Hello and welcome to Wasted Plotential, where we discuss the wasted potential of our favourite
plotlines.
Sigma was a brand of PS3 port for the first two games in the modern Ninja Gaiden series.
The big draw for the first was the addition of three chapters focused on the newly playable
female lead, Rachel. For the second, possibly because the Rachel chapters in 1 were a bit
naff, the team instead opted to add three chapters, each centred on a different lady.
The first follows Momiji from Dragon Sword, hunting down a pair of tengu that have abducted
a child from the Hayabusa Village. The second centres on Rachel hunting fiends in New York,
capped off with a fight against Marbus from the first game. And the third is about Ayane
from the sister series, Dead or Alive, pursuing the resurrected Obaba from Dragon Sword in
Venice.
Now, the issue is that these scenarios don't really do anything for these ladies' stories,
and the bosses of their chapters don't relate to them in any meaningful way. Marbus seems
like a good choice on the surface, seeing as he's from the same game as Rachel, but
Rachel never met him. There is zero connection there. Ayane wasn't in Dragon Sword, so she's
got no connection to Obaba. And while Momiji at least has the task of saving Sanji, there's
nothing there beyond that.
For people who've played the games, I'm sure you've noticed at least one solution here:
give Ayane's chapter to Momiji. Momiji debuted in Dragon Sword along with Obaba. Momiji was
abducted by Obaba because she was instrumental in her evil scheme. Momiji helped Ryu to defeat
Obaba. I generally dislike the series' overuse of resurrected bosses from previous games,
but if we were going to bring some back, they should at least be used where thematically
appropriate to advance the stories of the recurring cast.
Imagine that Momiji was the one dispatched to Venice to pursue Obaba. She's gone there
to investigate the Black Spider Clan's continued presence in the city after Ryu tore his way
through to fight Volf. She discovers that Obaba has returned from the dead thanks to
some ritual the Black Spiders performed here. Even without Ryu's help, Momiji is filled
with determination and fights her way through to Obaba, who taunts Momiji for her weakness
in their previous encounter. Momiji declares that she's grown a lot in the six months since
then and is a much more skilled shinobi. She then proves this by killing Obaba herself,
without Ryu's intervention, and uses her shrine maiden techniques to seal Obaba's soul in
hell forever. Now, Momiji's chapter shows her as a capable warrior who can stand alongside
Ryu as an equal. Of course, we then also need to change NG3 so that Obaba doesn't come back
again, and Momiji doesn't need to be saved in a QTE.
As for Ayane, since Obaba is pursued by Momiji, Ayane now faces the tengu brothers to save
Sanji. We do lose a little by disconnecting Sanji from Momiji, but what we gain by letting
Momiji fight Obaba is worth it, and having Sanji or the tengu appear in Venice would
be weird. While not as strong a link as Momiji to Obaba, Ayane does have a small link to
tengu. Tengu were introduced to this setting through the final boss of Dead or Alive 2,
the same game where Ayane became a base roster and canonical story character. In her (admittedly
non-canon) ending in that game, she declares herself a female tengu after beating the final
boss (at least, in some translations). She then calls herself this in DOA Dimensions'
retelling of DOA2 while under mind control, and then it sticks with her as far as DOA6
and Venus Vacation.
So, why not use this boss fight to establish an origin for this nickname she's chosen for
herself, since there doesn't seem to be one, currently? Oh, wait, DOA6 claims she was under
Tengu's influence in Dimensions instead of Genra's and that's why she did it. What, was
he grooming her to be his tengu bride? Why is the post-Itagaki story in these games so
consistently worse?
With both Ryu and Momiji away from the village, Jo Hayabusa calls on Ayane to track the abductors,
leading her to Miyama from DOA2, where she kills the two and declares herself greater
than even the mighty tengu, and taking the name for herself. It could even be that she's
embarrassed about openly calling herself that at first, but Sanji spreads it around and
it sticks until she is forced to accept it. Now, Ayane's chapter has some relevance to
it, establishing something that's part of her character in her home series later in
the timeline.
And finally, we have Rachel. The idea of pitting her against a boss from NG1 isn't a bad idea,
but the one they chose was baffling. Sure, she can't exactly have a rematch with Gamov
since he was human, and humans don't seem to be able to come back from the dead, but
Rachel did have another boss fight in Sigma 1. Sigma used Rachel's third chapter to bridge
the gap between Ryu saving her from being detained by Doku, and her reappearance already
recaptured by Doku's spirit. The chapter ends with an unwinnable fight against Ishtaros
and Nicchae, a pair of fiend sisters who were introduced in Ninja Gaiden Black's mission
mode. After beating Rachel, they disappear from the plot and re-emerge in Dragon Sword,
working with Obaba, only to be absorbed into the Dark Dragon by the end. Again, I'd rather
not bring dead bosses back, but there's a lot you can achieve by bringing the sisters
back here.
First off, Nicchae's fighting style is very similar to Rachel's fiend sister, Alma, giving
us the closest thing we can get to a Rachel vs Alma fight without undoing Alma's heroic
sacrifice. And there's also a thematic parallel between Rachel and Alma, and the two fiend
sisters. Perhaps, the two intend to turn Rachel into a fiend like her sister was, playing
on her prior loss to them and the death of her sister a year prior to try and talk her
into becoming their third "sister". Rachel has come a long way in the last year, which
is reflected in her gameplay not being wank anymore, but she's not quite up to the task
of taking on both sisters at once. However, Rachel has a keepsake from her sister in her
inventory, like a pair of earrings or a necklace. Maybe even the unused scorpion earrings from
Sigma 1? With this reminder of her sister, possibly imbued with some sort of magical
boost from Alma, Rachel is able to defeat the two fiends, redeeming herself for her
loss a year prior, and proving that she's gotten stronger since last time.
Since Obaba was coming back anyway and Rachel's boss fight was going to be recycled from 1,
they really should have used them for rematches to show progression for Rachel and Momiji.
Yes, all three women are shown to be more capable now than they were in previous games,
being able to beat major bosses without needing to be saved (until the next game), but it
doesn't feel like they've progressed as much as it could have if they'd been given better
matchups. Without those clear points of contrast, it doesn't really feel like they've gotten
that much stronger since their previous appearances, so it feels like Ryu's just gonna have to
do everything himself yet again. And he fucking does.
Still, as much as I feel these new stories were mishandled, that's still nothing compared
to what they did to a certain other NG lady, who'll be getting her own dedicated episode
some time in the future. Stay tuned.
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with you.
Today's recommended video is A Critique of Modern Ninja Gaiden by KBash. I'm kinda struggling
to remember if I've shilled this one or not, but... fuck it, I'll do it again. It's a decent
critique of the modern games, leaving out the Sigma releases, and it has some decent
comedic energy to it.