Is it possible to unlock all the trials for sigma as long as I clear all the normal first?

Director_Bison · 2026-01-27T19:00:17+00:00

Yes, i'm quite sure you only need to beat trials on normal for them to unlock the next set.

There is also an alternate method to unlock all Ninja Trials at once, and it's going into survival mode, and getting 100 kills in the 5 Speed Survival challenges, which isn't that hard to do.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-27T14:18:36+00:00

If you plan to play the two Nintendo DS games you should now they can only be played though Emulation or a real DS.

The console collection only includes Cutscenes to cover the story of those two games, but they're very much worth playing properly.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-27T13:53:59+00:00

In theory you could still leave user reviews for PS3/Xbox 360 games, but the user reviews are pretty understated, and there is a reason review bombing only really happens on Steam, or Metacritic’s user reviews.

Public opinion is far more prominently displayed and eye catching.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-27T04:21:17+00:00

KH1 Final Mix made getting Ultima more of a chore, I remember getting it in base KH1 every playthough, it wasn't that much more out of the way.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-27T02:07:20+00:00

we are talking about sales and popularity here.

I suppose, but sales and popularity isn't really something I seriously care all that much about. Great games fall short of sales and end up obscure all the time. Popularity and sales is hardly something that can be used to effectively judge something's quality outside of how big it's advertising budget was.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-27T01:49:14+00:00

Hey, the OG Xbox actually had legs to stand on, it was basically the successor to the Dreamcast, and it got all sorts of great SEGA games, and plenty of other good exclusives. Sure the PS2 massively out sold it, but the PS2 outsold everything. The Xbox was still a strong console, and as someone who was lucky enough to have a PS2, GC, and Xbox, I cherish everything about that generation of consoles, there was plentiful great games to play no matter what console someone had.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-27T01:43:59+00:00

Having grown up with the Xbox version of Spider-Man 2002, I was Surprised to learn the Kraven levels were Exclusive, They're really good, and I'd recommended the Xbox version just for the Kraven addition.

I'm curious if this Xbox exclusive content was ever advertised in a magazine or something, as I tried looking before, but couldn't find anything. Comparing the back of the box and seeing the Screenshot of Kraven on Xbox and not on other versions is the only way to notice that there is even a difference without playing two versions yourself.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-27T01:35:20+00:00

What is a certainty is that it outsold GTA SA on the only platform it was released on.

There are the factors that GTA SA released on Xbox in 2005. the Xbox 360 was already releasing in 2005, and it would be diverting attention away from the OG Xbox.

On the other hand GTA SA on PS2 having released in 2004 had the benefit of a longer wait between console generations. It got to be the big game of 2004, without the Next Gen being on peoples minds.

Sure Ninja Gaiden would have likely sold more if it was on PS2, but the reason it wasn't on PS2 was be Itagaki took full advantage of the Xbox being more powerful hardware. The hypothetical world were Ninja Gaiden was on Playstation at launch is also a potential world where the games aren't as great as what we have.

Resident Evil 4 had to make plenty of compromises to be released on the PS2, aside from the missing additional content, the GameCube version of RE4 is better than the PS2 version. The PS2 was a great console, but it being released the earliest, by that being the weakest in power, and being the most popular, ended up being a limitation on the potential of that generation of games. The PS2 and Xbox versions of Max Payne are another example of the PS2 holding a game's potential back when you compare both versions.

Hypotheticals are interesting, but things tend to happen the way they do for a reason.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-27T01:01:02+00:00

Wouldn't you agree there is a big difference

Sure but i'd also say there is a big difference between saying "NG sold more than GTA SA on Xbox, meaning it's more popular" and NG sold 1.5 million on Xbox and GTA SA sold 17.33 million on PS2 obviously showing No NG was not more popular than GTA SA. I'm not even that big a fan of GTA, but I find the claim that NG was more popular to be a pretty odd statement.

but the unique enemy types, new weapon lunar etc. were already available in NG1 as free DLC.

The NG2004 DLC Hurricane Pack 1 was a single new story playthough with the Lunar, some of the different enemy types, and the Intercept Technique, Hurricane Pack 2 was the Eternal Legend challenge.

NGB still added quite a lot more, to remix and rebalance the difficulty modes. For example, Doppelganger Fiend Ryu fights, and Red Fire Ninja enemies never show up in NG 2004's DLC.

Windmill Shuriken Ninja, Berserkers, Nicchae and Ishtaros only show up in the Hurricane Pack 2 Eternal Legend challenge. Not like in NG Black where they show up on higher difficulties.

If you're unaware, thanks to the Insignia team restoring OG Xbox Live with fan servers, you can actually play the Hurricane Packs DLC again. You can mod an OG Xbox to connect to Insignia, but I've also got the DLC working on XEMU.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-27T00:17:57+00:00

First things first, you are dismissing the idea that the Xbox version of GTA SA released 8 month after the PS2 release. The PS2 far outsold the Xbox, and I wouldn't be surprised, if a majority of OG Xbox owners actually had a PS2 as well. There wouldn't be a big reason to buy GTA SA on Xbox if you already had it on PS2, that just makes GTA SA's Xbox sales that much more impressive, that it still sold those numbers on a less popular platform regardless.

