Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection Includes Sigma Editions Because The Originals Were Unsalvageable

Pros and joy cons.
Goodbye

I mean, I'll still take it, but yeah, not a fan of how the source code seems to go missing at these companies.

Now i’m even more confused, are they using Sigma Plus or regular Sigma? If regular, then why not the better Plus versions?!

@KillerBOB Dude 😂

I get why people get mad about digital loss but none of my physical games will last forever either. All my commodore 64 tapes are long dead. Yet I can download roms of my lost games and play them if I want. We can't preserve 100% of anything, be it game, movie or literature.

@KillerBOB That reminds me. I need a shower.

So what actually is the difference between the versions? As I understood sigma was the definitive versions of 1 & 2, is that not right?

We can't help that our games and consoles will eventually fail, but you would hope that a developer could keep the source files

It's a shame that lots of people will have spent years working on something that was eventually lost. Especially when remasters are so common now.

@1ofUs pros and joy cons of... switchhiking.
(Follows you through the door)

Game preservation is a different topic - it took me a couple minutes to google up a Ninja Gaiden Black image (albeit for PS2). But code preservation really seems like a longtime issue of a whole period that's coming back to chomp a piece off the industry's butt in the current age of thriving remasters.

Such a shame. I’m happy with Ninja Gaiden on Switch at all at this point. Preordered the physical collection. 😁

@Slowdive I’m not sure it’s a “not caring” thing. It seems more and more that people are always desiring the next new game. Many people on these forums complain whenever a port is released, asking for new games. It’s a fair request. My point is that games companies also hear these requests. So if they are constantly hearing that people want fresh experiences, it doesn’t give them much incentive to store old code that may not end up giving them a good return on investment.

@Rosona they made changes to the games. It's been a while since I played them but I recall the "Sigma" games being on the easier side due to the way your mana regenerates.

If it doesn't sell as expected, they'll say that the fans are not supporting it

@Slowdive I would like to believe that, but most polls on other sites (when it comes up) shows about 50% of the user base voting that they want new things, and about 22% wanting ports. It’s just a sample, but I also know companies look at stuff like that and conduct their own polling to find out.

Either way, I find myself playing older games more and more, because the new stuff is the same old game, pretty new face. My last few purchases were ports, such as MMX Legacy Collection 2, Contra/Castlevania anniversary, stuff like that.

I wish companies had thought ahead more. Back in the NES days, most devs didn’t even think they would need the code again!

@BloodNinja

Yeah, I agree.

I think game studios need to step up in terms of games preservation. However, I also think the culture at large needs to reassess how it thinks and talks about old games. Even — or especially — professional critics.

For every nuanced assessment of an old videogame (say, by Tim Rogers or DF Retro) you have droves of critics tut-tutting a 20-year-old game for being 20 years old. The mere recognition that a game clearly isn't from our own era is perceived as a negative. This leads to a lot of really bad takes, which would get you thrown out of any book club or film forum, but apparently help pay the bills in the world of videogames.

Until that changes, code will continue vanishing.

What's the issue with the sigma versions? I'm asking as I never played them.

I translated this from "*****" into English for everyone:

"Actually putting effort into recreating the best versions of these games for both new and old audiences was too hard, so we just scraped whatever we found in the backups and threw them up on the store for full price.
"If you don't buy this laziest of efforts we will assume there is no market for actually putting effort into Ninja Gaiden and this is all you will ever get.
"We hope people will buy this bare-minimum effort with the promise that maybe we will try harder next time to make a Ninja Gaiden game although there is an awesome get-out-jail-free clause in here for us. Listen to this awesome nonsense!
"Please bear in mind that actually buying this 'remaster' will of course reinforce the idea that our zero-effort money harvest is actually worthwhile so we're more likely to put absolutely no effort of creativity into future endeavours since you plebs will literally buy anything."

@Rosona @NintendoByNature The Sigma games were made easier (NG 1&2 were hailed for being old-school hard before Dark Souls made it cool), they added new characters and altered the stories to fit them, and the thing a lot of NG fans in the forums are talking about: they removed dismemberment and blood. So rather than slicing heads and arms off of demons and stuff, you just slash away at them until they fall. The context-sensitive dismemberment and accompanying blood fountains were one of the more notable visual features of the originals, and really made the games feel like crazy old samurai movies. And they removed it for the PS versions. There were other changes as well but these were the biggies.

NGB and NG2 were awesome. The non-Itagaki games (Sigma 1&2 and NG3) definitely suffered without him.

Xbox versions stays the Definitive Exclusive versions and im loving it!

