again only one for all difficulties. What a horrible decision...
- Removed the ability to turn the camera while casting Ninpo without actually aiming the Ninpo. Both sticks aim Ninpo now (in the original, the left stick aimed the Ninpo, the right stick only turned the camera)
- Bosses like the Blind Giant or Rasetsu will be obliterated with both a light and strong attack now... Before, only a strong attack would OT them... They cannot be killed any other way. A very bad change to combat
- All Tests of Valor have been removed
- I cannot believe i am saying this now, but - there is an invisible object / wall in the arena of the first Zedonius fight
- Removed the ability to immediately run on the surface of water when jumping on it from "too high up"
- Some weapons were nerfed (f.e. Talons ->Y has a lower delimb rate now, the Scythe's damage was nerfed so hard,
it feels like a wet noodle, probably to make the Enma's Fang the default heavy weapon, etc)
- Incendiary Shuriken that actively stick to Ryu during a UT charge will NOT stun him. they are basically cotton balls now
- Weapons / LotG, LottG / SotD that were not picked up cannot be bought at Muramasa in the following chapter
- Removed the ability to see the actively selected Ninpo on the left of the healthbar.
- Removed the ability to Ninpo cancel Izuna Drops
- You can block Lycan and Van Gelf grabs... Let me repeat that again: YOU CAN BLOCK LYCAN AND VAN GELF GRABS!! BLOCK EM!! DERPDI DERP DERP

Again, FULL credit to "Farnham TheDrunk" on youtube for the above.

Additional edit: Despite doing my best to stay objectively true, and provide details as accurately and without bias as I can, (including posting a chart of all the differences between Black/Sigma, and stating that this chart has been called biased by a fair few people in the Ninja Gaiden community, (including Royta15, the same person who made those articles I've listed above), which I stated in order to be as transparent as humanly possible with what I know about the data), I've been insulted personally, compared to anti-vaxers (yes, really) and other similar groups, called an entitled elitist, called "insane" for having a discussion about a videogame on a discussion board for the videogame, called a spammer (even though I have made precisely a single thread on this board, one on the S2 board, and have only left a few comments referencing this thread on other directly relevant threads to help answer their questions), have been called several other completely incorrect and offensive things, and have been told that all I want is for the Ninja Gaiden series to die. I've done my best to be cordial, and respond to these claims with only the truth about my aims and goals, and am met with personal, emotionally driven insults in return. I'm rather tired of responding to claims from people who choose to only consider all my words in the absolute worst light possible, instead of the honest attempts to keep people informed with (at least mostly, keyword, mostly) unbiased viewpoints that they actually are. I have not attempted to censor discussion in any way, or counter objectively correct claims about certain flaws of II, but despite this, apparently, I am an awful person, who's only trying to lie and trick everyone, despite the opposite being true. Plus of course, there's also numerous people bringing up moot aspects of performance (which I did touch on in this post already) that no longer matter in the slightest and have been proven to be so.

A strong thank you to all those people who have assisted me, and especially for all the awards. Know that I am very happy about that, and wish all of you fun times for the future with the Itagaki-intended experience, whenever that may be.

[Neonetik]

I fully permit everyone to copy and paste this text directly if you want to. I just want people to be educated.

[dprog1995]

Sigma 2 is better.

Original 2 was a pretty buggy game with performance issues and balance issues. Sigma 2 fixed those issues.

[Daikatan]

Originally posted by dprog1995:

Sigma 2 is better.

Original 2 was a pretty buggy game with performance issues and balance issues. Sigma 2 fixed those issues.

Perfomance is now fixed on Xbox X, though

[hip]

Originally posted by dprog1995:

Sigma 2 is better.

Original 2 was a pretty buggy game with performance issues and balance issues. Sigma 2 fixed those issues.

this is not the Xbox anymore.

[R.O.K. SEOULDIER]

windmill shuriken is removed from NG2S, HAYASHI stating he didnt like the weapon. wtf. windmill shuriken is staple in the series since the NES days. was the only projectile weapon i used in NG2, besides the areas where the game required you to use the bow to hit target points.

[BloodySin]

Originally posted by Neonetik:

>Jiggle physics removed

This was the only thing that caught my attention, but it seems to only be in relation to moving the sticks to "control" breast movement, not like they are now solid unmoving bumps.

[Madder Red]

Originally posted by north:

why are you using greater then symbols?

its a thing from a certain section of a certain imageboard

[Daikatan]

Originally posted by Madder Red:

Originally posted by north:

why are you using greater then symbols?

its a thing from a certain section of a certain imageboard

If you are old enough, you should remember that it's a quote replacement from early 1990s, if not late 1980s. When internet and e-mail was born, or even before that (Fidonet)

[randir14]

Doesn't really matter since nobody here is able to play the original version unless they buy an Xbox.

[Madder Red]

Originally posted by Daikatan:

Originally posted by Madder Red:

its a thing from a certain section of a certain imageboard

If you are old enough, you should remember that it's a quote replacement from early 1990s, if not late 1980s. When internet and e-mail was born, or even before that (Fidonet)

I certainly am,38 here. His exact style of bulletpoints with a > can be found in countless threads on /v/ if this sounds familiar.

[Daikatan]

Like i said, 2ch or whatever were not the first who came up with that... but okay

Old is a new new.

[Madder Red]

Originally posted by Daikatan:

Like i said, 2ch or whatever were not the first who came up with that... but okay

Old is a new new.

They sure didnt but this argument is ultimately pointless.

[Daikatan]

More like it's a universal method of doing quotes when you are too lazy to to bb-code, so not sure if you can flag anyone who uses it as imageboards user

[Madder Red]

Originally posted by Daikatan:

More like it's a universal method of doing quotes when you are too lazy to to bb-code, so not sure if you can flag anyone who uses it as imageboards user

:lunar2019laughingpig:

Fair point

[Kevfactor]

tbh i was hopeful until i saw it was sigma. I might still get it but its not going to be at 60$. I probably will get a xbox just so i can play ninja gaiden back like it was meant to be played lol.

i feel the did the same thing with razor edge too btw. I played the original ng3 and past the weapon dlc junk, i thought the base game was much better and tougher.