Ninja Gaiden Black Karma System FAQ
by Yebyosh ( yebyosh_at_hotmail_._com )
Version 1.0 ( 24 April 2006 )
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( Please view with courier fonts )
History
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v1.0 24 Apr 2006 Created this document
v1.1 17 May 2006 Corrected typos, and added some more information.
Contents
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1. Story Mode Karma System
a. Overview
b. In-game : Combo
c. In-game : Essence Techniques
d. In-game : Encounter Time
e. In-game : Encounter Kills
f. End of chapter : Time
g. End of chapter : Kills
h. End of chapter : Essence
i. End of chapter : Ninpo
j. Chapter 16 End Game Bonuses
k. Decent Karma Run Scores
l. Q & A
2. Mission Mode Karma System
a. Overview
b. In-game : Combo
c. In-game : Essence Techniques
d. End-game : Time
e. End-game : Kills
f. End-game : Ninpo
g. End-game : Healing Items
h. End-game : Health
i. End-game : Essence
j. End-game : Mission Difficulty
k. Descent of the Fiends 5 Karma System
l. Eternal Legend Karma System
m. Q & A
3. Q & A
4. Credits
1. Story Mode Karma System
--------------------------
a. Overview
Your accumulate karma in Story Mode in two stages, in the game ( in-game
) and at the end of each chapter bonuses ( end of chapter ). In the
game, you can see your current accumulated karma by bringing up the karma
window. To do this, simply tap the white controller button ( if you are
using the standard X-Box controller and have yet to change the button
assignments ), the karma window will appear right below your health bar,
just below the ki slots.
Karma will be added in the game for doing combos, performing successful
essence techniques, killing foes, and completing encounters within the
designated time.
In-game karma is only awarded for timed encounters. Encounters are only
timed for first time unique encounters. A timer will appear below your
karma score ( karma window ) whenever you get involved in a timed
encounter. You will know if you had fully ran away from a timed
encounter when the karma window flashes and summarises your results of
the fight.
However if you run away from a timed encounter, and come back to it, you
will never receive a score from it ( the timer never comes up ). This
also applies to the subsequent respawns of a respawning encounter. So
after completing an ecounter the first time, it is perfectly okay to
ignore its respawns.
When you complete a chapter, karma bonuses are added based on the
completion time, number of kills, unspent essence accumulated, and number
of ki slots filled.
The threshold for the end of chapter bonuses are nicely summarised by
Bigalski in his 100K Clear Times and Kills Per Level & Chapter Word
document, which can be found at
http://www.iberianwarrior.com/walkthrough_guides_ngb.htm
http://iberiansninjagaiden.com/ngbfaqs.htm
http://weibull760.dyndns.org:8989/NinjaGaidenVids/FAQs_&_Guides/
b. In-game : Combos
If you managed to land 2 or more successful consecutive hits within a
certain time frame, you have executed a combo. You can increase the
number of combos by continuing to execute successful hits, as long as
you never get hit ( a blocked attack is considered being hit ), or the
time between your attacks is short.
When your combo is ended ( by getting hit or the time frame expires ),
karma is awarded to you. Each hit is worth just 10 points. Thus a
10-hit combo is worth 100 points while a 999-hit combo is 9,990 points.
Note that waiting for the time frame to expire is quite long. Getting
hit will immediately end the combo and award the score to you.
Warning! If you change equipment, or consume anything in your equipment
menu, your combo meter will be reseted to 0. So if you want to keep your
combo going, never change stuff or drink elixirs ( it is okay to enter
the equipment menu without touching anything else ).
c. In-game : Essence Techniques
Essence Techniques, also known as charged attacks, are executed by
holding down the 'Y' button ( on default ) to charge up attacks.
There are two levels of essence techniques, level 1 ( which we will
conveniently use the acronym of its namesake, ET ) and level 2 ( Ultimate
Technique, UT ).
The charging take some time. To charge up to ET requires 2.0 seconds, UT
requires 4.0 seconds. Wearing Armlet of Celerity will drop this to 1.5
seconds and 3.0 seconds respectively. While charging, you are open to
any attacks.
