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#ninjagaiden Ever since Team Ninja's been in charge of the modern-day Ninja Gaiden franchise, no character kills bad guys quite the way that Ryu Hayabusa does. Tecmo's been teasing out the specifics of his next outing for a bit and finally passed along word of when we'll be able to play as the viciously gifted shadow warrior. More »

Tecmo Koei is ensuring that we'll all be laden with giant, heavy video game boxes on March 20, making us perfect targets for ninja assassins. Hmm.

That's the newly announced North American release date for Ninja Gaiden 3. It's also the date on which the Collector's Edition will become available, only at GameStop and EB. The "truly deluxe package" includes an art book, soundtrack CD, and "Duel of the Masked" figure. Most importantly, you'll get a four-character Dead or Alive 5 demo.

Even if, for whatever reason, you decide you don't need that figurine or the rest of the Collector's Edition, pre-ordering any version of the game at GameStop or Amazon will get you a two-character DOA5 demo. If you choose GameStop, you have access to Ryu Hayabusa and Hitomi, while Amazon grants you Ayane and Hayate.

The idea of multiplayer in Ninja Gaiden 3 is, to be honest, not something I was all too excited about. I'm a big fan of the Ninja Gaiden series, but multiplayer? It just didn't seem like a good idea.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I actually had fun sampling Ninja Gaiden 3's. As crazy as it sounds, when you've got a bunch of ninjas slashing each other and chucking shuriken around, it seems you're gonna have a good time. Who woulda thunk it?

Get More: GameTrailers.com, Ninja Gaiden 3 - Abu Dhabi Gameplay Part 1, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

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Source: VG247

Ryu is pretty great at slashing and stabbing, this much we can all agree on. But who cleans up the mess afterward? Magical demon blood-scrubbing fairies? Would it kill you to pick up a mop every now and then, Hayabusa?

Team Ninja didn't offer any information when it silently deployed these new Ninja Gaiden 3 screens, aside from some background about Ryu's curse, so we can't say for certain what's going on. Is that fire dragon a Ninpo attack? A transformation? A boss? Whatever it is, it's pretty.

What's not so pretty is Ryu's arm. It turns out that, when not surrounded by an aura of blood, Ryu's newly cursed arm is just covered with gross veins or something. Good thing Ryu doesn't ever stand still long enough for us to get a good look at him while playing.

- utilize ninpo that lets you transform into a fire dragon
- this will kill all nearby enemies and let you absorb their life
- some enemies will now cower and say "please don’t kill me."
- you can choose to finish them off or leave them alone

Ninja Gaiden 3 is Team Ninja's first full Gaiden game post-Itagaki, and it looks like things are progressing a little differently. For one thing, it's got a sort of easy mode called "Hero Mode," which adds automatic dodging and blocking of most normal attacks, to which I can imagine Itagaki's head shaking, making waves in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

I asked director Fumihiko Yasuda (who also did design work on Sigma 2) about why such a ... friendly mode would appear in such a typically unfriendly series.

"We really wanted to flesh out the story this time around," Yasuda said, "so we wanted people to enjoy that story and get used to the game as it is. In the past the games were really hardcore and we couldn't get players to stay with us and complete the game." Team Ninja is "redefining" Hayabusa's image, and wants people to experience that whole story without dying over and over again or throwing the game into the disposal in frustration.

Ninja Gaiden 3 won't feature the frequent decapitations and other freeform dismemberment of its predecessors. You may think of this as softening the impact of the violence in Team Ninja's famously brutal series, but it's intended to be quite the opposite. In fact, if anything, Team Ninja lead Yosuke Hayashi made it sound even more sadistic.

"For Ninja Gaiden 3," Hayashi told me, "we wanted to focus on the act of cutting someone down, and what it's like to actually kill someone with a sword. Once you start lopping off limbs, your enemy goes from being a living thing that you're killing to just a thing."

And to hammer the point home (or katana the point home, if you prefer) that these are real human beings you're flipping out and killing, he continued. "When you're actually cutting into a person, and you feel them getting scared, and the blood is spraying right on you, you hear their dying breaths in your ear -- that's the kind of visceral violence we're going for in Ninja Gaiden 3." In the demo level I played, by the way, the enemy soldiers start pleading for their lives as soon as you begin attacking them.

At this point you might think, as I did, that you're going to start feeling guilty about cutting into all these bodies. That's ... kind of the idea. "Ryu Hayabusa is a dark hero," Hayashi explained. "If people want to take the easy way out or a cleaner way out -- not killing people -- that's not what the story is about and what Ryu Hayabusa is about. To be a dark hero, you have to do bad things in order to do good."

Get More: GameTrailers.com, Ninja Gaiden 3 - TGS 11: Japanese Demo Gameplay Part 1, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

#ninjagaiden Look, if you don't want to be on the receiving end of Ryu Hayabusa's Dragon Sword, don't join an anti-ninja mercenary force, "mate." That said, it looks like even the star of Ninja Gaiden 3 is dealing with the psychological impact of spilling so much blood from katana-fodder of past Ninja Gaiden games. More »

During its pre-TGS event, Team Ninja lifted the veil (or mask) over Ninja Gaiden 3's competitive multiplayer mode. The mode will connect up to eight players in a sort of ninja tournament, in which the goal is to beat all the other ninjas, rank up and ultimately surpass Ryu Hayabusa. It's a "world of ninjas," as online engineer Ueda put it.

At the event, producer Yosuke Hayashi also introduced the new "play style system." In addition to the normal and hard difficulty levels, Ninja Gaiden 3 offers a choice of two "play styles," Ninja and Hero. Ninja is the familiar style of gameplay, but Hero adds things like auto-block and auto-dodge, to let new players just "enjoy the story." That is, the story of a blood-crazed, cursed ninja putting swords into people. This system is also being added to the Vita release of Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

After the break: the latest, anguished trailer for Ninja Gaiden 3.

- take to the streets of London
- game concept is 'a world of ninjas'
- take on other ninjas online
- close-combat fighting
- co-op experience as well
- will not use the same dismemberment system from previous games
- game features a "three strokes" concept
- first stroke is known to represent the katana
- second stroke represents consequence

- 8-player multiplayer
- Play Style system allows for different types of players to enjoy the game
- Ninja play style gives you the classically difficult Ninja Gaiden setup and challenge
- select either normal or hard
- Hero play style supports auto-guard and auto-evade