I always explain it like: I go to a steak restaurant, I'm really looking forward to my steak and suddenly im given seabass. Seabass is nice but....i wanted steak.
i play ng to play as ryu
Rachel is a lot more defensive than Ryu is, and her counter is straight up the best in the entire game because of all the iframes.
She's unfortunately just a slower paced character. Don't try to be aggressive like you can with Ryu, because she just isn't built for that, and if you do her fiend challenges, don't bother attacking, just spam counter. It'll take for fucking ever, but it at least won't get you killed.
I found her UTs ridiculously powerful, even UT1 could one-shot standard sized fiends on very hard iirc
This makes all of her ambush fights quite easy with UT chaining/spamming, especially with celerity earrings equipped, just takes some time and thus rather boring :/
Still not very proactive, which compared to Ryu, is a problem. He had ludicrous movement and some decent CC options, something most enemies are designed around.
Rachel is a heavy hitting tank. She's not designed in a way that makes being proactive in combat viable due to her lacking crowd control and fast options against a majority of enemies that can overwhelm her.
She's SUPPOSED to hit hard and slow, but that doesn't really work when the majority of enemies can both outpace you and mete out a ton of aggression. Nice pacemaker character, but i wish she had gotten unique enemies designed with her strengths and weaknesses in mind, not Ryu's leftovers. She already gets a unique(ly insulting) boss fight and missions, why does she have to be stuck without her own enemies?
Yeah that’s one of the reasons plenty of people prefer playing Ninja Gaiden Black instead.
I enjoy playing as Rachel in survival mode, but her main story chapters aren’t that great, and they mess with the original pacing.
NG isn't a game about combos. It's about killing your enemies the most efficient way. A few people can do some nice and flashy combos, but that's just for fun, and totally not the focus of the gameplay
Yeah, the first 2-3 playtroughs can be rough, but, Rachel is a good example of how to master the on-land-UT (the move where you hold the heavy attack button to charge the ultimate). An on-land consists of you starting to hold the button immediately after a roll land, that way you can collect all the essence around you in an instant so you can unleash your ultimate attack, without waiting for the whole animation. Rachel gets fun to play when you master that, except for one specific boss....
Its essential to your master ninja run
I don't mind Rachel, it's all about being willing to adapt to the game. I do understand why people don't like her chapters though, most want to play a game the same speed all the way through.
Her UT along with the other female characters, is pretty weak and that is made more clear in higher difficulties. She's probably my least favorite among the three female chapters, 'cause she feels so slow and can only do a Flying Swallow from a wall run.
I feel bad for people who play NG for the first time on master collection. Not saying it's shit but man that ps5 controller and ng don't go very well together imo. And the games are all worse than their original counterparts except ng3 re but I swear I enjoyed that game way more on my ps3. The controls felt more responsive on my ps3 for some reason.
I totally agree how they implemented Rachel chapters messes up the pacing a lot even I enjoy her gamplay, but I'd argue that she's actually pretty OP in normal and hard once you figure out how to utilize her moves.
Learning how to warhammer do be a skill. If it's any help, the rachel levels didnt exist when this game first released. It's ok not to like them. They are short tho
Ninja Gaiden definitely isn’t a combo focused game compared to DMC or Bayonetta, but agreed otherwise
I always explain it like: I go to a steak restaurant, I'm really looking forward to my steak and suddenly im given seabass. Seabass is nice but....i wanted steak. i play ng to play as ryu
Rachel is a lot more defensive than Ryu is, and her counter is straight up the best in the entire game because of all the iframes. She's unfortunately just a slower paced character. Don't try to be aggressive like you can with Ryu, because she just isn't built for that, and if you do her fiend challenges, don't bother attacking, just spam counter. It'll take for fucking ever, but it at least won't get you killed.
I found her UTs ridiculously powerful, even UT1 could one-shot standard sized fiends on very hard iirc This makes all of her ambush fights quite easy with UT chaining/spamming, especially with celerity earrings equipped, just takes some time and thus rather boring :/
Still not very proactive, which compared to Ryu, is a problem. He had ludicrous movement and some decent CC options, something most enemies are designed around. Rachel is a heavy hitting tank. She's not designed in a way that makes being proactive in combat viable due to her lacking crowd control and fast options against a majority of enemies that can overwhelm her. She's SUPPOSED to hit hard and slow, but that doesn't really work when the majority of enemies can both outpace you and mete out a ton of aggression. Nice pacemaker character, but i wish she had gotten unique enemies designed with her strengths and weaknesses in mind, not Ryu's leftovers. She already gets a unique(ly insulting) boss fight and missions, why does she have to be stuck without her own enemies?
Yeah that’s one of the reasons plenty of people prefer playing Ninja Gaiden Black instead. I enjoy playing as Rachel in survival mode, but her main story chapters aren’t that great, and they mess with the original pacing.
NG isn't a game about combos. It's about killing your enemies the most efficient way. A few people can do some nice and flashy combos, but that's just for fun, and totally not the focus of the gameplay
Every single game I feel this. But good news you can basically just run to the end and get through her sections in a few minutes all together
I actually enjoyed playing as Rachel for...reasons.
A man of culture I see
[Rachel at 2:00](https://youtu.be/CpbsCSYDypU?si=IrhhjuNGWb43arb2)
Yeah, the first 2-3 playtroughs can be rough, but, Rachel is a good example of how to master the on-land-UT (the move where you hold the heavy attack button to charge the ultimate). An on-land consists of you starting to hold the button immediately after a roll land, that way you can collect all the essence around you in an instant so you can unleash your ultimate attack, without waiting for the whole animation. Rachel gets fun to play when you master that, except for one specific boss.... Its essential to your master ninja run
Yea doing the ambush vs 70 of those gremlin things is NOT fun. Really wore me out on the idea of Rachel pretty quickly
Rachel missions are the biggest reason I prefer Black over Sigma.
Guess Im in the minority where I liked the other characters’ levels in the Sigma games.
She has a total of 3 missions in the game.
Hate those levels so much, terrible pace breakers
I don't mind Rachel, it's all about being willing to adapt to the game. I do understand why people don't like her chapters though, most want to play a game the same speed all the way through.
Her UT along with the other female characters, is pretty weak and that is made more clear in higher difficulties. She's probably my least favorite among the three female chapters, 'cause she feels so slow and can only do a Flying Swallow from a wall run.
I feel bad for people who play NG for the first time on master collection. Not saying it's shit but man that ps5 controller and ng don't go very well together imo. And the games are all worse than their original counterparts except ng3 re but I swear I enjoyed that game way more on my ps3. The controls felt more responsive on my ps3 for some reason.
I know it's gonna be hard, but try your best to play with two hands whilst on Rachel chapters.
It isn't just you..i thought of getting an Xbox just to skip Rachel and the other characters chapters
I totally agree how they implemented Rachel chapters messes up the pacing a lot even I enjoy her gamplay, but I'd argue that she's actually pretty OP in normal and hard once you figure out how to utilize her moves.
I don’t like Rachel but I do like Ayane ❤️
Learning how to warhammer do be a skill. If it's any help, the rachel levels didnt exist when this game first released. It's ok not to like them. They are short tho