Ninja Gaiden 4 review: Relentlessly entertaining combat, even if it threatens to outstay its welcome

Following the news of his untimely passing last week, a quote from Ninja Gaiden reboot director Tomonobu Itagaki started circulating on social media.

Speaking to Kikizo back in 2004 , Itagaki responded to criticism that Ninja Gaiden was too difficult by claiming it was intentional. “The testers who tested this game went nuts,” he explained. “At first it was easier, but when the testers said ‘this is too difficult’, I made it even more difficult.”

Sadly, we’ll never know what he’d make of Ninja Gaiden 4, which was developed without Itagaki’s input, but modern gaming sensibilities have at least ensured that while his trademark extreme difficulty remains, this time it’s optional.

Ninja Gaiden 4 features an optional Hero difficulty level, which makes enemy AI less relentless. There are also settings you can toggle, which add things like auto-block and auto-evade, making it even easier, but crucially, all of this is purely down the player’s taste.

If you’re a series purist, then, who believes that the idea of a Ninja Gaiden game being easy is an affront to the original design ethos, rest assured that it’s still perfectly possible to ramp up the difficulty and get a traditionally hard-as-nails experience where countless enemies rush you and you don’t get a second to rest.

For those new to the series, Ninja Gaiden 4 is the first new mainline 3D entry in the series in 13 years, following the release of Ninja Gaiden 3 on Xbox 360 and PS3. Whereas the previous games were solely handled by Team Ninja, this time the action specialists at Bayonetta studio PlatinumGames – at least, those who remain – have stepped in to collaborate.

The majority of the game follows Yakumo, a new ninja tasked with defeating the returning Dark Dragon, which has been causing an endless cursed rain to fall on Tokyo and turn it into a dystopian, bleak shadow of the city it once was. But if you don’t think regular series protagonist Ryu Hayabusa is going to get involved at some point, then… well, he does, which is hardly a spoiler when you consider the Digital Deluxe Edition includes skins for him.

The Ninja Gaiden series – at least the 3D reboot series, as opposed to the 8-bit NES trilogy – is known for its looks, speed, action and gore. In that respect, Ninja Gaiden 4 absolutely tickets all four boxes.

This is one visually impressive game, with a varied mix of detailed landscapes to play through, all running at a blisteringly fast pace with barely a frame rate blip to be found. The game lets you choose between prioritising graphics and framerate (or 120fps if your screen supports it) and in this particular game the latter option is a no-brainer, because 60fps is essential given the speed of the action and the level of detail is still impressive.

That action rarely lets up, too. Practically every room you enter has multiple enemies to take on, and it’s not uncommon in certain situations for the enemy count to hit double figures. From the opening stage to the final battle (and beyond, in fact), you’re almost constantly engaged in combat, to the extent that by the time the credits rolled my thumb was hurting from constantly hitting the X and Y buttons.

That’s not to say the game’s a mashfest, mind you. This may be the case on Hero difficulty, where you can get through most of the game by just running head-first into every enemy and boss battle and swinging away like a maniac, but raise the difficulty and it becomes a ballet of blocks, parries, dodges and carefully timed attacks.

“From the opening stage to the final battle (and beyond, in fact), you’re almost constantly engaged in combat, to the extent that by the time the credits rolled my thumb was hurting from constantly hitting the X and Y buttons.”

This dance adds further steps – if you’ll forgive the metaphor getting out of hand – as Yakumo earns new weapons. Initially armed with his trusty katana sword, Yakumo eventually ends up with four main weapons in his arsenal, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

There’s a spear which transforms into a drill and does great damage to opponents directly in front of you, there’s a big hammer which has a wider arc and is useful for damaging multiple enemies surrounding you in a group, that sort of thing. The only real weak point is the fourth weapon, which is more designed for distance attacks, but it’s useful enough in its own way.

The fact that each weapon is assigned to a different D-Pad direction means you can instantly swap between them, meaning by the end of the game you’re taking part in epic battles in crowds of enemies, flipping between weapons without pausing in a constant flow of action. When it all comes together like this it really does make you feel like the star of the most ridiculous action movie.

Things are given more variety with Bloodraven form, a special ability you can trigger by holding down LT / L2. This gives you more powerful moves for a brief period and is mainly used for breaking through blocking enemies, making sure the game doesn’t become a full-on exercise in button mashing.

Regardless of how you decide to dispatch your enemies, the end result is the same – gallons of blood lying all over the place. This is a game that doesn’t flinch from the gore, as is perfectly highlighted by its central combat mechanic. The general way to quickly defeat an enemy is to keep attacking them until you sever an arm or leg, at which point you can hit the Y button to perform a gory finishing blow.

All said, however, despite the game seemingly trying its best to keep the combat varied, there’s no escaping the fact that some people will find it repetitive long before they reach the end. That’s because the difficulty level isn’t the only part of the game that depends on the player’s taste – the degree to which the full move list is used is also entirely down to the player.

“Regardless of how you decide to dispatch your enemies, the end result is the same – gallons of blood lying all over the place”

There’s a lengthy list of moves and abilities which can be unlocked with cash and experience points as you play through the game, but the reality is that a large number of them are arbitrary additions that really aren’t necessary for anything other than giving you extra button combinations to pull off.

You can pull off circular stick commands and chain together complex techniques all you like, but the reality is that whether you’re facing the umpteenth group of enemies or a boss, getting up close and performing your standard X and Y button combo attacks is generally a perfectly effective method of defeating your opponents.

As such, a number of players will start to feel restless long before they get to the end of the game’s 19 chapters, as the repetitive nature of the ‘enter a new area, kill loads of baddies, run to the next area, kill loads more’ gameplay loop starts to outlive its welcome slightly, as do the Y-button kill animations, which you’ll see hundreds of times before the credits roll.

This becomes particularly grating near the end of the game. I don’t plan on spoiling anything so it’s hard to properly explain, but it feels like Platinum artificially extends the length of the main campaign in a way that’s frustrating and could have been better handled.

A tighter, shorter main story would’ve been preferable over the conclusion of Ninja Gaiden 4, which at one point literally has you play the same stage twice in a row.

It’s a sad crescendo to what’s otherwise an extremely enjoyable Ninja Gaiden entry, with well refined combat and some of the best action gameplay we’ve seen this generation.

Whether you’re a fan of the series or are coming to it fresh for the first time – it’s on Game Pass Ultimate, after all – it’s absolutely worth playing through because it’s a hell of a spectacle in a way that only PlatinumGames knows how to pull off.

Just be aware that what you get out of this game – particularly with regards to combat variety – can really depend on what you put into it.