Ayane is probably more recognizable from her work in Dead or Alive but nevertheless she's here to assist Ryu in matters of Ninja concern. Her outfit is at least somewhat sensible. Momoji is the young Acolyte who Ryu trains in the DS Ninja Gaiden game. The only difference in this version is that Rachel, Momoji, and Ayane have their own stages where they kill demons because that is what people like to see in videogames. Thus I was forced to endure footage of a woman bathing in blood, another woman being a pathetic damsel in distress, and Ryu telling all of the girls to stay in the kitchen where they belong. I guess I wasn't trying hard enough because I couldn't skip any of the cut-scenes.

Ryu has to do some globe-trotting to try and fail to stop a bunch of greater fiends from summoning the greatest fiend. I was pretty content never playing Ninja Gaiden 2 ever again but all these people are saying 'Sigma 2 is better because it fixes all the stupid stuff but Vanilla 2 is better because it's more challenging and rewarding.' Curiosity gets the better of me as it is wont to do and I played through Sigma 2. Now you're reading this and you are all but certain that I am clearly insane. I said everything I could just short of breaking the unwritten rule by cursing up a storm. There were also other things like billions of exploding projectiles all over Ryu like chickenpox and some of the worst uses of water ever in an action game. Remember the last time I talked about Ninja Gaiden 2? All I can recall of it is infinitely spawning exploding jellyfish.

Pepsi man cutscenes