The circle is now complete. Past it, actually. I started a successive play game in NGX, and am up to stage 4. When I recently beat the game, I started on stage 3 (I beat the first two stages probably more than a year ago).

I probably should have started the game over from scratch to begin with, but oh well. The cinema that I missed by not started over contains the entire story to the game: Ryu is told that Doku is a greater fiend of the Vigorian Empire, whose leader wants the Dark Dragon blade. The whole game is about Ryu taking revenge on the Vigor Empire for destroying his village.

There's a little bit of foreshadowing in an early cinema (the guy says that it's a shame that the dark dragon blade can't be used as a weapon, but he can't use it because he's not from the dragon clan).

And Ryu is killed in a cinema at the end of stage 2. A bird flies down and looks at him. I guess that's somehow supposed to explain the ending.





As for the game, I guess I have learned something about it after playing it. It is, for the most part, much easier than it was the first time (one exception might have been the second stage boss, which I still don't have a good strategy for).


But what IS a successive play game? Is it just playing through Normal again? Or is it Hard or Very Hard? If it's just Normal, what's the point? It's not a new game plus: Unlike DMC, you don't keep your items, your money, your life bar, or anything, really. Okay, you keep your gold scarabs. (BTW, I had 38 when I beat the game) That gave me a life of the gods and, er, one other item which I forgot. Oddly, it didn't give me the big sword. So that doesn't do much of an anything.

If I'd actually bother to replay the game, I guess this time I could try fully powering up the wooden sword (which I didn't do last time).

Is the Ninja Gaiden trilogy that can be unlocked in this game the SNES version? That would kind of suck.

One thing I was paranoid about was making a safe when I had low health and screwing over my file. I was paranoid about the same thing in some other games (like KOTOR and DMC1), and for this one ended up using all ten slots. Like those games, though, it's really not an issue. At most points in the game, it's possible to earn more money and health if you need it.

However, the final save point is a "point of no return" (like the final save points in Final Fantasy Tactics and Super Metroid), so it could be a good idea to not save over your file at that location.

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