Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
Review
The Way of the Ninja
by Samuel Corey
reviewed on PC
Old School, Easy Lessons
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound plays like a faithful successor to the classic games on the original NES. It's a fast-paced side-scroller with pixel art graphics, featuring a fairly lean plot told through some gorgeous pixel-cut scenes.
If you have played the old games, you will know more or less what you're in for. You make your way through a gauntlet of challenges, being assailed on all sides by evil ninjas, demons, government soldiers, and the ninja's greatest adversary: birds. The levels have a nice mix of themes and locations, ranging from ancient temples to modern high-rises to hidden pirate coves. Each stage feels distinct, and there are enough unique mechanics and enemies to keep things varied throughout the campaign. One minute you will be battling jet-pack ninjas in the tree top, the next you will be running from a bulldozer that has been hijacked by demons.
The only major shake-up to the gameplay shows up after the first few levels, where your main character Kenji Mozu uses an ancient dagger to fuse himself with Kumori, a ninja from the evil Black Spider Clan. After this, you gain access to Kumori's ability to throw kunai, which gives you a much-needed ranged attack. You also get an ultimate ability you can trigger once you have built up your special meter, which gives you a handy way to hit a boss with a major bit of damage, but isn't too much help in the rest of the level, as every regular enemy can be killed with a single charged attack.
More importantly, from a narrative perspective, this fusion gives you a built-in foil. Kenji is very much a goody-two-shoes, while Kumori is the kind who would slit her grandmother's throat for a quick buck. It is amusing to watch the two interact and bicker as they try to stay focused on their common goal. Moreover, it gives them both characters a small arc as they learn to appreciate the differences in their approaches.
Of course, the graphics have been given a major overhaul by developer The Game Kitchen. Since these were the guys who did Blasphemous and its sequel, it should come as no surprise that the animations and visuals here are top-notch. Obviously, Ragebound cannot boast the disturbing Gothic imagery of the developer's previous work, but all the demonic enemies and the mutated super-soldiers of the CIA have a suitably grotesque edge to them.
The notorious difficulty of the original has been toned down. There are now infinite continues, so you won't have to worry about losing all your progress when you run out of lives, and plenty of checkpoints are scattered throughout the levels. Additionally, your character can take a lot more punishment than Ryu ever could in the old games. So, a few careless moments no longer spell the end of a run. However, the single most important change with regard to difficulty has to be the changes to enemy spawns. There are no longer birds that pop in out of nowhere the second you make a tricky jump and send you plummeting to your doom. In the rare cases where this still happens, the game gives you an, admittedly unrealistic, chance to react and save yourself.
Short and Sweet
Of course, the difficulty of the original Ninja Gaiden games did serve some purpose. If they weren't so difficult, then people would be able to beat them in a couple of hours! As a result, even though Ragebound has quite a few more levels than the old school games, it is extremely short. I was able to beat the entire game in under five hours.
That said, there are some optional challenges in here that give the game a longer life. Each level has hidden collectibles scattered around that will probably warrant multiple runs to find. Some of these (the golden scarabs) can be used to purchase special upgrades, while others (the crystal skulls) are just for the 100% completion bragging rights. Some levels also have a hidden scroll that grants access to a secret bonus level, and naturally, these secret levels are much more challenging than normal stages. Also, when you beat the game, you unlock the option to play through it again in hard mode, and while I usually prefer to have hard modes selectable at the start, but it is forgivable to lock it behind completing the game once when the game is as short as this one. If you're a real masochist, you can even try to get the S-rank on every level, though for some levels this can be a real nightmare. A game like this shouldn't be that long anyway, as with action platformers like this I have a preference for a small number of highly distinct and memorable levels. Ragebound delivers on this and gives more than sufficient reason for multiple play-throughs.
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9.0
fun score
Pros
Gorgeous pixel graphics, Fast-paced old school action, Solid replay value, Good variety of levels and enemies.
Cons
Some occasional crashes and bugs, Game is not very long.
