There’s a special sort of bliss that comes from a dumb action game. It doesn’t matter if the plot works or if the impetus for slicing up bad guys makes sense; the only thing that matters is how good it feels to slip into the hypnotic trance of carnage with your mind and body on autopilot. The Ninja Gaiden series has always been particularly good at capturing this mentality.
The NES games were tough but let skilled-enough players lock into the rhythm of muscle memory to charge through its side-scrolling platforming stages. Under the direction of Team Ninja, the 3D trilogy of titles for the Xbox and Xbox 360 translated that flow state to greater heights with downright brutal combat demanding razor-sharp precision.
And although the modern age of gaming is mostly dominated by a Soulslike ethos of action that prioritizes methodical dodging and plodding, there are many fans who yearn for a return to the heyday of 2000s-era slash ‘em ups. That’s exactly what Ninja Gaiden 4 (out Oct. 21) offers — and then some.
Developed in collaboration between franchise stewards Team Ninja and action gaming royalty PlatinumGames (Bayonetta, Nier: Automata), this new generation of Ninja Gaiden aims to take the complex mechanics of bloodletting that made the previous entries so beloved, while ratcheting up the kinetics to delirious degrees. A full onslaught on the senses, Ninja Gaiden 4 can often feel mind-numbing in its aggressively over-the-top presentation, but once it kicks in, there’s no way to break its spell.
Action gaming reborn
Formed in the mid-Nineties by the late Tomonobu Itagaki, Team Ninja made their name with games like Dead or Alive and the reimagined Ninja Gaiden trilogy — two series made famous for being equal parts tonally juvenile and mechanically complex. Dead or Alive, in particular, trafficked extensively in sex appeal, pioneering 3D jiggle physics for its female characters’ bodies in ways that practically buried its credentials as a legitimately great fighting game. Their Ninja Gaiden games weren’t much better in that regard but at least spent more time emphasizing its gory gameplay over cheesecake ogling.
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PlatinumGames share many of the same predilections at Team Ninja (mainly boobs and violence) but carved their own niche as the creators of hyper-kinetic action games like Bayonetta that stretch the boundaries of what the human attention span can manage. Their MO is making experiences that feel like the player’s toggled on God mode even when getting their ass beat.
Action games are rarely gorier or more kinetic than Ninja Gaiden 4.
Xbox Games Studios
Together, they’re a match made in heaven. The studios’ combined sensibilities make Ninja Gaiden 4 feel like one of the most mechanically deep combat games either party as ever made, with just about every facet cranked up to 11.
The story picks up some time after the events of 2012’s Ninja Gaiden 3, following “Super Ninja” Ryu Hayabusa’s three-time victory over the evil Dark Dragon. But in the interim, since the dragon’s demise, something has gone terribly wrong. Although the beast’s soul has been sealed, its husk has poisoned the futuristic Sky City Toyko, leaving it quarantined under the control of a task force known as the Divine Dragon Order (DDO), led by Ryu himself. Now, a fresh-faced ninja named Yakumo is on the rise, working to end the dark times once and for all.
A member of the Raven Clan, Yakumo plays very differently than Ryu did in previous games. For one, he’s much faster, able to nimbly cut down droves of DDO soldiers, demons, and fiends with blistering speed. Yakumo has access to something called Bloodraven Form, which uses the blood of his enemies to morph his weapons into cartoonish upgrades. By holding a button, a simple katana suddenly becomes a 10-foot blade, or a rapier sprouts a demolition-grade power drill — all capable of viscerally dismembering and maiming foes.
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Developers PlatinumGames and Team Ninja have no interest in dialing back their over-the-top style.
Xbox Games Studios
Ryu himself is also playable, albeit to a much smaller degree than the marketing indicates. Despite being the face of the brand, the elder ninja is mostly relegated to a rarely seen boogeyman until late game; he’s not actually controllable until roughly 70 percent of the way through the narrative. Once he appears, however, the pace downshifts just slightly — Ryu is a little stronger, but he’s clunkier than Yakumo in ways that evoke the feeling of classic Ninja Gaiden.
While it might be disappointing to some that Ryu takes a backseat in the newest entry, it isn’t the first time. Earlier this year, Dotemu’s 2D revival of the series Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound took a similar approach with an original character named Kenji, to spectacular results. But there’s comfort in that Yakumo’s story is strong enough to carry Ninja Gaiden 4 until its two heroes collide.