Got both boxed version of NG: Black and II

I honestly don't know what the differences between these Sigma versions and the originals are so this really doesn't matter much to me anyways. Still odd that they didn't include Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z and Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword in this collection as well, both would had been great bonuses.

at least they admitt it

From the translation, it doesn't sound like the original assets were lost recently for the release of the collection, it sounds like the resources were lost back in the day when they made Sigma for PS3 originally. We're going back to a game source almost 20 years old, it's very possible it was all stored on a single internal server, they had a server crash in 2005 or so, and all the Gaiden stuff was lost requiring them to remake parts of it for Sigma, originally, so that's what still is preserved. It doesn't sound like it's a case of them deleting the old game resources because they were old, but it sounds like something happened to them back when they were still fairly new.

@Kriven Agreed. I just think that it is inherently impossible to save everything or to save everything to a format that will readable in 50 years. I imagine a lot of early punch card data is lost forever. Who knows what data storage will look like decades from now.

Good thing I have my originals. I like the sigma versions though.

@1ofUs nice pfp

Okay i already mentioned this in the first NG collection article. We have NG Black and NG 2 (the enemy count in NG 2 compared to Sigma 2 is massively more hectic), via Xbox BC, meaning they have Xbox code and 360 code. Is there no way to decompile them back to source? Using the original dev tools? Or to alter the builds to run on some of the consoles?
Team Ninja appear to be saying they don't want to do the work which has already been partially done by MS emulation team. So they use the playstation 3 code (which would be harder to port because of the processor) instead.
The mind boggles.
If this is a Master collection it should really have NG Black, Sigma, NG2 , Sigma 2 and Razors edge (we can all live without vanilla NG 3 frankly). Perhaps a bonus of the original NG games from the 80's too, just for fun (and completion).

Oh, then i think im mistaken o tought the sigma were "the good ones" never played any NG of that trilogy. So, the versions of this package are really bad? I heard really bad things of them at the time.

While it is easy for us to get high and mighty over preservation I do respect them coming out and explaining why they used Sigma instead of the OG versions. And Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja are not nearly as flush for cash as a Nintendo, Square Enix or EA where they can just rebuild a game because they did not archive a source code version. And we saw how bad a remaster can be without the original gold copy with Silent Hill HD Collection... dear god the trauma Konami inflicted on us and not in a good way.

So sure could they rebuild the original versions? Sure, but would it be profitable or nearly as efficient for time and in the budget than just porting the versions of the game you do have on hand? No. I respect them for being upfront about the issue even though they will get slagged on by "fans" for being "lazy" because of a bad practice every major publisher and developer has committed... except maybe Nintendo as they always seemed to have their poop together when it came to these things.

@chocolate_supra @Slowdive very good explanation and good review( although I skimmed thru). If you took Ryu out of the game, I'd honestly think you were playing as Dante. Major dmc and bayo vibes from it, which is a Good thing. I'm not a huge fan of dark souls honestly so I won't be totally bummed if the difficulty went down a tad. I've beaten tons of hard games, but DS is just too hard for me.

But Ninja Gaiden 2 was just updated for Xbox One X to have 4K visuals with other little improvements. I guess they didn't need the source code for that?

Translation: It's a cash grab

Nobody who's been following this joke should be surprise. Seems like crazy man Itagaki really was needed.

I do wonder how these companies so easily lose source code. You think that would be something important worth backing up and archiving, for situations such as this.

@Wexter Didn't Nintendo get caught running ROMs from the internet on the VC?

I don't see the big deal myself. I have the original xbox version anyway and the sigma ones have good things too. For one I prefer having the blue classic nes costume and I'm pretty sure that's absent from the non sigma releases. Also I don't think anyone wants the original version of Ninja Gaiden 3. What a disaster!

I prefer Sigma over the OG

Uhhhh, the Sigma games are the definitive versions though? Why would anyone want the originals when we have them? I don't get it. That's like complaining about Switch getting Dragon Quest XI S instead of the god-awful original. The originals are just strictly worse games.

I'm probably being incredibly stupid but they have the original source code for Xbox otherwise they couldn't have released them via backwards compatibility. Could they not just reverse engineer that???

@pichuscute0 The Sigma games are not the best versions at all. NG Black and NG2 were made by the same development team. The less good games NGS, NGS2, NG3 and NG3 RE were made after Tomonobu Itagaki left Team Ninja.

@__jamiie Who made them isn't relevant? Why aren't they the definitive versions they have clearly been for the past 15+ years?

Well then I guess we know what the next fan decompilation will be.

