Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound - out July 21

I haven't played The Messenger or any of those so take that as a disclaimer. Feeling like NG or not, which I have no idea anymore what that exactly feels like anyway, this game is tight, fast and slick. Sounds like a nun's pussy on Christmas but no, it's the new Ninja Gaiden game.

Anyway. I liked this a lot and replayed the level twice. The boss was also a fun design mechanics wise imo. I also love Blasphemous and I think they nail that sweet spot between 16 bit and PS1 2D games like nobody else. It looked killer with the CRT filter.
Hope they have more options for filters. I dont want the warped edges, but do want scanlines.
 
I played the demo earlier. The actual gameplay is fine. Controls are tight. It just feels kind of boring and the level design doesn't stand out.
 
I love these budget releases. Feels like old school handheld gaming, I love that publishers have rediscovered this market.




This is a great thing.
Not when it's Ninja Gaiden and should feel and play like Ninja Gaiden 1/2/3. I loathe whether it's in movies or games slapping an established IP on something and then it's nothing like what it's supposed to be continuing. Ragebound seems like it'll be fun but maybe call it Ragebound and create a new IP.
 
I love these budget releases. Feels like old school handheld gaming, I love that publishers have rediscovered this market.




This is a great thing.

It's far from a Triple A budget, but likely still more expensive than just about any indie. Which is why I like AA retro game projects myself.
The original NES Ninja Gaiden games had roughly twenty stages, so hopefully this new one has a similar amount.

By the way, the Hard Mode stage (unlocked after finishing the demo) has additional enemies and more obstacles.
That's neat, particularly if you want the game to be more challenging (I died a lot on normal, so...:messenger_grinning_sweat:):



And once again...the soundtrack is on fire and I simply had to smile at the stage intro chime:

 
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Not when it's Ninja Gaiden and should feel and play like Ninja Gaiden 1/2/3. I loathe whether it's in movies or games slapping an established IP on something and then it's nothing like what it's supposed to be continuing. Ragebound seems like it'll be fun but maybe call it Ragebound and create a new IP.

Properties don't remain static over time though. You keep certain aspects, change others and add new elements. Take Castlevania, Mario or Zelda for that matter. Personally, at this time I would argue that Ragebound is closer to what a hypothetical "Super Ninja Gaiden" should theoretically have been like as a late-era SNES release that fully took advantage of the platform (as opposed to the lazy, low effort Ninja Gaiden Trilogy ports that were just the NES games with weird color palettes, occasional bugs, missing animations and uneven instrumentation).
 
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Not when it's Ninja Gaiden and should feel and play like Ninja Gaiden 1/2/3. I loathe whether it's in movies or games slapping an established IP on something and then it's nothing like what it's supposed to be continuing. Ragebound seems like it'll be fun but maybe call it Ragebound and create a new IP.

I didn't think The Messenger felt that different, more responsive and with some more interesting mechanics than the early NG games. I have not played the Ragebound demo yet so I can't speak for that, and I agree if it's something wildly different make a new IP, but if it truly does play like The Messenger I don't see that as deviating from the core franchise. They also did subtitle it Ragebound and not a mainline NG game. It's not like what Square-Enix did with Final Fantasy XVI.
 
Not when it's Ninja Gaiden and should feel and play like Ninja Gaiden 1/2/3. I loathe whether it's in movies or games slapping an established IP on something and then it's nothing like what it's supposed to be continuing. Ragebound seems like it'll be fun but maybe call it Ragebound and create a new IP.
So like Ninja Gaiden? This is closer to the original than any of the 3D ones.
So no 3D GTA? Or Mario? Or Zelda?
 
I'm keeping a very open mind here. I heard great things about these devs. I own both Blasphemous games. I played the first one, it was very hard and since I didn't have the soulslike push I fell off. I heard part 2 significantly improved the game and toned down the difficulty. I heard Asmongold say something really good about Blasphemous 2. I think it was like one of his best metroidvanias but can't be sure. I think it is gonna be pretty good.
 
Same. You can preorder Shinobi and that doesn't release til the end of August. I wonder what's the hold up.
Yep, exactly. I already pre-ordered Shinobi a few months ago.

I have a 1% hope its because it'll drop on GP but probably not. Once or twice they block the pre-orders when that's happening, but it's probably just them being slow for some odd reason. You'd think they'd want every chance to collect pre-orders.
 
Is this another fucking Metroid clone? Because it looks like it.
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Man, got through The Last Faith a month ago (amazing game), now, I got a Switch 2 and bought Blasphemous 2, Metroid Dread, Dead cells and Cookie cutter which I'm trying to finish right now, at this point, the Metroidvania fatigue is starting to set in and I don't know whether I can go through yet another pixel art action platformer - and I say that as a huge NG fan...🤔

Same thing for the upcoming Shinobi btw, I think I got burnt out in these games...
 
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The game's going to be on GOG day-and-date with the other platforms, which I appreciate.

While I recognize that the game is Ninja Gaiden in name only, it does look really fun. I'm probably going to grab the game on day 1 and blast through it in one sitting or something like that.
 
It's that extremely RARE instance where we are getting both this Ninja Gaiden game, AND a new Shinobi released in the same year....I wonder which will be better?
 
It's that extremely RARE instance where we are getting both this Ninja Gaiden game, AND a new Shinobi released in the same year....I wonder which will be better?
We're also getting NG4 later this year. It's a good time to be a ninja fan.

I only wish they did a sequel to Mark of the Ninja.
 
Here is some benchmarks for the game on Steam Deck. 720p and 1080p resolutions with and without the optional CRT filter. TLDR: Everything's 60fps

 
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A NEW NINJA GAID- oh.

It's not a bad thing or anything but dang would I like to have a ninja gaiden 4 right about now.
You mean 3d Ninja Gaiden 4 the sequel to Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge (coming in a few months) or 2d Ninja Gaiden 4 the sequel to Ninja Gaiden 3: Ancient Ship of Doom (since Ragebound is a prequel/side story to the OG Ninja Gaiden)?

This franchise and its naming schemes...
 
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Oh there IS one coming. I hadn't noticed at all. Weird.

Of course I'll always be looking forward to the elusive Ninja gaiden: Gaiden 3¾, the lahmacurian gaiden.
 
Tried the demo when it dropped and I actually had a blast! Didn't expect much at first, but it totally blew me away.
Really loved the gameplay, the levels, the mechanics, the boss fights everything felt just right, even the difficulty was super well-balanced.

The demo sealed the deal for me, I'm getting it
 
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