However if you charge when essences are in range, you will absorb them
and can ignore the charging time. Absorbing one yellow essence will
instantly give you ET status. Absorbing two or more yellow essences, or
one blue or red essence will give you UT status.
If you unleash your essence technique and it successfully connects with
an opponent, you will receive 2,000 points for each ET and 5,000 points
for each UT.
Points for essence techniques will only be awarded if the timer has yet
to expire. Once the timer has expired, no points will be awarded.
There is also a limit for the number of times you are awarded points for
successful essence techniques in each encounter. You will only be
awarded 50 times, whether they be for ETs or UTs. If you are looking to
maximise karma, you will want them to be all for UTs.
d. In-game : Encounter Time
A timed encounter will have a timer counting down. If you managed to
kill and have every foe's body dissolving before the timer has expired,
you will receive 10,000 points as a time bonus.
e. In-game : Encounter Kills
For every foe you killed in an encounter, you will be awarded 1,000
points when the encounter's results are tallied. This award is affected
by the time at which the encounter's results are tallied. Having the
results tallied before the timer expires will give a better score for the
encounter.
Killing a boss is worth 100,000 points ( exception : Fiend Ryus are worth
only 1,000 points; Murai on chapter 1 is worth only 10,000 points ).
Encounter Kill Bonus = [ 1,000 * ( Regular kills ) + 100,000
* ( Boss Kills ) ] * [ 1 + ( Time Remaining )
/ ( Allocated Time ) ]
E.g. A timed encounter allocates you 20.0 seconds to kill 5 foes. If
you managed to do so with 5 seconds left on the clock, the
Encounter Kill Bonus will be 6,250. If you did it with 15 seconds
left, you will get 8,750.
However if you run away from an encounter, the Encounter Kill Bonus is
tallied at that instant, and only 1/10th is awarded to you.
E.g. Chapter 14's 1st ghost fish encounter. There are supposed to be 46
ghost fish with a 42 second time limit. You decide to run past them
killing only some on your way. You killed only 4 and managed to get
pass the encounter with the timer at 31.55 seconds. The score you
would receive from your escape is
1/10 * [ 1 + ( 31.55 / 42 ) ] * 4 * 1000 = 700
f. End of chapter : Time
Each chapter is allocated a certain amount of time for you to complete.
Completing the chapter within the allocated amount of time will earn
you an end of chapter bonus of 100,000 points.
However, if you exceeded the time, you will receive only
Failed end of chapter time bonus = [ ( 600 - No. of seconds exceeded )
/ 600 ] * 50,000
Effectively, you are allowed 10 minutes of excess time to gain something
out of this bonus before you get a big zero...
g. End of chapter : Kills
If you killed a certain number of enemies in a chapter, you will be
awarded 100,000 points.
If you killed less than the amount designated, you will receive less than
half of that.
Failed end of chapter kill bonus = ( no. of kills / designated kills )
* 50,000
Itagaki and Team Ninja have designed the system such that if you have
successfully cleared all the desginated timed encounters in a chapter,
you will have attained the necessary kills for 100,000 points. So if you
have missed the kill bonus, you have missed a timed encounter, or spared
some boss' minions.
You can recompensate for this by killing foes in a respawned encounter.
h. End of chapter : Essence
Itagaki and Team Ninja encourage you to save up for a rainy day. For
each essence you have at the end of the chapter above your starting
amount, you gain 5 points. This is capped at 10,000 points.
End of chapter essence bonus = ( ending essence - starting essence )
* 5
What this means is you only need 2,000 excess essence of what you started
out with to gain the full bonus. Any higher amount is wasted.
Also this means that if you have 98,000 essence at the start of a
chapter, you will never gain the full 10,000 bonus for essence in that
chapter.
i. End of chapter : Ninpo
If all of your ki slots are full at the end of the chapter, you will
receive 100,000 points. Otherwise...
