The game will take you around seven hours to complete on the normal difficulty level, and for most people, that’s about all they’ll want to do with it as the gameplay isn’t compelling enough to revisit it. Those that can’t stand to leave a game uncompleted will have two other difficulty levels to complete, as well as the opportunity to play the game as Momiji. Playing the game as Momiji does nothing to change the story, however if you like crimson clad, female ninjas, it’s right up your alley. Playing through all of the difficulty levels is the only way to obtain all of the wooden amulets, thereby completing your Ninja Gaiden experience. Finally, players can upload their results in terms of completion times for the various levels via the Nintendo WFC connection and see where they stack up against the ninjas of the world.

It’s a shame that Dragon Sword is such an uneven game. From a technical standpoint, it’s very impressive and whatever problems that occasionally pop up with the control scheme are balanced out by the fun of slamming your enemies to the ground with an Izuna Drop simply by drawing a few lines. You’ll notice the repetitive gameplay soon enough though, as well as be unimpressed by the level of effort needed to defeat the game’s bosses. Diehard fans of the series, or of action games in particular will no doubt be able to look past these flaws and have a good time, however newcomers to the series, or the genre may not understand what the fuss is all about.

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