When it comes to the Ninja Gaiden series, I am a newcomer. Outside of hearing stories of their difficulty, I never bothered to give one a go. But when I saw footage of Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, it piqued my interest. I enjoy side-scrolling action games. Plus, I’m a fan when long-running series go back to their retro roots. To be honest, my reflexes aren’t that strong, but looking past the difficulty, I’m having a lot of fun.
Is it two stories or one?
In the game’s trailers, the game gives you the impression that it contains two stories that run in parallel. While that’s true to a point, it only happens for the first part of the game. Ragebound focuses on Kenji, an apprentice of the famous Ryu Hayabusa. When demonic forces arrive on Earth, Ryu gets called elsewhere, leaving Kenji to fight monsters in Japan.
The other character is Kumori from the Black Spider Clan. The two start on different sides, but they join forces to fight the demonic forces. I’m being vague on purpose to avoid some spoilers. But the events that join these two together are early enough into the story.
The two have very different fighting styles. Kenji wields a blade, while Kumori uses daggers. When the two work as a team, their combined skills allow for greater attack variety.
Not too much depth, unfortunately
Getting around relies on navigating platforms and fighting your way through different areas. There is some variety in locations, but the level structure is repetitive. The biggest gripe I have is the many gaps that force your characters to hop around to advance. They call this action performing a guillotine boost. It’s an interesting gameplay mechanic, but they make you use it a lot.
I never enjoyed these sections. You must time your jump so you land on the ‘head’ of an enemy. This then gives you a double-jump, which lets you advance. These sections are super obvious because you can kill an enemy and they’ll continue to spawn. The ones I found the most annoying were where they had three or more that you had to hit in sequence. One mistimed jump and you’ll fall to the ground or your death.
On the flip side, there are plenty of enemy types you’ll come across. You’ll encounter your fair share of human and demonic foes. One aspect is that some foes will grant you “Hypercharges”. These allow Kenji or Kumori to perform a one-hit kill on larger enemies. The window to perform these actions is short, so you can’t save them for later use. When you do pull these off, they are devastating.
I wanted more character growth
I’m not sure how the other Ninja Gaiden games deal with character development. Here, the upgrades for your characters are underwhelming. As you progress through stages, you can collect items that you can then use to buy upgrades. But most of the upgrades don’t make a significant improvement to your character.
Most of them put you at a disadvantage. You can activate the ability that if you die, you start the stage from the very beginning. Or, you can choose not to get healed when you reach a checkpoint. For people who want a challenge, these are worthwhile. But if you’re like me and need help with increased strength or defense, there is nothing of the sort.
The only worthwhile upgrades are the upgrades for Kumori. She has some skills that can be very helpful in battle. The one I enjoyed using the most was these blades that surrounded my character. These helped cause damage and protect me for a few seconds. They came in handy during some very challenging boss encounters.
Damn, I’m bad at boss fights
Being a middle-aged person, the boss fights were always a challenge for me. As you would expect, these battles are epic in stature, and they need a lot from the player. After a few tries, you will be able to figure out the different attack types. Unfortunately, boss characters can cause you significant damage.
Your attacks don’t do a lot of damage, so timing is key. There was one fight that I spent at least two hours trying to win. I would get close, but the enemy would get me stuck in a corner, and I’d die. Or, I would miss a dodge, taking a big chunk of my health. I knew that if I had less than half a bar of health before the enemy, I was not going to win the fight.
But, even with the frustration, I couldn’t stop challenging myself. I knew what I needed to do to win the fight; I had to execute the right moves. At the same time, I noticed that trying to spam my way through a boss battle was pointless. When I knew the best times to attack, that’s when I was most successful.
Can’t tell if the game is long or short
Based on the events taking place in the game, like I’m nearing the game’s conclusion. This doesn’t feel like a very long game. At the same time, I could be getting to a point in the game where things ramp up and a ton of new stuff gets thrown at you.
There are some challenge levels you can unlock. You open these up based on your performances in other stages. You also unlock them by finding collectibles in stages. So far, I’ve only unlocked three of these, so I could see there being at least a dozen of these.
I played one of them, and it was alright. It’s a repeat level with new challenges and more foes. It was underwhelming because I was hoping these were new side quest missions. I will skip these and stick to finishing the main campaign.
Gearing up for more Ninja Gaiden
For my first real experience with the franchise, Ninja Gaiden Ragebound was a good place to start. I will admit that it’s a bit too hard for my casual playstyle, but I wanted to keep going. At the same time, I don’t know if I’d go back to any of the older Ninja Gaiden games. But I am looking forward to trying out Ninja Gaiden 4 later this year.