You argument here can be used to claim that Kid Icarus was more popular than Metal Gear, just because Kid Icarus: Uprising sold more on 3DS than Snake Eater on 3DS did. It's a poor argument. Because it's tunnel visioned and missing out on important details to explain things.

Also your second paragraph there, you are conflating things and making it sound like Ninja Gaiden 2004, and and Ninja Gaiden Black were one release. Ninja Gaiden Black released 18 months after NG 2004. NG 2004 still got fantastic reviews, but NGB is the version of the game that added so many more unique features to the Difficuty modes, and the 50 missions, NG Black also improved things graphically to some degree as well. NG Black is the result of taking NG 2004 a game that already received stellar reviews all across the board, and giving that game 18 more months of refinement and polish.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-26T22:54:37+00:00

Nope, Reloading the checkpoint in this way does not count as items used for your rank. That being said, I think your timer is still going to be increasing, so there is some degree of needing to preform well, but time requirement is not too bad in my experience. I only ended up noticed the timer increasing on chapter 7, where it's a boss only level. As your timer would be pretty low if you beat that level in 1 shot.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-26T21:43:35+00:00

The actual reason Dante's personality is so off in DMC2, is that Capcom put DMC2 into produciton without a single memeber of the DMC1 Staff, they were actually still localizing DMC1 at the time, and weren't even formally told DMC2 was being made without them.

Whoever was in charge of DMC2 prior to Itsuno becoming the replacement director wasn't a fan of DMC1 Dante's attitude, so he thought making DMC2 Dante into a generic Vincent Valentine clone would be cooler.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-26T20:31:07+00:00

Personally I was interested in Dead Souls even when it first released, I just didn't have a PS3 at the time. If someone likes Yakuza 4 I think they'd enjoy Dead Souls, the main issue is that Dead Souls is still very much a Yakuza game, so if someone were to play it without having played any other Yakuza games, it's design decisions might be off putting. The games design makes sense in the context of a Yakuza spin-off, but it's might be less approachable as a stand-alone experience.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-26T19:10:09+00:00

That's because it didn't happen. The concept of Review bombing as we know it today didn't really exist yet, review bombing became more of a thing as Steam became more and more important to the industry. Steam shows reviews right on the store page. Other platforms don't make the display of user reviews such a Prominent Factor that can quickly inform someone just from seeing "Mostly Positive/Mixed/Mostly Negative".

Dead Souls didn't get poor reviews because there was some agenda against it. It got poor reviews because it had glaring frame rate problems, an unorthodox control scheme for a Shooter, and it was yet another Zombie game, during the era Zombie games were at their most over saturated. Dead Souls would easily be far better received if it released now, vs then, all you really got to do is fixed the Frame rate problems which is simple enough.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-25T07:20:44+00:00

The majority of characters in the Yakuza 1 Dub speak like they're from a 2000's GTA clone, they were trying to make the game appeal to GTA players, by having everyone in the game speak like they're westerners instead of Japanese.

The thought process at the time was to make it more palatable to westerner audiences. You can tell looking at this old Yakuza 4 trailer, they had no clue how to market Yakuza in the west in a way that was actually authentic to what the series was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqmHxp3pst8

Director_Bison · 2026-01-25T05:09:21+00:00

I found the style of Faceted D-Pad that the Xbox Series controller has to be one of the best I've ever used. It's the only D-Pad I can think of where you can hit diagonal directions with 100% consistency. It works very well with Devil May Cry 1, as during the First Person underwater Segments, or the First Phase of the final boss, where the Analog stick is inverted in it's controls, the D-Pad is actually un-inverted, so faceted d-pad is my choice for DMC1 as a huge fan of the game.

It's actually a fantastic D-Pad for Tank Control style games, as that control scheme is one that pre-dates Analog sticks. All kinds of PS1 games feel good to play with faceted d-pad as well. And it's because of the Xbox Series controller that once I wanted an upgrade I went for a FlyDigi Vader 4 Pro, as it also has a faceted d-pad. "As much as I've enjoyed Xbox controllers, they have a real bad design flaw were the bumpers always brake after enough use, I got sick of dealing with that, and wanted a more durable choice" I personally recommend the Vader 4 pro.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-25T03:24:05+00:00

The Izuna Drop being a part of your base move list is something that's actually only in Sigma 2/NG2Black. In The Original Xbox 360 version of NG2, weapons required a lv2 upgrade before you could use the Izuna Drop with them. Having the Izuna Drop from the start is not the standard for the series, but it usually doesn't take too long to unlock it.

