Ninja Gaiden Ragebound

A good hack and slash

Game no: 564

Genre: Action
Platform: PC
Release Date: 2025

It's been a while since I played a good 2D Ninja Gaiden. Checking the blog the last I played a 2D one was in 2017. So how excited when I found out that there is a smiilar 2D version of this game. It does not dissapoint. Since this game is really straight forward and there nothing much to give a detail description about. Let me give you the background. You play a young ninja from the Hayabusa clan named Kenji (I really thought we get to play as Ryu but he was just a cameo only) and halfway through the game you play as a clanswoman from a different village name Kumori. Due to unforseen circimstances (part of the story which I will tell in a bit) Kumori died and her sprit got stuck in Kenji. Thus the game has a very interesting mechanic. 

Gameplay is like a typical Ninja Gaiden game where you have to go from point A to point B. You climb, jump, dive and avoid obstacles on the way. What makes this game unique is that, Kenji has a melee attack while Kumori has a short range air attack which you can use only 3-4 times before neededing to recharge the meter. There is a charge attack for the heavy enemies where you can get by hitting a specific enemy or charge your meter (which will cause your health to decrease) 

What I liked about this game is the action is face paced. You contastly need to keep moving to stay alive. This game is hard but not unforgiving. Since if you hit something it is probably your fault. The bosses are challenging and you feel a certain sense of excitement when you beat a difficult boss. 

What I don't like about this game is that after a while it is just a lot of repetition. There is no way to get an easy mode for this game so you'll end up dying a lot. After act 4 I just open the cheat engine to finish the game. It is challenging but I am not up for that challenge. The story is sub par which means that I didn't really care that much about the story. 

In the end I finish the game but I can't unlock the rest of the secret stages since you need an S rank for that and who has the time. Overall I give this game an A-Rank