Ninja Gaiden 4 – Review: Because Apparently Ryu Hayabusa Can’t Stay Retired
Ah yes, Ninja Gaiden 4. The sequel absolutely no one expected, few people asked for, and apparently even fewer people actually worked on. After a decade of silence, Team Ninja has returned to remind us that nostalgia can be weaponized more lethally than any Dragon Sword. Let’s dive into this majestic trainwreck.
Story: A Convoluted Origami of Ninja Nonsense
The plot, if one can call it that, is about Ryu Hayabusa once again saving the world from demons, evil corporations, and possibly his own franchise’s declining relevance. We get a villain who looks like they were rejected from a Kingdom Hearts audition for being “too cliché,” and dialogue so lifeless it sounds like it was written by an AI model specifically trained on bad fanfiction.
Cutscenes are frequent, long, and breathtakingly pointless. They exist solely to remind you the game has characters, in case you forgot while staring at the Game Over screen for the 37th time.
Gameplay: Difficulty = Good, Right? RIGHT??
Yes, Ninja Gaiden is known for being hard. Good hard. Rewarding hard. That was the old formula. In NG4 the difficulty isn’t “challenging” — it’s “designed by someone who stubs their toe and blames society.”
Enemies don’t have AI, they have ESP. They know every input you’ll press before your finger even twitches. Blocking is useless, dodging works only on religious faith, and bosses have more invincibility frames than actual frames of animation. And because that wasn’t enough, the game lets you die in two hits just to make sure you really feel something. Anything.
The combat is flashy, sure — if you ever get to play it instead of watching Ryu perform the world’s saddest ragdoll flop for the twentieth time in ten minutes.
Level Design: Corridor → Arena → Corridor → Arena → Existential Dread
Imagine copy-pasting a hallway in Unreal Engine, sprinkling a few exploding ninjas, and calling it immersive world-building. That’s the level design. There’s no exploration, no creativity, no variety — unless you count changing the color of the hallway as innovation. If so, congratulations, this game is a masterpiece.
Visuals and Performance: A 2025 Game That Wants to be from 2013
The graphics look “fine,” which is the nicest word one can use when describing something aggressively mid. Ryu is detailed, sure, but everything else looks like a remastered PS3 asset wearing too much mascara. Meanwhile, the framerate drops harder than the player’s hope for a good Ninja Gaiden comeback.
Music: Epic, Dramatic, and Drowned Out by Your Own Screaming
The soundtrack is decent — heroic Eastern drums and guitars — but honestly, who can hear it when your own internal monologue is yelling: “WHY DID I PAY FULL PRICE FOR THIS?”
Final Verdict
Ninja Gaiden 4 is like reviving a legendary warrior and handing him plastic weapons. Yes, he’s technically back, but nobody’s impressed, and everyone’s uncomfortable watching him struggle.
Score:
🗡️ 4/10 — “A resurrected corpse of a franchise. Still sharp in places, but mostly just decomposing.”
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