What do you want out of a modern, big-budget, blockbuster video game? Large, detailed environments to explore? Tons of skill trees, crafting systems, and resources to manage? An HBO-worthy story with top-notch voice acting that keeps you playing until the end? Ninja Gaiden 4 does not give a fuck about any of these things.
Ninja Gaiden 4 is here to serve you up tense, twitchy combo-based action and flashy but simple backdrops for ever more ridiculous boss fights and bloodbaths. Nothing more. Nothing less. It gets that job done with S-tier style and attention to detail. Everything else is…fine. I hope that doesn’t sound like a disappointment.
It’s not. I’m 10 hours into Team Ninja and Platinum Games’ cyberpunk-infused joint entry in the long-running series and I’ve been loving every no-frills moment. The sequel is out October 20 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (published by Microsoft and available day-one on Game Pass Ultimate) and my full review won’t be out until later this week. I’ll leave more of my nitpicks until then. For now I can confidentially say this game has some real juice.
Ninja Gaiden 4 is the Brazilian steakhouse where the hosts keep plopping down increasingly rich and tasty hunks of meat until you feel completely gorged and then they give you more and you keep going because it’s just that good and also the world will fall to ruin at the hands of a mythic evil dragon if you don’t.
There’s not a lot of variety. You may occasionally break into a sweaty panic. But plate after plate of bloody brawls and bone-crunching boss fights will arrive and you will not send them back because this is Team Ninja’s house and you will feast until it’s over because who knows, it could be another 13 years until the next Ninja Gaiden arrives.
If you haven’t been keeping up, Ninja Gaiden 4 puts you in the shoes of Ryu Hayabusa’s rival Yakumo who wields the Bloodraven Form technique to chain the blood of his enemies into dazzling and devastating combo attacks (you also play as Ryu in some chapters). Yakumo gets access to multiple weapons with different attack patterns and unlockable move sets. There’s even an ultimate meter you can fill up to unleash quick executions.
Combined with dodges, parries, and an overwhelming number of fighting-game-style aerial maneuvers and attacks, the combat rewards close attention and thoughtful execution. It’s a button-mashing gorefest, except that every button is pressed for a particular reason and if it’s not, you’re probably looking at the game over screen again.
Every challenge room and boss fight so far has left me feeling satisfied and accomplished in exchange for the effort expended, even when progress slowed to a crawl and it briefly felt like I was banging my head against the wall. Ninja Gaiden 4 is so limited and focused in terms of what it puts in front of you that I found these periods of stalled momentum as cathartic and calming as pushing through to the next chapter.
I won’t talk about the story because I’m not finished yet and, well, when has a Ninja Gaiden story ever really mattered that much? There’s a mysterious woman manipulating you into breaking magical seals to purify the ancient dragon and prevent it from returning to haunt neo-Tokyo. The English language dubs are not great so I’m playing with subtitles. The conversations and characters, like the spartan levels you encounter them in, provide the most barebones table setting for a linear series of battles and the occasional 3D Sonic-style platforming section.
None of the stuff outside of combat has been all that great in Ninja Gaiden 4 so far, so I welcome there being so little of it. This is a game about seeing how long you can keep your health meter unscathed while landing just enough blows to randomly sever an enemy’s limb and open them up to a grisly execution move that sprays blood all over the screen and nets you points toward your high score for the stage. It’s strikingly old-school that way. It’s nice to have you back, Ninja Gaiden.
