The Game Kitchen understood the assignment.
The original Ninja Gaiden wasn’t just famous for its torturous difficulty, it was also famous for its storytelling ambitions. Koei Tecmo’s action-packed sidescroller was punctuated with cutscenes that felt like a 1990s anime OVA mixed with Sho Kosugi’s Ninja films. These slightly animated but tremendously impressive (you know, for a Famicom game) cutscenes worked with an elaborate soundtrack to instill a more serious vibe to Ninja Gaiden compared to its peers. That history and identity is so strong that, when The Game Kitchen’s Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound opened with a somber arrangement of the first game’s ending theme and a prologue implying I was about to play the moments leading up to its iconic prologue, I felt some feelings, man.
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is a neat side story (ha, I get it) set during the original Ninja Gaiden, with new protagonist Kenji seeing off Ryu Hyabusa as he travels to America upon learning of his father’s death. Moments later demons attack, and Kenji sets off on a mission of his own to figure out how they broke out of Hell. At the same time, the much sketchier Black Spider Clan sends one of its own ninjas, Kumori, off to make a deal with the demons in a bid to betray them and take control of the demon realm, for profit. Both of these foolish endeavors fail, and the two are forced to make a dying deal that sees Kumori binding her soul to Kenji’s body to save them both.
What ensues is a new Ninja Gaiden which follows the basic rules and cadence of the originals while introducing a number of new mechanics and complications meant to attract an audience that demands “modernization.” As silly as that is, Blasphemous developer The Game Kitchen does an excellent job coming up with ways to make Ninja Gaiden feel like operating a walking buzzsaw doubling as a Swiss army knife, giving you lots of tools and tricks to play with at once while constantly throwing shit at you to use them on. Kenji and Kumori working together in one body give you permanent access to close and ranged combat tools, and Ragebound utilizes meter management rather than power-ups to fuel everything. All the obstacles you encounter are designed around you having your full kit, rather than the normal slash having to be the core consideration while anything else is simply a bonus for you to wreak havoc with.
One part of the kit, Hypercharge, is where Game Kitchen tries to get fancy, and runs the risk of pulling a “Simon Says” mechanic. Lots of action games trip themselves up trying to make combat deeper by introducing roadblocks, like color-coding enemies, which inevitably bog down the pace and get in the way of self-expression. Hypercharge is something you use to take down armored enemies in one strike, and you either earn it by attacking specific enemies with the proper move, or paying some health to access it on demand in a pinch. Because you can just spend your health or fight out of a situation the old-fashioned way, Ragebound doesn’t get too bogged down with its shiny new toy. The reward for doing it is some intense pixel gore, which is satisfying in a morbid kind of way.
The coolest gimmick in Ragebound is probably Kumori’s ability to temporarily split from Kenji and dive into the demon realm to solve problems like locked doors. These moments change the rules, introducing a de facto time limit and new toys like short-distance teleporters that launch you after hitting them. These challenges offer little forgiveness, and are all about testing your ability to sight read a situation and decipher strict platform timing, aiming precise kunai throws, and dealing with enemies with puzzle-like placement. They’re thrilling, tough, and rewarding all in one. Plus Kumori is way cooler than that nerd Kenji, and it’s great when she isn’t just poking out of his body to throw stuff.
The relationship between these two characters does a surprising amount of heavy lifting to add a lot of surprising charm to a game about ninja drama. While Ragebound does evoke the NES originals the script is still appropriately light for a short action game, but it makes sure to do as much with its limited real estate as possible. A big part of what makes it work is some genuinely funny banter between these characters as they navigate a demonic buddy cop situation. My favorite gag sees Kumori possess Kenji’s eyes and fingers because he doesn’t understand how to use a computer. The relationship is brought to the test in an intense climax, and has helped this game make a stronger, lasting impression on me than it would have without it.
I don’t want to say much more about the story, but folks, they drag that original ending theme out again and when I say it hits, that shit hits.
Speaking of hits, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound hits pretty much every goal it seems to have. It’s a lavish devotion to one of gaming’s most iconic action series, it successfully adds new layers on top that are engaging and don’t hamper the fundamentals, and it incorporates the canon without letting appeals to nostalgia take over telling a new story. It’s full of secrets and opportunities to master challenges, has a sick soundtrack, and multiple vehicle segments that threaten to invoke Battletoads but are actually fun to get through. I had a blast with Ragebound, and if Koei Tecmo is going to lean on external teams to revisit the old-school stuff, then this is a perfect argument for that approach going forward.
Score: 9
A PC code was provided by the publisher for this review.
