3D action games and camera issues—name a more iconic duo. With every approach I’ve seen, there have been strengths and weaknesses; assumed attempts to tackle one issue have caused a handful of others; viewpoints have been obstructed, movement directions have been overruled, and cameras have decided to go on their own adventures. I feel like people will always find a way to complain about any 3D action game’s camera, and I’m no exception (since I’ve yet to play through The Wonderful 101), but as with any facet of a game, I find it super interesting to see everyone’s approaches and guess as to their priorities.

As the title may have betrayed, I have thoughts about the camera system in Ninja Gaiden: Black. As I’ve already said in my prior post, I think it’s a super good action game and I definitely recommend playing it, although I do have numerous issues with its combat. It’s also natural that I have qualms with its camera system, and I’d like to avoid these when making anything three-dimensional myself.

The first core issue is one of interdependence: when automatically centring, the camera’s direction is dependent upon Ryu’s movement direction, but Ryu’s movement direction is already dependent upon the camera’s direction. The difference between the two can be constantly shifting, with the direction of Ryu relative to the camera and to the world changing every frame, making actions that depend upon precise movement directions noticeably less reliable. Given Ninja Gaiden: Black’s unique approach to movement as part of the player’s exploratory and offensive toolkits, the effect of this general uncertainty is widespread.

In cases of platforming, this often manifests as difficulty in getting a diagonal wall-run as opposed to a vertical one (or vice versa), and in dropping from a ledge rather than moving towards the camera. Such instances of triggering an unexpected movement decimate both the player’s trust in the game and its pacing, and it felt like my connection to Ryu was being gradually degraded with each disagreement over his actions. This fight for influence over the character is particularly problematic because of how his behaviour depends upon his current movement state. As such, the player acting in accordance with the current camera direction doesn’t override Ryu’s basis of the prior frames: his turns are gradual, and jumps preserve his current direction of movement.

The constant variability of the camera comes as somewhat of a surprise, since on top of having full (albeit slow) control of it with the right stick in both first- and third-person camera modes, the only action assigned to the player’s right index finger is to recentre the camera on Ryu’s current direction. It’s pretty baffling that the game feels the need to so heavily automate the camera direction, especially given it’s only gradually trying to do what the player can manually do immediately.

Exacerbating the issues with the camera’s automation are its usual position and angle. During typical traversal, the camera commonly sits at a low angle directly behind Ryu. While the low angle allows for better vertical visibility at long distances (which is sometimes useful), it compresses the ground into a smaller portion of the screen, making distance perception a fair bit trickier when platforming. At this angle, Ryu’s centred position is pretty obnoxious, frequently obstructing what is directly in front of him. It’s annoying enough when he obfuscates doors and sudden pits during traversal, but the camera also often occupies a similar position during combat, with Ryu obstructing enemies beyond him and enemies obstructing one another. That’s if the enemies are even on-screen, which often isn’t the case, given the camera’s desired proximity to Ryu.

On that note, for most of the game, the camera’s core focus seems to be on showing what Ryu is currently doing, as opposed to providing the player with information with which to control him. Ideally, the controller I’m holding should mean that I’m able to know what Ryu’s doing without really looking at him. During combat, the camera direction will often change to point between Ryu and the enemy he’s currently focused on, but a large amount of the game’s difficulty comes from the number of simultaneous active enemies, their relative mobility and their lacking audio cues. These factors result in enemies often disappearing from view, only to quickly reappear during an attack animation. When this directly results in Ryu getting bonked, “fighting the cameraman” seems like a very apt description of the issue.

Furthermore, when he does get bonked during combat, the camera will often focus on Ryu being knocked to the ground, away from the enemies he’s fighting. The chance of then being attacked from off-screen inhibits the player’s ability to recover from mistakes. This could be an intentional form of positive feedback as punishment or an encouragement to keep moving and switch focus to a different enemy. However, it comes across to me as an error in either design or execution—the Ryu that they’re so desperately trying to make look cool will just look like a doofus if he’s staring at a wall instead of the immediate threat.

Automatically staring at walls isn’t just limited to taking damage. In transitions between traversal and combat, the camera will start to point towards the enemies the player is approaching, acting as both an indicator that the player is entering combat and a warning as to which direction to be wary of. However, as the camera continues to trail behind Ryu, approaching a corner with enemies behind it usually means getting a really good look at that corner, doing little to prevent the player from being immediately attacked once Ryu enters the enemies’ unclear line of sight.

Generally, the issues seem to stem from a desire to prominently show players all of the cool things they’re making Ryu do. A lot of effort clearly went into the animations in Ninja Gaiden: Black, and Ryu does look very cool when I’m doing my two-hundredth Izuna Drop on some random demon. Plus, I get the desire to glue the camera to Ryu’s backside in a game with such a variety of environments, frequently moving between tight corridors and town squares, with numerous levels of verticality. The camera’s behaviour of squeezing up against Ryu’s cheeks when pressed against a wall also reeks of a catch-all solution to environmental variety. However, I can’t forgive the game’s reluctance to trust the player to use their dedicated camera recentring command, nor its dedication to deciding that things would look cooler if angled a few more degrees to one side. Interdependence is now on my hit list of camera issues, and I look forward to making some games with cameras that other people can complain about.

Originally written on 28/5/24, when I realised that there was a possibility of forgetting some of my camera-related thoughts about the game, and thus not learning from them. Edited for human legibility on 27/12/24, and tweaked and posted on 3/1/25.