Ninja Gaiden 4 Review – Cyberpunk Carnage and Combat Perfection
Ninja Gaiden 4 Review
If all you want to know is whether Ninja Gaiden 4 redeems the franchise from the disappointment that was Ninja Gaiden 3, it does. Have a good day. For everyone else, read on.
The arranged marriage between Team Ninja and Platinum Games has spawned a title that definitely blends what those two studios do best. Ninja Gaiden 4 is an action game that stays true to its roots while also folding in some enjoyable new ideas.
Elevator Pitch
Now, you may be someone who writes Ryu Hayabusa fanfic on the side and named your dog Dark Dragon Sword. No doubt Ninja Gaiden 4 has a wealth of callbacks and lore references I didn’t catch.
I’m also not upset that, for most of Ninja Gaiden 4, you play as Yakumo, a surly upstart ninja with an edgelord attitude. You get to spend some time as Hayabusa, too, in sort of an extended cameo that unfortunately feels structurally unnecessary. In the end, they’re both monosyllabic characters adept at hacking and slashing, slicing and dicing.
When you finish the game, you can replay chapters as either character.
A near-future, cyberpunk version of Tokyo is under the corrosive influence of supernatural rot, thanks to the husk of the Dark Dragon in the sky, who might not be entirely dead after all. With the help of unexpected ally Seori and a few others, your end goal is to kill the Dragon for real and for good.
Yakumo is from the Raven Clan, enemies of the Hayabusa Clan, so when Ryu makes an appearance, sparks fly. I’ll leave the rest of the story for you to discover.
Generally speaking, Ninja Gaiden 4’s narrative does what it needs to do. In other words, it provides a rationale for Yakumo to move from one area and battle to the next. Neither the characters nor the dialogue are quite as interesting as in the Nioh, Bayonetta, or NieR games, but everything is voiced with commitment. It’s often pretty thin gruel but tasty enough in the moment.
Area of Effects
With Soulslikes dominating the genre, it’s sometimes easy to forget that games like Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, and Bayonetta were once the definition of action. Fast, frenetic, impressively fluid, and acrobatic combat is the heart of Ninja Gaiden 4. If nothing else, the game is a reminder that, when done well, bloody good combat is all you need. It’s very satisfying.
The basics are still pure Ninja Gaiden. Yakumo has four weapons, each of which performs very specific roles. He has a set of dual blades, a lance that transforms into a drill, a twin blade staff that becomes a hammer, and shuriken that transform into claws.
By using his Bloodraven form (for Ryu it’s called Gleam form), each of the weapons’ light and heavy attacks do additional types of damage, and each weapon has a long list of unlockable abilities.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Ninja Gaiden without an incredibly lengthy and deep list of battle moves and combos which are purchased and unlocked at frequent terminals. Some variation of your favorites from prior games — izuna drops, guillotine throws, flying swallow attacks — are probably there and more polished than ever.
The inclusion of additional weapons, paired with dozens of combos, means that combat is incredibly varied and fluid. By the last few hours of the game, the number of possible combinations of weapons and moves is immense. Combat nearly always requires constantly switching between them.
Level Set
The design influence of Platinum Games can really be felt in Ninja Gaiden 4’s emphasis on mobility. Added to Yakumo’s basic parkour repertoire this time around are a grappling hook and the ability to glide on air currents and over water. He can grind along twisting rails.
When Ninja Gaiden 4 is at its most exhilarating, a sequence will have the player doing all of these in sequence, like jackrabbiting furiously between rails into a wall run, then gliding on a current before grappling to another rail. It’s really action gaming at its best, and mostly very finely tuned and polished.
I get easily frustrated by bad platforming, but it almost always felt effortless in Ninja Gaiden 4. Where it occasionally becomes annoying is when the camera gets in the way of tracking where to look. A fail means immediately rebooting into the sequence, often right near the moment where the camera decided not to play nice. The biggest culprit were the air gliding sequences by far.
Levels themselves are obviously designed around the player’s increased mobility, often at the expense of credulity. It’s rare in Ninja Gaiden 4 to ever forget you’re playing a video game. Nothing — levels, enemies, movement, environments — feels tethered to any kind of recognizable reality. And that’s just great.
From the rotting skyscrapers of Tokyo to the day-glo caverns of a demonic reality, we’re in an awesome video game playground.
Endurance Contest
Part of Ninja Gaiden’s design philosophy has always been long stretches of challenging combat, and Ninja Gaiden 4 dials this way up. Groups of tactically savvy enemies are larger and come in endless waves. Just when you think a fight is over, another batch spawns in. There are lots of back-to-back bosses.
While combat is visceral, dismemberment gloriously and gorily returns, there were a few times when things got repetitive. It was never truly boring. Still, a dozen fights in a row with the same enemies in the same environment were common. Boss design is most often good.
This is the first game in the series to have a Hero (easy) difficulty. It’s a great way to entice new players into what has been a demanding franchise. The extreme challenge is still there if you want it — but not very rewarding.
In addition to the campaign, there are a ton of smaller battle challenges to take on to earn extra coin or consumables. Though the game is entirely linear, there are a fair number of little hidden nooks and crannies with loot or collectibles. There’s quite a bit of post-game content in the form of new modes and difficulties. DLC is probably not far off.
Visualize It
Ninja Gaiden 4 might not be a true graphical showcase, but like most Platinum and Team Ninja games, the visuals are clean, not too cluttered with detail, sharp and evocative. Lighting and weather effects are well done and character models are excellent.
Combat audio is extremely effective. The musical score — especially for many of the boss battles — is an interesting stylistic mix.
On PC, technical performance was exceptional, with no crashes and only a few very minor bugs near the end. As an aside, it ran beautifully on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X as well.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think Ninja Gaiden 4 is a serious step forward for the series. But the game makes what I think is a structural mistake during the final few chapters. I don’t want to spoil the narrative, but this decision hurts the momentum, feels a little like obligatory fan service or padding, and repeats sequences and assets almost literally.
It’s hard to imagine any action game fan not being entertained by Ninja Gaiden 4. Its combat is visceral and incredibly fluid. Moving around the environment is more engaging than ever, making every battle a ballet of acrobatics and combat.
Some sequences overstay their welcome and there’s a questionable bit of storytelling near the end. Breathe a sigh of relief. Ninja Gaiden 4 is the return to the bloody good time that fans have been hoping for.
***Xbox code provided by the publisher for review***
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