Failed end of chapter ninpo bonus = ( full ki slots / max. ki slots )
* 50,000
E.g. You currently have a maximum of 4 ki slots. You end the chapter
with 1 full slot but 3 empty ones. So you will only receive
12,500 points as your end of chapter ninpo bonus.
j. Chapter 16 End Game Bonuses
When you finish chapter 16, it is considered the end of the game. As
such, the end of chapter bonuses considers the game as a whole, i.e. the
total completion time, the total number of kills throughout, the essence
you have at the end versus the essence you have right at the beginning (
which is 0 ), and the number of ninpos you have remaining.
k. Decent Karma Run Scores
If you are interested in trying to get as much karma in Story Mode as
possible, I have calculated the following scores. They are based on
getting encounter's time limits, and every end of chapter bonuses.
Normal - 11,285,000
Hard - 12,016,000
Very Hard - 12,314,000
Master Ninja - 12,491,000
If you get these scores or slightly above, I think you have done decently
in your karma run ( an 'average' score ). Since I have excluded the
scoring of UTs and fast kills on bosses, there is much more to be gotten.
l. Q & A
Q. Help! I keep killing the foes within the time limits but they take
forever to dissolve, thereby missing it. Is there any way I can make
them dissolve faster or to tally the score faster?
A. Sadly, there is no way to do what you want all the time. However
there is an occasional method to make the score be tallied faster. In
some encounters, there are objects nearby to be picked up, or closed
chests to be opened ( these require the "press 'X' to ...." ). Once
you have killed the final foe, and he starts dissolving, just pick up
the item, or open the chest, and... Voila! The score is tallied up
instantly.
Now if only there were closed chests or items to be picked up in every
encounter...
Q. So if I want karma, I should be killing everything within the time
limit?
A. Most of the time, yes. However on Hard and above, you may want to
kill off a boss as fast as possible, ignoring the minions. The reason
being that bosses are worth 100,000 points. If you kill him quickly,
the mutiplier might be worth an additional 90% which would be hard to
compensate for even if you had UTed every minion.
Furthermore, the Holy Vigoor Emperor's second form can unleash more
than 250 skulls if you keep the damage low. That will be worth 350k
total in Encounter Kill Bonus even if you overshot the allocated time.
So there are occasions where missing the time limit or missing out
some kills can mean greater karma gains.
Q. ...but I will be missing the end of chapter kill bonus if I spare the
minions, right?
A. True, but you can make up for them by killing enough foes from
respawned encounters.
Q. I am seeing 23 mil as the highest score for Master Ninja. How is this
possible?
A. That is the highest legitimate score for Master Ninja so far. It is
possible by squeezing in as much UTs as possible in each encounter.
For example, an ogre can take as much as 7 full Nunchaku UTs before
dying. If you really want to score as much karma as possible, learn
the intricacies of UTs, how to set them up, the encounter times, and
geography of the battlefield. It is quite a difficult task to get
those points.
2. Mission Mode Karma System
----------------------------
a. Overview
The karma system in Mission Mode is quite different from Story Mode as
you are mostly playing effectively a single encounter in each mission.
You still earn point in game for combos and essence techniques but
everything else is tallied when you have completed the mission. There
are other karma factors that were never considered in Story Mode, like
health, healing items, mission difficulty, etc.
b. In-game : Combo
This is exactly the same as in Story Mode. You gain 10 points for each
hit if you managed a 2-hit and above combo.
c. In-game : Essence Techniques
This is exactly the same as in Story Mode. You gain 2,000 points for
each ET and 5,000 points for each UT. You also face a limit of 50
essence technique awards.
d. End-game : Time
The timer in Mission Mode starts from 0 and counts up to a maximum of
999.99 seconds. Once it reaches 999.99 seconds, you will receive 0 karma
for your mission, regardless of all other factors. So even if you have
gotten 50 UTs in the mission, you will still get 0 if you complete the
mission at 999.99 seconds.
