2025 is bringing back ninja games in a big way. After a hiatus following the controversial launch of Ninja Gaiden Z: Yaiba, Koei Tecmo’s hardcore action-platformer franchise Ninja Gaiden is back with three whole games targeting the same calendar year. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black opened up with a solid, but familiar starter, and in the hopes of Ninja Gaiden 4 ending on a spectacular Izuna Drop, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound aims to fit a launcher in-between. Paralleled nicely by Shinobi: Art of Vengeance reviving Sega’s own brutal ninja series, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound brings its high-flying hack-and-slash franchise back to its roots.
Developed by The Game Kitchen, the studio behind the Blasphemous series, and published by Dotemu and Joystick, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound harkens back to Ninja Gaiden’s 2D days while keeping the complexity that Team Ninja’s 3D entries introduced. As the first 2D pixelated entry that Ninja Gaiden has seen in over thirty years, Ragebound cuts a striking figure through visuals alone, and everything beneath the game’s surface strives to follow suit. The Best War Games was provided with a roughly one-hour-long preview build to try several sections from the beginning of the game, and even early on, it feels like Ninja Gaiden’s comeback tour is going strong.
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Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Ensures Players Are Settled In
Players take control of Kenji Mozu, an apprentice to Ninja Gaiden’s protagonist Ryu Hayabusa, and inheritor of most of the latter’s old blue outfit. Ryu is headed to America to honor his father’s will, which seems to be a nod to the original NES Ninja Gaiden, so he's training Kenji to defend Hayabusa Village in his absence. That's where Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound’s tutorial picks up, and the game quickly establishes exactly what sort of retro throwback it's going for. Being a 2D game, the action is fairly straightforward compared to Ninja Gaiden’s 3D hack-and-slash efforts, but that doesn't mean it's less intense.
More than its perspective or pixel art, Ragebound emulates the series’ 2D era through its emphasis on forward momentum. A lot of enemies only take one hit to kill, while armored foes can be one-shotted with Hypercharge strikes gained through dispatching specified mooks first. Ragebound’s standard action game combo counter tracks kills rather than individual hits, and players are encouraged by stage rankings to deal with their foes quickly to keep moving through Ragebound’s linear levels. The game still leaves players breathing room to play it as a stylish action-platformer romp, but even this early on, Ragebound’s bones are arranged to please Ninja Gaiden’s Master Ninja thrill-seekers.
Combat And Traversal Depth Ensure Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Never Loses Its Edge
To that end, there's more to Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound’s combat than basic slashes and dashes. Progressing through Ryu’s training course, Kenji will learn to employ the Guillotine Boost to launch off enemies and projectiles, serving as a forward-moving version of gaming’s famous pogo jump. Climbing and jumping around walls and ceilings is another way that Ragebound keeps the action flowing, as platforming is interwoven with combat even more than it was in Blasphemous 2. Ragebound’s tutorial stage ends with a brutal fight with Ryu Hayabusa himself, serving as a sort of callback to the 2004 Ninja Gaiden’s own first boss, though, fortunately, players aren't required to beat Hayabusa’s finest on their first attempt.
Of course, once Ryu leaves for America, hell literally breaks loose in Hayabusa Village, which has become a common sight in Ninja Gaiden’s chronology. Kenji dives into the burning village to repel the invaders, and it's here where Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound starts taking its gloves off. Some of the game’s tools have yet to be introduced, so players are left on their own to navigate the flames, enemies, and combat rooms, with snappy, simple controls being their strongest weapon. It all culminates in a boss fight with Gurthka, who proves that The Game Kitchen’s ability to animate larger, more intricate foes is still on point, and the player's Blasphemous-like dodge roll needs to match.
Kenji And Kumori Earn Their Place As Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound’s Stars
It's at this point that the other shoe drops, and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound’s second playable character enters the picture. The Ninja Gaiden series' recurring villainous Black Spider Clan is represented by the assassin Kumori, who is forced to inhabit Kenji’s body. This tense alliance provides the main narrative hook of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, as it otherwise opts for the old-school plot of collecting three artifacts, as well as the rest of its mechanics. Ragebound’s ranged options are tied to Kumori and her pink energy meter, and performing a screen-clearing attack also requires several pips around the meter to be built up. These options will expand as more weapons and abilities appear in the in-game shop, but what's in the preview proves that even the basics can be enough.
Much of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound from the protagonist merger onward becomes a series of fast-paced combat puzzles, where the goal of keeping momentum up is the reward for effectively leveraging the player’s offensive arsenal to best dispatch enemies. Hypercharge now requires players to strike blue-marked foes with Kenji and pink-marked foes with Kumori to ready its armor-busting blow, although armored enemies can be fought normally if combat puzzle-solving isn't going well. Kumori has segments where she can fly solo as well, usually as part of a timed platforming challenge initiated by a Demon Altar to unlock the way forward.
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Isn't Merely NG4’s Appetizer
All of this comes together to form a surprisingly compelling package that encourages multiple replays to attain mastery, which the brutally tough Ninja Gaiden franchise has always held in high regard. Ragebound’s preview build doesn't have enough challenges or tools to push players all the way yet, but it does permit exploring a subterranean catacomb level up to right before its boss. At this point, the preview was formally over, but this build had one last surprise. Those hungry for more could test their mettle against the Hard Mode version of the Hayabusa Village, and suffice it to say that it was a test indeed.
Whether players desire an unforgiving challenge or one of the slickest 2D action experiences on the market, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound delivers. Despite committing to its ninja aesthetic, Ragebound seemingly hasn't left any significant parts of itself in the shadows, and that's perfectly fine. The game embodies the mixture of modern and classic Ninja Gaiden values that it purports to be, and anyone attracted to those should find exactly what they're looking for. If it stays the course, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound could become the game fans have been waiting for before Ninja Gaiden 4 itself comes out.
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
- Released
- July 31, 2025
- Developer(s)
- The Game Kitchen
- Publisher(s)
- Dotemu
- Franchise
- Ninja Gaiden
