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[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Having completed the Ninja Gaiden video game on its highest difficulty, we can say that it's one of the best games of 2025 and also one of the best hack-and-slash games of this generation.

The Ninja Gaiden franchise makes a grand return with the great action of Platinum Games.

We're looking at a game so fantastic and so well-made, a true Ninja Gaiden title that has returned.

I urge you to disregard the reviews from the "analysts," because they are completely wrong.

Yakumo plays as the protagonist for 80% of the game, but in my opinion, he's a fantastic character with an incredibly deep and amazing combat system.

You feel the evolution of becoming a ninja, and alongside him is the legendary Ryu Hayabusa, whose control you feel like that of an absolute legend.

From the very first moment, the combat feels incredibly satisfying and cinematic, with spectacular obliterations.

I absolutely love every single one of Yakumo's obliterations.

Some of Yakumo's moves, like the crow technique, are quite reminiscent of Raiden from Metal Gear Rising, which is super cool.


The characters are captivating, the story is well-crafted and engaging, but where it truly shines is in the combat, which is the most brutal since Ninja Gaiden 2 and Ninja Gaiden 2 Black.

The soundtrack, with its futuristic and techno feel, is very well represented.

The game is linear, except for a few alternative paths, but you forget about that because there's never a moment to rest.

Even people like Ken Lobb, a legend at Rare, are involved in the video game.

The return of a Ninja Gaiden game after 13 years.

You can feel the power and control of the universe.

Positive Points

- Yakumo, a great new character.
- The combat system and Obliterations
- The very challenging difficulty
- The OST with people involved from expedition 33.
and the enemy AI.
- The sheer fun!

- Absolutely fantastic sound effects.

- One of Platinum Games' best games

- Negative Points

- The strange save system.
- A few more chapters with Ryu would be great, but that's compensated for by Game+
- A little more enemy variety would be great.


Ninja Gaiden 4 isn't just the franchise's grand return; it's a frenetic game, a fun and immersive experience. It's one of the best action games of this generation and a must-play.


SCORE: 9.3
Reviews that give a rating lower than 8 are from people who lack expertise in this area of video games.

Don't pay them any attention.

 

[Signalis]

I respect your courage for doing this review.

 

[kevboard]

the big BIG issue with this game is the insanely horrible level design. also the platforming feels way too stiff and mechanical. how stiff and mechanical is best summarised by the fact that the typical vertical back and forth walljump sections are fully context sensitive in this game, instead of relying on the systemic wallrun mechanics that are already there.

the combat is great, although it has very little in common with the original games at this point, even when playing with Ryu.

but it can not be overstated how bad the level design is. it can almost be used as studying material as an example of how not to design level layouts.

 

[seb85]

Even though this game have a cool combat , the level design was extremely generic and boring to the point I got bored of the game itself and stopped playing after chapter 4 and I am a big fan of ninja Gaiden games , this was a huge disappointment for me.

 

[Diva]

It always baffles me when people critique lvl design in high speed action games. All you need is an arena with enemies - thats it.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Combat system is nuts.

I think I can overlook other elements, everything is in service of that combat system.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

It always baffles me when people critique lvl design in high speed action games. All you need is an arena with enemies - thats it.

I'm actually quite demanding when it comes to video games... And I think Ninja Gaiden 4 had some good levels.

 

[kevboard]

It always baffles me when people critique lvl design in high speed action games. All you need is an arena with enemies - thats it.

that's how bad it is. the level design is so bad it stands out even tho it is not really that important. that is precisely the issue.

does Wonderful 101 have genius level design? no... it's serviceable... but that's it. same with Bayonetta or DMC4.
but NG4's stands out as being just god awful.
and it doesn't help that the platforming segments feel so bad, while also being relatively mundane in terms of design.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

that's how bad it is. the level design is so bad it stands out even tho it is not really that important. that is precisely the issue.

does Wonderful 101 have genius level design? no... it's serviceable... but that's it. same with Bayonetta or DMC4.
but NG4's stands out as being just god awful.
and it doesn't help that the platforming segments feel so bad, while also being relatively mundane in terms of design.

For truly awful level design, look no further than Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z... And yet it's still a good game.



As I said, I didn't particularly like Ninja Gaiden 3, but I'd give it an 8 out of 10.

 

[Punished Miku]

I gave it a 9.5/10. Completed on Master Ninja with 1000/1000 achievements, playtime over 100 hours. The only flaws I could point to are simplistic level design, and limited biomes.

Combat is pretty much the best combat I've played this generation. Yakumo is an incredible new character. All of his weapons are viable, and really unique. He has so many moves and interesting applications that I had to routinely return to training mode periodically through multiple playthroughs, and I always still felt I had more to learn and moves I wasn't utilizing. I didn't even unlock all the moves until the end of my second run. You really get out of the game what you put in, as it can be very easy to just breeze through it and only utilize a portion of the depth that is there. Very high skill ceiling in this game. Combat is faster than previous games. Even the light stealth sections are actually awesome and add to the gameplay.