If you managed to complete the mission within the time, you will receive
Mission Mode Time Bonus = ( 999 - time completed ) * 100
Note if you finish at 999.01 - 999.98 seconds, you will receive 0 points
for the time bonus, but will still receive points for other factors.
e. End-game : Kills
In Mission Mode, all kills, whether they be bosses or minions, are worth
3,000 points each.
Note that in Mission Mode, if a foe is killed by something else rather
than by your own hands, you will receive no credit nor essence for the
death, and the foe will be respawned ( with some exceptions, e.g. ogres
).
f. End-game : Ninpo
Each full ki slot at the end of the mission is worth 20,000 points.
Since generally you have no elixirs to replenish ki, you are well advised
to refrain from casting ninpo if you wish to maximise karma.
g. End-game : Healing Items
Each unconsumed Elixir of Spiritual Life in your inventory is worth
10,000 points. Likewise, each unconsumed Great Spirit Elixir in your
inventory is worth 40,000 points.
You can pick up elixirs around in the battlefield and keep them for
points at the end.
h. End-game : Health
If you have full health at the end of the mission, you get 7,200 points.
Mission Mode Health Bonus = %age of health remaining * 7200
i. End-game : Essence
The amount of essence you have collected is multiplied by 2.
Mission Mode Essence Bonus = Essence * 2
j. End-game : Mission Difficulty
Your above bonuses are added up, and then multiplied by the Mission
Difficulty.
Normal - * 1.0
Hard - * 1.5
Very Hard - * 2.0
Master Ninja - * 2.5
k. Descent of the Fiends 5 Karma System
Descent of the Fiends 5 has its own scoring system. It is like a
modified version of Story Mode's in-game scoring system. There is a
series of encounters in the whole mission, and each encounter will have
its own time bonus, kill bonus, 50 essence technique limit, etc. Unlike
the other Mission Mode missions, ninpo, health, essence, and healing
items are omitted from the scoring system.
So the score will only depend on encounter time bonuses, encounter kill
bonuses, essence techniques, and the mission difficulty. Note that while
you will still receive points for essence techniques even after the timer
has expired, you will stop receiving them once a hidden timer has reached
999.99 seconds.
In Descent of the Fiends 5, you will receive 10 points for each hit in a
2-hit or greater combo, 2,000 points for each ET, and 5,000 points for
each UT. These are added to your karma almost immediately.
For each encounter, if you completed it within the allocated time, you
will receive 10,000 points.
Each minion is worth 1,000 for the kill bonus, each boss is worth
100,000.
Encounter Kill Bonus = [ 1,000 * ( Regular kills ) + 100,000
* ( Boss Kills ) ] * [ 1 + ( Time Remaining )
/ ( Allocated Time ) ]
The time bonus and kill bonus are only added to your karma after the
encounter is completed. After you have killed the final boss, Ishtaros,
your score is then multiplied by the mission difficulty to derive your
final score.
l. Eternal Legend Karma System
Eternal Legend's scoring is like Descent of the Fiends 5 with the
following exceptions.
- The time bonus is 50,000 points instead of 10,000.
- Each minion is worth 5,000 points instead of 1,000.
- Masakado, Nicchae and Ishtaros are only worth 5,000 points instead of
100,000.
Otherwise, the scoring system is exactly the same as Descent of the
Fiends 5.
m. Q & A
Q. Is it advisable to spam UTs?
A. Yes, if you are going for karma. 50 UTs are worth a lot on the whole.
If you have the time and enemies to dish out 50 UTs on, do it.
However there are plenty of missions where it is impractical to do 50
UTs. Use your judgement accordingly. It is effectively pointless to
spend more than 50 seconds ( 5,000 points ) to simply land 1 UT.
Q. I killed someone with an UT, so I should use its essence to keep
spamming UTs?
A. Use your judgement ( and my Essence chart ). You might think it is
great to use essences to keep spamming out those UTs, but...
A Silver Samurai spawns 3,850 essence when UTed to death. That is
7,700 points effectively. If you had used it for an UT, the effective
points is ( 3,850 / 5 * 2 ) + 5,000 = 6,540, definitely less than if
you had simply collected the essence, and the essence would have been
worth 9,316 points if you had collected it with Armlet of Benediction!
