Ninja Gaiden Ragebound Review

I came into this game extremely hopeful. I even bought 2 copies… one for Nintendo Switch and a PS5 copy so just know that it gives me no great pleasure to point out here why this game falls flat for me despite its aesthetically pleasing outward appearance and despite its proposition of giving players all of the traversal game mechanics many players wish they had back in the days.

First off I love 2D action games and I love the Ninja Gaiden series. As an owner of ALL of the 2D Ninja Gaiden games in their original glory I hold them in high regard because they demand precision on both combat and platforming fronts. Also the pixel art of the Famicom titles were no slouch and at times even pretty awesome.  

Let’s get right to it.

The big problem with Ninja Gaiden ragebound is that nothing is on the line most of the time you are playing it unless you are in a boss encounter. The stakes are LOW and that’s just… well boring.

Counter-Bars: The Stakes is high.

So for context older entries in the 2D Ninja Gaiden pantheon were unforgiving. Your limited move set required precision. Falling in a pit is an INSTANT loss of life. In Ragebound you just respawn, with a bit of health lost removing the high stakes and tension of platforming the series is renowned for requiring.

Counter-Bars: Real Ninjas Do Real Things.

With respect to combat it’s the same thing: the abundance of health you are given even on the normal difficulty mode removes so much of the tension from typical enemy encounters and the game as a whole. Then add on the fact that you have a ridiculously overpowered moveset that includes basically what amounts to a metroid style screw attack (LOL) and you can just bounce off, over, and past enemies to zoom to the end of most levels removing most of the tension from the game entirely. 

The over powered moveset makes me think of that old episode of the simpsons where Homer gets the opportunity to build his dream car. He gets to put ALL the bells and whistles on it yet the end result is just a mess. 

This is mostly the result here. You are just too overpowered. Well you are until the boss encounters that do require you to learn enemy patterns to progress onwards but that’s not what you are doing mostly and I didn’t find the challenge of boss encounters enough to keep me engaged.

Ninja Gaiden Ragebound underscores that limitations in a characters move set can very much be a feature adding tension and not necessarily a bug as many remakes and modern retro style games seem to propose.

It’s by no means a bad game, I am sure many will love it, but overall I just found it a bit too boring.