Ninja Gaiden Black is
Ninja Gaiden integrated with the contents of the two
Hurricane Packs, and a Mission Mode. Tomonobu Itagaki has tweaked it to be more difficult than the original release, especially on the higher difficulties. Several bosses including
Spirit Doku and the Dark Disciple attack faster and more furiously, plus a variety of dangerous new foes have been added to make life even harder. Furthermore, players who have played
Ninja Gaiden will find the Flying Swallow move, which could previously dominate almost any foe thrown against Ryu, has been heavily toned down. On Hard difficulty and above, foes block the Flying Swallow more frequently, forcing players to adapt to a new style of fighting. There are even a couple of new enemies having moves specifically to punish usage of the Flying Swallow against them.
Hurricane Pack 1's design, along with several new in-game cutscenes were effectively integrated into Story Mode, and playable on all difficulty levels, including the new Ninja Dog and Master Ninja difficulty. Encounters were added on higher levels of difficulty to surprise players on their first play, and almost all foes were given grabbing, guard breaking or crushing attacks. This coupled with the increase in the enemies' aggressiveness made the player more wary on their toes, and less likely to '
turtle' in
Ninja Gaiden Black.
New elements are continually introduced as the player clears the higher difficulties with the aid of the Lunar and Smoke Bombs (a new projectile which aids in distracting enemies). As the player attempts the higher difficulties, he will encounter foes from the
Hurricane Packs, as well as new ones, like explosive bats, flame ninjas (red-clad ninjas whose attacks inflict additional flame damage), and Ryu's evil shadows, the
Doppelganger Fiends. New costumes for Ryu were also available for the player to unlock, as well as the
Ninja Gaiden arcade game (which took the place of the three bonus unlockable NES games in
Ninja Gaiden).
Mission Mode introduced 46 missions concentrating on combat in small arenas. The majority of the missions are new scenarios, while several are modified versions of fights found in Story Mode. The game the finalists played in the World Wide Master Ninja Tournament 2004 finalists was implemented as one of the missions. The longest mission is Eternal Legend, which is
Hurricane Pack 2 implemented on
Ninja Gaiden Black's engine.
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