It's easy to take for granted, but the fact that Platinum managed to put their own spin on NG combat is a miracle. New character, new weapon types, the ability to hard lock on now if you want, perfect dodges as well - and it all fits and feels natural within the NG framework. Current Team Ninja couldn't pull that off. It's hard to go back to having no perfect dodge in the previous games. Bloodbind stance is another gamechanger for the series, and it's awesome. It completely changes the range you can fight at and encourages you to take on large groups of enemies simultaneously. Other forms like the hammer and ninja box have Bloodbind moves with additional effects if you nail the timing of the button releases, which is another layer of fun and depth to work on. The accessories are more varied and unique than in previous games as well. The trials are almost like puzzles where you have to figure out what accessory combinations help offset the unique rules for the challenge. Boss fights are pretty much all great, without some of the unbalanced and weaker ones in previous games (even NGB and NG2 had some bad boss fights). The Ryu boss fight is possibly my favorite in the whole series.

A lot of people seem to be influenced by the Electric Underground review, which is a total fraud of a review. It makes multiple factually inaccurate claims about small details in the combat system that have since been disproven. In addition to the factual errors, it showcases a flawed and pessimistic mindset when viewing new games that seeks to pick apart anything not exactly like older previous games, while totally misunderstanding the purpose of the design in the new games. I highly encourage people to get over this guy's accent and watch the entire thing. It's a literal clinic on game design, combat balancing, and game critique.



Yakumo is a badass honestly, and they couldn't have done a better job with a new character. I heard a lot of people claiming he's some anime stereotype, but I honestly don't get it. He's very similar to Ryu. He barely talks, and only is focused on the mission and destruction. Extremely similar to Ryu in Ninja Gaiden 1 when Rachel tries talking to him, but maybe slightly angrier. They don't even show his face, which is awesome. All his weapons are awesome, and he feels even faster than Ryu.

Ryu is a total badass in this as well. I would have liked a few more weapons, but honestly when you have Yakumo with that much variety I think what they did with Ryu makes perfect sense. Why would you even use other weapons when you have an awakened True Dragon Sword? The way they handled his Ninpo is pretty sick as well. I really underestimated how good it was until I was working my way through the trials. On a ton of the trials, I had to use Ryu and Ninpo to get through it and open up new strategies.

Music in this game is pretty much the best since Ninja Gaiden 1 on NES. The series has always had top tier music, and this is easily one of the best OST of the year. Victor Borba does a lot of the vocal stuff, and also sang on Clair Obsur this year by the way. The technical ambition in the drumming is extremely impressive. As someone who listens to metal a lot, this is not normal metal drumming. This is not normal game OST. These guys are absolutely crushing it. And all the orchestrated stuff is great as well, with some phenomenal callbacks to previous themes. Many of the great orchestrated stuff still isn't available on Youtube since the OST hasn't been officially released.





Level design in the game is definitely a downgrade from previous games. You don't have larger interconnected areas, or much in the way of complex platforming. I would compare it to Bayonetta games, or Metal Gear Revengence. Platinum has never really focused on anything but combat arenas that are gated off for each fight and then they throw in a motorcycle or airplane minigame in Bayonetta. That's not that far off from what they did here. The areas are mostly combat arenas with some QTE style traversal games thrown in a few times in between. It can be jarring the first time you play it if you are expecting it to be like NG1 and 2, and I marked down my score for this reason. After you get used to it though, it's still super fun to play this game. On the higher difficulties, you are required to really exploit any variance in height in each encounter and the layout of the enemies feels substantially varied when the difficulty is high enough that it actually matters. Even the dreaded QTE traversal games are honestly a bit fun when you go for max achievements because you have to nail all of them perfectly without error and it's actually surprisingly challenging. If you try and get all the chests and collectibles, I would bet you also will have to look up many of them. For how linear the levels appear, there actually are a ton of secrets and a few well hidden alternate paths.

I will say chapter 6 is a standout level and is just sick as fuck, beginning to end. You're in the windswept mountains and it looks incredible. Traversing through the rocky landscape on the wind gusts is honestly totally badass, and fits a lot of ninja imagery so well. Reminds me a bit of Azumi. There are even a few well done stealth sections where you can climb on the roofs and drop through holes in the ceilings and find some careful paths to exploit. Chapter 10 is also pretty sick with the portals. There are actually multiple great levels. When you start your assault on the DDO Complex, you're dodging missiles the entire time and flying through all kinds of obstacles. Only at the very end do you realize it was the Chariot Tank boss shooting missiles at you the entire level. Never seen that, and I thought it was badass.

A lot of the level design complaints are exacerbated by the lack of biome variety. Bayonetta never had great level design, but it had biome variety. This is mostly 4 areas. It can be a letdown, but doesn't ruin the game for me or anything. I think the areas look really good, with only some of the underworld stuff maybe being a little underwhelming. Mecha Tokyo, DDO Compound, Forest, all look pretty cool.

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The game's definitely super divisive though. People who hate it truly seem to hate it. This is why I don't recommend anything to people.

I do think though that this game will easily stand the test of time. We see people now even trying to resurrect Ninja Gaiden 3 as some kind of misunderstood masterpiece which should be pretty revealing about how much people get caught up in giant yoyo waves of emotion, exaggerating flaws for years and then flip flopping when they change their mind. Happens to a lot of games.

I think unfortunately enough damage to this game's reputation and discourse has been done that we'll likely not get a Ninja Gaiden 5 now. The damage is probably already done. But I think over time, people will slowly give it a shot and move on from their expectations and just see this game on its own for what it is. Easily a top tier action game, independent of whatever name is on the box and the baggage and drama that leads to.