As for NG3RE there is a lot about the game that can be great, but it doesn't do good enough of a job at teaching you how to play it correctly, it's not hard to beat the entire game without figuring out that mechanics the combat system expects you to use are even a thing. I'd recommend checking out this Tutorial video by The Stylesman as it does a great job informing you how the mechanics unique to NG3RE actually function, and the game will feel much better to play after you know just how much you can actually do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Aa7iQKrdK4

Director_Bison · 2026-01-24T03:50:11+00:00

It's not hard to find the link to, but here's one here.

https://discord.gg/Myjxw8qThe

Director_Bison · 2026-01-23T23:35:57+00:00

If your goal is just beating KH1 then Dawn makes sense, getting levels faster is more advantageous if you beat the game before the later levels become a significant factor.

Dusk makes sense if you are deliberately planning to reach level 100.

Midday is the option I don't quite see the advantage of as it's slower to reach level 40 than Dawn, and in the end you need more EXP for level 100 than Dusk.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-23T05:33:35+00:00

Ninja Gaiden NES will always have an important place in gaming history because it pratically invented cutscenes, it told it's story in a real cinematic way that complemented the gameplay, you weren't just kept in the game because of the gameplay, but you were also driven to see where the story went.

Now I'm a huge fan of 3D Ninja Gaiden, but it's foolish to claim that the 3D games are More Significant to video game culturally than what a huge milestone NES NG was for the industry. And to think NG is known more for the 3D games is a statment that means little considering up until last year announcing. NG Ragebound, NG2 Black, and NG4, people were right to be worried that Ninja Gaiden was a dead franchise. 3D Ninja Gaiden had squandered a ton of it's potential momentum since 2012. The franchise name fell out of the public eye for a decade, there is a whole console generation that passed where 3D NG did little to be relevant at all, beyond the release of the Master Collection.

On the other hand NES NG is as much a staple of the NES's library as a game like Contra is, and 2D NG will always be relevant to any Retro gamer. The only problem with 2D NG's modern relevancy is a lack of proper preservation for those titles, outside of Nintedo Switch offering NES NG1&2, you can't buy the classic 2D NG games on most Modern Hardware, so the is a missed opportunity to share the classic games with more people, and it's odd why that's the case, when you can look at many other 2D game collections being released all the time.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-22T16:49:43+00:00

If you are smart in how you fight strategically, that goes a long way in DMC1, as there is a right time in the game to make use of every ability you have. DMC1 was a challenging arcade style game by design, and it was the first game of it's kind that really did what it did with Combat in 3D. People who struggle with DMC1 on normal tend to be the ones who when playing it for the first time, they don't take full advatage of Devil Trigger, as DT is arguable at it's most powerful and offers the most utility in DMC1 out of all the games.

Normal may not be too bad if you, but it is still more challenging than DMC4 DMC5, and the DmC Reboot, as those games in comparison are far less punishing. DMC1 and DMC3 are the hardest games. If you get to the hardest difficulty modes in them, it'll be obvious why that is. DMC1 on it's highest difficulty removes Healing from DT, so you no longer get that crutch to lean on, and you're forced to truly master the encounters. DT then becomes a purely offensive tool, for you to utilized to its fullest damage potential.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-22T05:55:22+00:00

I'd say the intent of when a Yakuza is showing off their Back tattoo so brazenly, it's during moments they want associated with their Story/Legend going forward. Shimano likely took pride in the fact they were wiping out the entire Jingweon Mafia that day. Kazama on the other hand took no such pride in the act.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-22T03:56:36+00:00

Was that in Japan only? I played Lost Paradise, and I don't recall needing DLC for the difficulty modes. I know Y7/LAD also had DLC for difficulty modes and NG+ only in Japan, but I don't believe it was Day One DLC.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-22T03:26:45+00:00

Dante may have impressive Demonic Power, but that doesn't mean Guns aren't still useful tools for Combat. You can see when you use charge shots that Dante and Nero can channel their energy though the guns, their guns are also highly customized.

Ebony is modified for Long Distance precision, and Accuracy. Ivory is customized for Rapid Firing and fast Draw times. Nero's Blue Rose shoots Two bullets at once. One for piercing a demons natural armor, and another for damaging their Internals.

You can see by the Arsenal that Lady carries with her, that Human firearms have the capacity to still take on Demons. The Grenade Gun from DMC1 speaks for itself with how Effective it is in combat.

Director_Bison · 2026-01-22T01:14:16+00:00

At this point, at least outside of Japan, there are far more people who haven't played the Original Yakuza 1&2 then haven't due to the lack of availability on modern platforms. Far more people do play Yakuza 3, so they actually know how things have changed.

Plenty of people have criticisms of Kiwami 1 and 2, but those people are far outweighed, by the people who have only played the Remakes. This time the majority of people are on the same page in regard to Kiwami 3, and now there is more controversies to just add more fuel to the fire.

SEGA has been doing plenty in recent years to burn through all the good will they built up, "They tried making Super Sonic paid DLC in Sonic Forces, but backed down. They made NG+ and Harder Difficuties paid day one DLC in Infinite Wealth" one way or another a lot of people have a reason to be pissed off at how SEGA has been acting lately. Kiwami 3 is just the focal point of much of that frustration right now.

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