Ninja Gaiden 4 Review

Ninja Raiden: Revengeance

HIGH Fast, fluid and crunchy combat!

LOW Some enemies are damage sponges that take too long to chew through.

WTF Seori’s wearing so many ropes I keep accidentally calling her Shibari.

In a surprising twist of fate, Ninja Gaiden 4 wasn’t developed by Team Ninja. The franchise is no stranger to other developers taking over production duties, from the phenomenal Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound by The Game Kitchen just a few months ago, to the rather less triumphant Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z by Spark Unlimited back in 2014, but the main numbered entries have stayed in-house until now.

Enter Platinum Games, creators of titles such as Vanquish, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and Bayonetta. Their pedigree should be well-known to any action game enthusiast, so the thought of Platinum stepping up to the plate this time out is an interesting one. It should come as no surprise then, that Ninja Gaiden 4 feels more like a Platinum project than a Team Ninja tribute as they apply their own studio’s spin to this third-person action extravaganza.

The story this time is largely filler bordering on fanfiction in places, but the evil Dark Dragon that Ryu Hayabusa killed previously isn’t as dead as everyone hoped. It’s now floating in the sky above Tokyo, streaming corrupted rainlike blood that’s corrupting nearly everything it touches, with only a paramilitary force of armor-suited grunts and the efforts of Super Ninja Ryu Hayabusa keeping it contained.

Enter new ninja Yakumo on a mission to shake things up and slay it for good. He’s an okay protagonist leaning heavily into the stereotypical murder machine trope where the mission is the only thing that matters to him — unless said mission happens to involve killing a girl with large breasts, in which case he’s suddenly willing to make an exception.

Said exception is new girl Seori, the Dark Dragon Priestess who shows dangerous levels of likability and charm in her introductory cutscene, and is therefore swiftly sidelined so that our angry emo murder ninja can get angrier and murder dudes throughout the rest of the blood-spattered adventure.

So, what new tricks does Yakumo bring to the table? A lot, actually. While he quickly gains access to classic techniques such as the Izuna Drop and Guillotine Throw, he also has all-new Bloodraven techniques. By holding down a button, he can infuse blood into his weapons and change their physical properties. This includes extending his dual swords to several times their length, morphing his staff into a gigantic rocket-powered warhammer, or turning his rapier into a shrieking drill of death that would appease even the most psychotic of dentists.

This Bloodraven form is an important technique, as it’s the only thing that can interrupt new enemy power moves — using them, adversaries become encased in hyperarmor and shrug off non-fatal blows. However, counter them with a Bloodraven attack and their armor will shatter, they’ll take way more damage for a limited period, and they’ll be staggered and defenseless until they can regain their wits.

Yakumo is restrained in his use of Bloodraven by a quickly-recharging power gauge, but it’s there to be used, and used liberally. There’s also a Berserk form which allows these powered-up attacks to trigger instant kills, freezing the screen with white kanji pleasingly cut apart against a blood-red spray. There are also plenty of new moves to unlock on top of important fundamentals like perfect dodges slowing down time and granting brief invincibility, or parries opening up counterattack options.

The new rain-soaked environments look decent, though they’re mostly linear with occasional branching paths or hidden alcoves leading to a chest or a secret before turning Yakumo back the way he came. There are also new traversal sections where players will have to take flight and soar through the skies, grind along twisted railway lines, or make use of a grappling hook as they move from one area to another. These sequences are fine and break up combat encounters nicely even if they’re not thrilling in their own right.

Enemies are a mixed bag. Most human enemies are fine, with reasonably varied movesets and levels of aggression. Demons are typically fine too, from birdlike Tengu swooping through the air to stranger adversaries like giant flame-spewing crockery raining hell around them. However, I’m not so keen on some of the new additions. The exploding paper lanterns are boring and silly, and the plastic bag-wearing dog-things aren’t likely to win Platinum enemy design awards anytime soon.

Part of the issue with these enemies is that they don’t have the intelligence seen in earlier installments where foes would jostle for advantageous positions and stalk players around the battlefield. They’re also damage sponges, sucking up large amounts of abuse from normal combos before finally losing a limb so they become vulnerable to the returning Obliteration Techniques. More advanced moves such as perfectly timed counterattacks can kill them faster, but they still feel like overly-durable meat sacks most of the time.

That said, the boss battles in Ninja Gaiden 4 are arguably better than ever, mainly due to more consistent rules in how they engage the player. Platinum has ensured that the flow of battle remains smooth with predictable and elaborate attack patterns, weaknesses to exploit and consistent results from correctly countering the most vicious assaults, all of which is preferable to the occasional randomness found in games past when Ryu would occasionally bounce off enemies, or they’d randomly avoid attacks for no discernible reason.

Speaking of Ryu Hayabusa, he’s playable late in the campaign but feels extraneous since he’s doing the Devil May Cry 4 schtick of retracing Yakumo’s steps, killing many of the same enemies and murdering the same bosses for a second time with few changes along the way. Even his moveset isn’t as unique as it first appears, ninja magic aside, leading to an underwhelming reunion with an action legend that feels almost like mediocre downloadable content in its execution. Likewise, anyone hoping for an appearance by beloved franchise heroines Rachel or Momiji will be bitterly disappointed — I certainly was.

It’s tough to shake the feeling that Ninja Gaiden 4 parallels Yakumo himself. Extremely competent in its own right, but overshadowed and outmatched by a legend it doesn’t manage to live up to. It’s crazy that the first mainline series entry in over a decade is somehow only the third best Ninja Gaiden title to come out this year… but that’s how it is.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Addendum: This review was written around the time the world heard of former Team Ninja lead Tomonobu Itagaki’s passing. This was the man who helped shape the Ninja Gaiden franchise into the genre leading 3D incarnation it’s known as today, and his death comes as a true loss for the industry as a whole. Rest well, Master Ninja.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Platinum Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It is currently available on XBX/S/PS5/ andPC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 40 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed multiple times with all achievements earned.  There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language and Suggestive Themes. The official description reads: This is an action game in which players assume the role of a ninja (Yakumo) attempting to lift an ancient curse placed on his clan. From a third-person perspective, players use swords, metal claws, drill weapons, and shuriken to kill human and fantastical enemies in frenetic melee-style combat. Some attacks and finishing moves result in dismemberment and/or decapitation of enemies, often from a close-up perspective. Large bloodstains, severed limbs, and torsos remain on the ground during battles. Cutscenes depict further instances of violence and/or blood/gore: an enemy sliced in half; a character’s arm cut off; a character dramatically impaled. Some female characters are depicted wearing outfits that expose deep cleavage; one female character’s breasts jiggle during cutscenes. Sweet. The word “f**k” appears in the game.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and resized. There’s an absolute wealth of accessibility options available in Ninja Gaiden 4, from highlighting all manner of important game elements to high contrast modes, automatically taking care of movement in various challenge sequences, assisted gameplay mechanics and more. With so many options to help all kinds of players out, this game is absolutely fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

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