Cranked to the max, all the time
From its opening moments in the neon-soaked cyberpunk-coded Sky City Tokyo, Ninja Gaiden 4 thrusts players into an endless stream of pulse-pounding action set pieces and rarely ever lets up. Unlike 2D entries like Ragebound, where most enemies can be killed with a single decisive strike, practically every bout is a calculated battle of attrition where each foe must be thoroughly sliced and brutalized before falling.
Ryu returns as a playable character late in the game, and feels true to his older incarnations.
Xbox Games Studios
Most instances begin with a swarm of enemies of different types (melee fighters, snipers, rocketeers, etc.) all slamming the player at once with everything they’ve got, requiring a deft balance of blocking, parrying, and dodging to stay alive. On normal difficulty, the game is challenging, but manageable for anyone with a passing knowledge of the 3D action genre. The key is using standard attacks to cut bad guys up to the point that they lose a limb, at which point they’re vulnerable to an instant execution with a heavy attack. It’s the same strategy employed in previous Ninja Gaiden titles, but the speed of the bloodletting and appendage removal is now dizzying.
Yakumo has a frankly stupid number of abilities to learn; between regular and heavy attacks, base and Bloodraven Form, ground and aerials (and many, many variations), it’s practically a full-on fighting game. But the truth is that the more powers are unlocked, the less methodical the combat becomes. At a certain point, pressing just about anything will do something cool, and there’s a delicate balance between the game training players to effortlessly pull off moves as intended and just letting them button-mash their way to victory.
By mid-game, most bouts can be overcome by selecting whichever weapon type the player’s most comfortable with and going to town. Wildly slapping buttons, it’s no tall task to chop soldiers off at the knees, pick up their mangling body and slam it into a crowd with a rocket-powered hammer, and seamlessly transition to the next cold-blooded kill. The game’s greatest trick may be making sure the user barely even knows if they’re succeeding almost by accident or if they’re just that good; eventually it all just bleeds together into a trance-like state.
Platforming and on-rails traversal sections are so fast, they feel sloppy to handle.
Xbox Games Studios
The complexity of the mechanics becomes a little more apparent as tougher foes begin blocking and parrying more astutely, forcing the player’s hand to put in a little more effort in their decision making. Boss fights end up being the areas where it’s most evident that not everything will work; many of these major enemies can fly, teleport, or just do crazy moves that brush against the skillset of both Yakumo and Ryu, often leading to a constant chase just to get a hit off.
There are other weak points in the gameplay, too. Platforming sections usually require utilizing one of Yakumo’s many ninja tools like grappling hooks, aerial gliders, and yes, surfboards. These challenges emphasize speed above all else, although they rarely feel precise. To keep the action always moving at maximum speed, levels often poorly telegraph where the player is supposed to jump or dodge to, leading to cheap deaths even past the first go around. With a primary focus on throwing as much shit as possible at the screen, it regularly seems like the levels themselves forget there’s actually supposed to be a person controlling things behind it.
The intended speed at which the game expects players to operate also belies the mediocrity of the game’s visuals. While character models look solid in motion, with blood splashes masking most of what you’ll even see, there’s very little texture or diversity to much of the world. The neon skyline of the city is somewhat pretty, but most levels — from underground clubs to ethereal dimensions — mostly boil down to a series of tight corridors, routinely recycling their layouts. The stages become repetitive well before Ryu’s chapters arrive, at which point they become literal repeats of the exact same levels players have already completed as Yakumo.
Demon sharks and other outlandish ideas are what makes Ninja Gaiden 4 a ridiculiusly good time.
Xbox Games Studios
Despite what Ninja Gaiden 4 lacks in visual fidelity and environmental variety, it’s nearly impossible not to have a good time playing it. The sheer audaciousness of its action is a spectacle unto itself. It’s basic premise of “cool ninjas doing cool shit” is really the game’s bottom line — throwing in a scantily clad sorceress or a caked-up king of the underworld just adds to an experience designed for a teenager’s palate.
While it goes off the rails (literally at times), the audiovisual cacophony of Ninja Gaiden 4 harkens back to an older school of game design — one where open-world exploration, leveling up, and distinct character builds were exclusively for RPGs, and subtlety was left at the door. This is an experience for people who think chasing demon sharks on surfboards is rad, and whose not-so-guilty pleasures include using a bad guy’s head like a soccer ball while EDM blasts in the background.
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They’re simple joys, but effective nonetheless.
Ninja Gaiden 4 launches on Oct. 21 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
