When the first 3D Ninja Gaiden was released on Xbox in 2004, I Really I wanted to play it; Although the game seems a bit outdated now, at the time my teenage self thought ninja protagonist Ryu Hayabusa was cool as hell. But alas, I didn’t have an Xbox, and I don’t think I could have convinced my parents to let me play such a (for the time) violent game. Even as an adult who could buy the game I wanted, I never got around to playing the franchise. Twenty-one years later, I’ve finally scratched that itch.
Ninja Gaiden 4 features a new character named Yakumo instead of Ryu. Yakumo is a total punk; imagine someone with the short, unaffected personality of Fantasy Finale‘s Cloud Strife, but as an extremely skilled and acrobatic ninja who always wears a mask and has hair that covers his face. It’s silly, but it works for such an over-the-top action game. And his personality helps me to internally justify the way Ninja Gaiden 4 encourages aggressive and direct fighting.
You have a light attack and a heavy attack that you can crush to hit your enemies, and well-timed dodges help put you in the right position to maintain your barrage. You can unlock new skills and moves that require certain button combinations, but I almost never used them consciously and generally relied on standard attacks. As you fight, you’ll also build up energy so you can enter “Ravenbound” mode with more powerful attacks that can stagger enemies.
Once you’ve dealt enough damage to an enemy, they will be dismembered, and with a single swing of your heavy attack, you can launch into a powerful finishing move with a gruesome and satisfying animation. I never got tired of seeing Yakumo transform one of my weapons into a vicious drill and jump on it to kill enemies. While ridiculous, this all makes sense considering the game is co-developed by action game experts Team Ninja and PlatinumGames. Sometimes I felt like I was playing a Bayonetta game, which is a compliment.
The absurdity also goes beyond the battles. When you’re not fighting waves of enemies, you’ll traverse the game’s levels by running along walls, jumping from poles with a grappling hook, grinding across rails, catching wind currents to fly through the air, and surfing on water. There’s even a part where you’ll do all of this while traveling through interdimensional portals. Between combat and traversal, there’s almost always something interesting happening as you travel through the world, and when you need a break from the action or to restock your items, the in-game shops tend to be placed where you need them.
I was constantly flying towards enemies, keeping the pressure on with bursts of weapon strikes, and jumping through levels like the the coolest ninja ever. There are even parts of the game where you can play as Ryu, who has his own slightly different playstyle than Yakumo – although I enjoyed playing as him less because his heroic personality is much more boring than Yakumo’s emo vibe.
Despite the chaotic action, the game has a relatively basic and old-fashioned structure. Typically, you’ll play through a few levels, face a major boss, acquire a new weapon, then rinse and start again. There’s no open world, which keeps you focused, although a few areas give you a little more leeway to explore. Although the back third of the game was a bit off due to some repeated levels and boss fights, I appreciated how simple everything was.
Ninja Gaiden 4 is one of my favorite action games I’ve played in years, and it’s the game I always imagined than the original 3D game Ninja Gaiden would be. I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything by jumping into the franchise so late. And there’s a lot of great Ninja Gaiden next games to play: I loved this year’s excellent new 2D entry, Ninja Gaiden: Enragedand to really find that old-school 3D atmosphere, there is a new remaster of Ninja Gaiden II also for modern consoles. After two decades of waiting, I now have a lot of catching up to do.
Ninja Gaiden 4 will be released on October 20 at 8 p.m. ET on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.