@pichuscute0 Anyone who has played both versions will generally agree that the originals are better. Look online. The combat is tighter, the traditional gore aspect is present and the games player better. The Sigma versions were watered down and ported to the PS3 which the original developer never wanted to do because he preferred to develop for what he considered to be the best hardware at the time. Xbox 360. There are less enemies on screen in Sigma due to the Cell processor not being able to cope. Plus, on a very tactile level, the PS3 controller was poor compared to the Xbox pad.

And who made them IS completely relevant. One developer's vision will always be different to someone else's port. Are you genuinely saying that it doesn't matter who develops a game???

I've played all versions of each game and NG Black and NG2 are better than NGS and NGS2. Have you played them?

There are tons of videos online agreeing with this so decide for yourself.

@NEStalgia Meh. I was talking about Source Code and archiving prototypes and game development information. Running a ROM on an emulator was probably done by an intern. I've never read Nintendo lost the source code when making a remake like Ocarina of Time or StarFox 64.

@__jamiie Ad populum doesn't get you out of an explanation, not that I have ever seen anyone say the originals are better than Sigma before this post right now. I've only seen, for the past 15+ years, the Sigma games considered the definitive versions of modern Ninja Gaiden and fantastic games.

Combat is tighter how? Game plays better how?

Dunno what you're talking about as far as the Xbox 360 being "best hardware". If we're talking in terms of raw power, it's the weaker of the two. The bigger difference was that PS3 was notoriously more difficult to develop for at first (which actually essentially contradicts your claim). Also, the original Ninja Gaiden Black wasn't even on Xbox 360. It was an original Xbox game instead... So, this doesn't even explain anything.

Everything else you've mentioned, like your personal controller preferences (from two generations ago...) or gore preferences (ew wtf) have nothing to do with the quality of the games and aren't relevant in this conversation. And similarly, yes, who makes a game doesn't matter. It's the result that matters.

"Have you played them?" Yes.

@MS7000 Technology company:

Loses technology

...😓

@pichuscute0 I never got into the Sigma games as I got a PS3 near the end of it's life. the X360 games though were really, really good! I guess it does suck to lose a couple of the more gory kills (that was part of the appeal and cutting of limbs was a gameplay mechanic... I know morbid, but I'm a sick puppy what can I say), but I'm curious to experience the Sigma games even if they are toned down! I don't care which one is "better" as that is down to personal preference... but we can all agree Razors Edge is leaps and bounds better than the original version of Ninja Gaiden 3.

Though I am curious if they kept in the motion controls in the cinematics for... you know... research

@pichuscute0 Why are you so intent on proving that the Sigma versions are the best? What have you offered to the argument other than the fact that you have "seen, for the past 15+ years, the Sigma games considered the definitive versions of modern Ninja Gaiden and fantastic games." Considered by whom? The populous??? Definitely not. Play them again, read reviews, do whatever you need to do.

And if you have played them, as you claim, you could only have done that on PlayStation platforms (from 2 generations ago) and would therefore realise that the controller is inferior for that type of game.

NG Black was on Original Xbox hardware and is still a better game to play than Sigma on PS3.

Grow up. Get a girlfriend and stop being such a keyboard w****r.

@Beaucine DEFINITELY. It’s interesting how very small outlets such as retro sanctuary have no problem with older games, but on some big news outlets it’s just not their thing. Very strange.

I don’t know anything about these newfangled polygon games but I do want a dotemu/lizardcube Ninja Gaiden 4.

Sigma being the most feature rich would probably be the choice even if they had the source code of the other versions.

I don't believe for a second that they've lost the source code. The bloodless, easier version of the games - even though they're worse to play by all accounts (including my own) - are more accessible and therefore more likely to shift copies

This is sad... I was hoping for a Dead or Alive collection on Switch, especially for DOA4, which is one of my favorite games of all time. But if they lost the data of Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2, they probably lost the data of DOA1-2-3-4 too...

@matdub You should still only do so for games you legally own, and even then it's a legal gray area if you don't dump the ROMs from your actual copies.

Meanwhile, it's ironically actually not that hard to preserve digital games from the DS, 3DS, Wii, or Wii U. Just keep the game and save data (aside from games with online access that don't allow you to copy the save data) backed up on PC via SD cards. Even if you have to get a new system, you can get Nintendo to transfer your account and thereby regain access to your games. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to do so with the Switch...

@DjinnFighter You could always get "Dead or Alive: Dimensions" on 3DS, which has all the characters from the 1st 4 games, while the story mode is a compilation of the ones from those games.

@MetalMan No because that was Microsoft team emulating the 360.

@BulbasaurusRex yea I already have it. But I prefer DOA4 and I would like to play it on Switch

@chocolate_supra
Ah I see, thanks for taking the time to explain, it's appreciated

hmmm maybe I should just dust off my old xbox 360 and give Ninja Gaiden II another go.