Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2

The original Ninja Gaiden 2, while a solid game, could have been better: inconsistent pacing and brutally cheap moments weighed down an otherwise fantastic experience. With Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, despite the absence of former director Tomonobu Itagaki, Team Ninja has made a well-developed action game that surpasses its predecessor; Sigma 2 retains the developer's signature raw style while excising NG2's bloat and excess.
In the first game, incendiary Ninja enemies armed with explosive shurikens were a huge pain and almost insurmountable on harder difficulties. The huge explosion after beating the armadillo boss in the Daedalus level was an unexpected cheap shot, and an instant death if you didn't block in time. And the game's compulsory puzzles required boring backtracking and rote memorization. With Sigma 2, Team Ninja clearly listened to and implemented player feedback; they wisely omitted the instant death property on the armadillo explosion, and they edited several levels by taking out some of the duller puzzles. The result sharpens those pieces, and ultimately, the whole.