I would recommend collecting essences of UTed Silvered Samurais,
Greater Basts, Thorn Gallas, Ogres, and Worms. Use your own
discretion for the rest.
Q. The essence from Fiend Ryu in Battlefield of the Abyss 5 seems
screwy...
A. Yes, please refer to my Essence FAQ for the answer of why it is so.
If you want maximum points from the encounter, kill one of the Fiend
Ryu with an ET, and collect the essence WITHOUT Armlet of Benediction.
Q. I killed the boss with an UT, but when I break down the final score,
I find myself short of 5000 points. What happened?
A. Unfortunately, the game finalises the score when the "Mission
Completed" words come up. Since there is a slight delay between
landing the essence technique and adding the score to the in-game
karma, there is a possibility of it being left out of the final score.
This applies to essence as well if it has yet to be collected before
"Mission Completed" comes up.
Q. So if I want high karma, I should play 'perfectly' for every mission?
A. Actually if you want high karma, I would advise you to do so only for
Master Ninja difficulties. Just play through Normal to Very Hard in a
fast and dirty way without concern for karma ( i.e. heal when hurt,
cast ninpo when advantageous ). Once you are on Master Ninja, do it
without using elixirs or ninpo. Of course, you can still use the
lesser difficulties as practice sessions.
Q. What is the highest legitimate score for this Mission?
A. For high scores of Mission Mode, I refer you to visit IberianWarrior's
Ninja Gaiden Black Forums at
http://iberiansninjagaiden.com/phpBB2/index.php
You want the MM High Scores List. You need to register to visit the
forums though.
Q. How do you get such a high score on xxxxxx mission?
A. There is a compilation of tactics used to obtain high scores for
specific missions at IberianWarrior's Ninja Gaiden Black Forums. Use
the above link and look for the Mission Mode High Score Almanac.
3. Q & A
--------
Q. What is a karma run?
A. A karma run is simply playing the game, trying to maximise your karma. The
more hardcore version will have you resetting the game every time you mess
up squeezing the points out of the encounter.
Q. So what is the point of karma?
A. Honestly... nothing. It is simply the scoring system employed in the game.
Just like in football, where you shoot a ball into the oppponent's net, and
how much money and property you own in Monopoly, karma in Ninja Gaiden Black
is just a score. However it is a benchmark of how well/skilled you are in
playing to the expectations of the game designers.
Q. So the higher your karma, the more skilled you are?
A. Not quite. It just means you are quite capable in playing up the game
according to the designed goal of the game. However, getting those high
scores legitimately does mean that the scorer has indeed mastered certain
basics of the game. There are others who can perform beautiful displays
of combo attacks and such, which require deft finger-eye coordination and
instincts but they are getting lower scores since such actions actually go
against what the game scoring system wants.
So a high karma player is simply a player who is skilled in Ninja Gaiden
Black. Whether he is a skilled gamer, or 'better' than another Ninja Gaiden
Black player is another matter. Clear?
Q. How do those players on X-Box Live get 999,999,999,999 and such for Ninja
Gaiden Black?
A. Simple. They cheated. Since X-Box Live Ninja Gaiden Black only bothers
authenticating X-Boxes on uploading scores, it is possible for those
cheaters to turn off their cheats before uploading their scores. For your
legitimate scores, please refer to well-trusted Ninja Gaiden Black forums
and inquire.
4. Credits
----------
- Thank you, Team Ninja for creating the best action game I have played so far.
- Thank you, IberianWarrior for hosting many great videos of many great
players, as well as the forum for discussion (
http://iberiansninjagaiden.com
).
- Thank you, Weibull760 for hosting those videos as well.
- Thank you, Bigalski for creating the 100k end of chapter bonuses table.
- Thank you, deep_blue3 for finding out the core of how Mission Mode karma
works.
- Thank you, GameFAQs for hosting this FAQ.
If you find any mistakes or wish to clarify some data, please contact me over
email. Thank you.
