Ninja Gaiden 4 Review
I want to start this blog by saying, I contemplated writing this whatsoever. Usually this would be a formidable review with pictures and a general effort inserted into the overall blog accommodating such a thing. Whether that will be such a thing is something only time and/or effort will tell.
I have fond memories of my years with the Ninja Gaiden series, playing since my first Ninja Gaiden (Xbox 1st gen and/or Ninja Gaiden 1). The original Ninja Gaiden played akin to a mix of Strider and hack n’ slash games/DMC. There was even elements of Zelda with exploration and puzzles. Much of 4 omits this in a brutal way. The new main character, Yakumo, plays more like an anti-Ryu. His katanas are short, he relies less on power moves, and is definitely more Robin than Batman. For me, I dreaded playing as him. He was clunky, and old the old combos and mannerisms I learned in previous Ninja Gaiden games worked against me, making me feel like the game was essentially punishing me for playing Ninja Gaiden like Ninja Gaiden. Gone are the intricately detailed environments, and linear almost SNES direct conversion segments are inserted. The on rail’s moments feel like thrown out segments of Sonic frontiers thrown into Ninja Gaiden. The Surf board thing is even more pointless, and those segments again feel more tedium than anything else. I found myself seriously contemplating if they procedurally generated a Ninja Gaiden and just called a day. I also played through the horror that was Razor’s Edge and few other Ninja Gaiden spin-offs. That being said if you played MG:R than you’ll catch my drift. All of Ninja Gaiden 4 feels and plays, like a MG:R mod. MG:R also being another Platinum made game is no coincidence. The Ryu segment is much shorter than Yakumo’s, and it mainly made me realize why the swan song of Ninja Gaiden 1 will likely never happen again. I say this because the new generation of gaming with all its integrated bells and whistles, is facilitating an actually weaker form of development, more safe and specialized than what preceded it. As seen in music and movies and more, as the visceral industry breaks down, and it becomes more about the Ai than the audience or story, a certain cohesion is innately lost. And in the case of Ninja Gaiden, even the story could become its own anti-hero. This ambiguous approach looks good on paper, but plays like shit.
Subsequently I found myself heavily regretting my purchase of Ninja Gaiden. The more I tried to dig for the experience I got from the first game, the further it got, until it almost really didn’t make any cognitive sense anymore. It wasn’t difficult as much as it was unfair, and where it wasn’t unfair it was lacking. The treasure chests aren’t even hidden and generally are put to the right or left of where you commonly sprint off at the beginning of the level. It isn’t just poor level design, it’s uninspired and hollow. The people doing the voiceovers even sound like they were tired of the game itself.
The enemies themselves were not varied, and in comparison to other Ninja Gaiden’s had actually much less variation in the types of enemies you fight. Gone are the elemental necessities and instead you have to spastically guess which of 4-5 weapons could be the weakness. I will admit since Ninja Gaiden 1, each title has gotten further and further from its source content. Indicating either the original team forgot how they made it, or is just essentially tired of it, and a victim of avoiding replicating elements of their own success, forcing them into a spin-off of themselves (ironic right?)
Being in game testing and research for now 20 years, I’ve seen a lot. I didn’t expect this project to be anything. If it was I would have tested it through. If it was shit, I would beat it, and do a write-up like you are reading now. You might tell by my tone that I am at somewhat of an endpoint, and if you can then you are right (at this point I’m only working on ongoing video game projects).
Doing the Series X conversion was something I was warned about, particularly getting into the field of 4K and I must say to the person who warned me, you were 100% right about your fears of future fidelities becoming a future reality. Ai has reached a point where it’s trying to replace everyone, and games are a perfect example of where it is killing itself. In almost every game team that was cut down to nearly 1 person in the past 30 years you have a degradation of the team element. Like splitting up band’s and forcing solo projects. You tend to then lose the happiness and communion within the group that existed before. And you find that the Ai generated titles don’t sell as well, even with the ‘better’ technology, some thing keeps a person coming back to the source. When it comes down to people too, we are all to a degree nasty, or weird. Only some kind of robot, is so eerily clean that it never stinks, or deals with someone’s stink. We like filth sometimes just as we like to be clean, and that’s alright.
We’re human here
Overall Ninja Gaiden 4 is a very poor entry to the Ninja Gaiden Series. It looks pretty, and plays alright. But that’s about it. I was not heavily impressed or invested into any element or character of it, even Ryu just feels like a placeholder in it. Yakumo’s costume looks super stupid as well. Besides that, there’s some chick with huge boobs and some Crow/Raven dude who stalks you constantly but is never explained. So many elements just don’t add up, and feel forced together. The grading system is also oddly brutal and lenient at times, and mostly kills the player’s immersion in the game (as far as I know the rewards for S ranks is the same as any other; so it just basically insults your gameplay).
To close this fun blog, I will say if you want to integrate a grading system into your game, and you want me to enjoy it, then you might as well stop there. I hate what grading/scoring systems have done to immersive gaming, reintegrating ugly ass over-detailed HUDs and literally murdering the feeling of simulation. If you fear getting into a game, then why are you making one at all? Goodnite folks