Review: Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound

The Game Kitchen deserves a blue ribbon for this action platforming masterpiece. Absolutely no fluff or filler.

The new Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is perfection. At $25 and 12 hours, there’s no chance for it to overstay its welcome. It’s affordable and fantastic. I’d happily pay more, though. I seriously have no complaints.

(I beat all the main and secret levels, replaying a few to get better scores or find secrets. I did not try Hard Mode, though.)

The artwork is so stunning, I had to include several screenshots for y’all to feast your eyes on. The soundtrack is great too, and available on Bandcamp. The gameplay is tight, and so is the platforming. The standard difficulty was a perfect and exciting level of challenge for me, but you can adjust several parameters to make it easier. You can unlock a harder difficulty, if the base isn’t enough for you.

The levels all had something fresh and fun going on. There’s even a jet-ski level and a motorcycle level! There’s auto-scrolling levels, platforming heavy sections, combat rooms, and a bunch of challenging bosses.

While the story isn’t anything amazing, it strikes a good balance between serious and silly without laughing at itself or feeling insincere.

Check out a gameplay video and see if it’s for you. This is a new bar for action platformers for me.

An early illustration of our pretty boy hero: Kenji.
There's a jet-ski level and a motorcycle level!
Another stunning fullscreen illustration.
The story isn't deep, but I like Kumori and Kenji's relationship.
The famous Ryu Hayabusa is your mentor.
Kenji isn't good with computers, but Kumori has his back.

None of these screenshots are in the “action” parts of the levels because… it’s just too high octane for there to be a good moment to screenshot! It’s not blisteringly paced, but there’s little downtime.