But he's initially MIA, the subject of a CIA agent's inquiries at Muramusa's Tokyo shop. She arrives bearing a note about nasty happenings (aka a demon called "the arch-fiend") before ninjas with bladed forearms and impeccable timing whisk her away. Ryu shows up late, gets the lowdown from Muramusa, then follows in hot martial-artsy pursuit. Thereafter, Ninja Gaiden II unfolds in leaps, lunges and artery-gashing combos that punctuate a story about clan wars, a relic that opens a demon dimension and the kind of stylish melee one-upmanship that makes comparable fighting games seem like clumsy ballet.

In what director Tomonobu Itagaki calls "the ultimate Ninja Gaiden experience," players guide ninja master Ryu Hayabusa through over a dozen combat-filled chapters, invading castles, caverns and canals and fileting everything from ninjas and sword-swinging canines to ghostly piranha and four-armed werewolves. Complementing the nonstop combat are old standbys like Ryu's Dragon Sword and Lunar Staff as well as fresh death-dealers like a pair of tonfas, a kusarigama (a short-handled scythe attached to a chain) and a set of metal "talons" Ryu sports like claws on both hands and feet.

New moves are unlocked by reforging weapons with yellow orbs spawned by enemy corpses. Where the last game allowed only decapitation, Ninja Gaiden II incorporates stylish "obliteration" moves that offer chances of lopping limbs off enemy torsos. Even so, they'll often crawl on (if logistically able) thrashing, flailing, tossing projectiles—even suicide bombing—until they're sufficiently skewered.

Furious battles, frenzied fun

The Ninja Gaiden games on Itagaki's watch aren't about deep stories or philosophical quandaries, they're simply about walking into a room with the world's coolest weapons, outnumbered 10 to 1 by some of the most viciously intimidating bad guys in the universe, then walking out a minute later slathered in blood and going "whoa." To that end, Ninja Gaiden 2 represents the culmination of everything Team Ninja's been working toward for the last three years, an incredibly satisfying hack-and-slash that's light on plot but topped full of "superhero."

It's also still a fairly daunting journey filled with plenty of you-died-try-agains, even with its newer, gentler default difficulty setting. You have four settings to choose from in all, but even pros may feel the burn halfway through the beginner "acolyte" mode. It's almost like a bait and switch cleverly streamlined to lure casual players far enough in and get them committed enough to make getting better worthwhile. Whether mainstreamers buy in remains to be seen, but the compromise feels about right for a developer that's staked its reputation on brutal opponents that can slash behind any block and throw off combos like waving away sneezes.

Part of grappling with the difficulty involves learning how to manipulate the game's freely rotatable camera, which won't (and technically can't) be there on its own much of the time—Ryu and his enemies simply move too fast. You either get this about the series or you don't. If you don't, plan to spend over half the game damning the camera's propensity to hitch on the wrong side of everything. But if you recognize that part of mastering these games involves operating the left and right thumbsticks effectively, you're in for a treat. The charge you get after skillfully, deliberately eviscerating enemies that were on any side of the screen in nanoseconds can be indescribable.

Add visual artistry to the game's virtues, an obvious obsession with trivial details Team Ninja extends throughout the design, from the way Ryu taps blood off his weapon after a skirmish to the elaborate patterns etched onto plates and painted on vases stacked on shelves. In fact the only disclaimer I'd offer that may not be obvious from the game's Mature rating is that the carnage is unusually well detailed and splays everywhere. After Ryu sweeps through an area, torsos and severed limbs lie in piles of ruby-soaked disarray. If carving up the forces of evil like a butcher makes you queasy, be aware there's no way to dial back the bloodletting.

Otherwise there's a new fighter on the block worth shouting about, and it's thanks to a director who lives without compromises. Tomonobu Itagaki makes fighting games the way a world-class pugilist boxes. He's quick off the ropes and unswervingly cutting, a shrewd braggadocio noted for describing his competition with phrases like "They're going to lose all of their motivation to create any game in the same genre, because there's no way they can beat [Ninja Gaiden 2]." Surely someone will, someday, but for now it's hard to disagree, because as contemporary fighters go, Ninja Gaiden 2 is peerless.