Played a bit more NGX. I haven't really made any "progress"; I just "level built" a bit, and now have every weapon fully powered up.

It still doesn't seem like enough. I tried the level 3 Diabilaharu (or whatever) against the fiends, and it doesn't work that well. As I've said before, Ryu can be a little slow, so they can get their attack in before he can, which also completely forestalls his attack. So, if you just keep mashing the button, hoping to get your attack in, you'll just be attacked over and over (and probably eventually thrown).

If you can get that first hit in, you'll probably be able to do a full combo, but my experience is contrary to FaciltyPro's: A single multihit (say, 6 or 9 hits) combo doesn't finish them off. 2 multihit combos seems to, though.

Any tricks to getting that first hit in? Nothing that I've discovered that works reliably. You can do a running slide towards them, which gets a first hit, but then Ryu still has to recover before he can use his sword, so that doesn't work. A jumping attack can get a first hit, but, again, Ryu lags terribly after one of those attacks, so that won't lead into a combo, either. You can try to get behind them, but it seems like enemies always turn around very quickly, even faster than they normally move.


Then there are those damn fish. I'm shocked that *so* many people have complained about bottomless pits (which have only been in gaming for 20+ years) in Shinobi being cheap, but apparently *no one* has complained about those fish being cheap? I wonder if it's an emperor's new clothes phenomena, and with all the hype about NGX, no one wanted to make the first complaint.

Anyway, you can't outrun the fish; they move faster than you do. You can run away for a second, then when some get close to you, slash them with the sword. That works, but only well if the path with them is short. Otherwise, once again, Ryu will be paused for an instant after using his sword, and in that time more fish will have accumulated, and you probably won't have recovered in time to attack those.

Well, the game isn't impossible; many people have beaten it, so, yes, there are ways past them. Maybe you can use Ninja magic to clear a path, run for a few moments, then use ninja magic again. Or you can just take some hits, button mash to get away, then heal with potions (but you better be careful with this one: If a bunch of fish latch on, they can drain your health from full to zero in an instant!). Neither of these options seem good to me, nor are they indicative of good game design.

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."
-Orwell