Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is a side-scrollingaction video game. In the game, the player assumes control of Kenji Mozu, an aspiring ninja who must protect Hayabusa Village against demons. Kenji wields a katana and excels at melee combat. Most enemies can be killed with one hit, though the game also introduces enemy variants and boss characters who can survive multiple attacks. Occasionally, some enemies are highlighted with either a pink or blue color, requiring players to defeat them using certain techniques. Once they are defeated, Kenji enters a "hypercharged" state, allowing him to kill all types of enemies with one hit.[1] Kenji is very acrobatic, able to dodge, deflect ranged attacks, climb across ceilings, dash in the air, and clamber onto walls. He can also perform a "Guillotine boost", which allows him to strike and bounce off enemies and projectiles.[2] After a player completes a level, their performance is ranked using a grading system.[3]
As the story progresses, Kenji will encounter Kumori, a kunoichi of the Black Spider Clan. Following a deadly encounter, their souls fuse together, allowing Kenji to use Kumori's skill set in combat. Kumori is skilled in ranged combat using kunai and can teleport across short distances, reaching gaps Kenji typically cannot. Players can harvest "Ki" from enemies and used it to summon powerful "Spider Weapons" such as Kama and Chakram.[4] Players can enter an alternate demon dimension through interacting with demon alters in a level. These segments are timed traversal and platforming puzzles in which players, controlling Kumori, must find and access hidden paths that are invisible to Kenji.[5]
The game's story runs parallel to the events of Ninja Gaiden (1988) and stars new protagonists Kenji Mozu, who defends Hayabusa Village from demons while Ryu Hayabusa is in America.
Development
The game was developed by The Game Kitchen. Dotemu was given the opportunity by Koei Tecmo to create a 2D Ninja Gaiden game, and approached The Game Kitchen as a development partner as they were impressed by their work on Blasphemous.[6] The studio began working on the project about halfway through the development of Blasphemous II.
A member of the Black Spider Clan was introduced as a secondary playable character as the team felt that it will be interesting for players to control a character who is traditionally an antagonist in the Ninja Gaiden series.[7] While the team was initially inspired by the 3D Ninja Gaiden games and experimented with combo-based combat, they were unable to recreate them in a 2D game and therefore, quickly switched to the format of the older 8-bit and 16-bit Ninja Gaiden games which have a larger emphasis on keeping momentum and finding ways to dispatch enemies effectively. Team Ninja served as a consultant for the game and provided feedback to The Game Kitchen after playing early builds of the game.[5] Sergio de Prado served as Ragebound's composer, with contributions from composers of the original Ninja Gaiden trilogy (Keiji Yamagishi, Ryuichi Niita, and Kaori Nakabai).[8]
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregatorMetacritic.[13] In Japan, four critics from Famitsu gave the game a total score of 32 out of 40, with each critic awarding the game an 8 out of 10.[14]
IGN gave the game a rating of 9/10, praising the game's artstyle and calling the combat "satisfying".[18]GamesRadar+ lauded the game's difficulty and combat, though criticism was directed at the game's upgrade system.[17]Game Informer praised Ragebound's gameplay and platforming challenges, stating that the game is "hard to put down".[15]Nintendo Life praised the game's stage design and boss battles while criticizing the lack of support for Nintendo Switch 2 which results in frame rate issues.[19] The short length of the game had mixed reception, with PC Gamer praising the lack of gameplay repetition,[20] while GameSpot stated that the game "ends prematurely".[16]
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