Ninja Gaiden 4 Xbox Series X Review
Summary: Ninja Gaiden 4 is a slick and stylish entry into the franchise that has made steps to welcome newcomers while keeping veterans on their toes.
4
Stylish!
2025 has turned out to be a pretty good year for Ninja Gaiden. After over a decade of silence, three new games have been released. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black (which I haven’t played), the phenomenal Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, and now Ninja Gaiden 4.
This direct sequel to 2012’s Ninja Gaiden 3 breaks from tradition somewhat. Players no longer control the venerable Ryu Hayabusa (at least initially), instead inhabiting the kote of Yakumo, a ninja from the Raven clan.
Co-developed by Team Ninja and PlatinumGames, the plot of Ninja Gaiden 4 sees Yakumo utilising all his skills as a ninja to defeat the legions of enemies that inhabit Tokyo and Dark Dragon, whose influence festers in the city.
Neither Team Ninja nor Platinum is known for their hard-hitting, especially well-written stories. The latter usually descends into a miasma of confusing dialogue and plot threads that run through proceedings, and Ninja Gaiden 4 isn’t really any different in this regard. It’s fairly simple to follow on a surface level, but it quickly gets messy. Some knowledge of prior games is essential to truly know what’s going on.
I’m not much of a storyhound these days, and if I can vaguely make out what’s going on and why I’m supposed to care, then that’s good enough for me. How a game performs mechanically is what really interests me, and Ninja Gaiden 4 is, thankfully, a lot more straightforward in this department, which isn’t to say that it’s simple; a lot is going on here.
Platinum’s affinity for stylish, highly skilled, melee combat is on full display here. It’s something that has always been a feature of the Ninja Gaiden series since it made its initial foray into 3D on the Xbox in 2004, but this is the first time that it’s really gotten me engaged. While playing, I was most reminded of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (make a new one of these, please, Platinum) with a big pot of Devil May Cry thrown in too for good measure.
Things start relatively simple. Light attack, heavy attack, a ranged attack, dodge, and block (we’ll get more into these in a moment). The roster of attacks and abilities grows incredibly quickly, however. Within the first half an hour, we’ve been introduced to parrying, Bloodraven form, rage mode, weapons upgrades, missions, and much more. It was a little overwhelming and took a couple of hours of being not particularly good at the combat to start to get the hang of what everything did.
At its core, though, combat boils down to attacking enemies until eventually it removes a limb or two, at which point using heavy attack plays an elaborate takedown animation, finishing the enemy off permanently. The different enemy types typically have some kind of gimmick associated with them that necessitates a slightly different approach to everything else. For example, we’re introduced to a foe wielding a staff-like weapon that frequently blocks attacks, prompting parries or heavy attacks to break through their defences. Defeated enemies drop red orbs, which act as currency for buying new moves, items, etc. There’s a sizeable list of moves and abilities to be unlocked, each adding something new to Yakumo’s repertoire.
If two things come to mind when thinking about Ninja Gaiden, one of them is stylish combat, the other crushing difficulty. The previous games fell somewhere between a fair challenge and an exercise in controller snapping fury on the difficulty curve, and Ninja Gaiden 4 is no different in this respect. Some effort has been made this time around to make the game more accessible, though.
A new difficulty, ‘Hero’, has been added that effectively serves as easy, with the main difference being that the game will handle dodging and blocking when the player’s health is low. I spent some time on it once I’d gotten to grips with the game to see how different it was, and honestly, I didn’t notice much difference between it and normal. I imagine this was down to the fact that once my health dropped into the range where the assists would kick in, I was essentially all but dead already. Still, it’s a nice option for new players or those struggling with the combat.
Levels themselves are mostly linear, though there are hidden pathways to find, usually with a chest, collectable, or optional combat encounter to deal with. There are also Purgatory Trials to be found and completed. These are optional, closed-off areas that have a specific task within them to be completed. They’re like the Slayer Gates in DOOM: Eternal, and just like in DOOM, the challenge of these encounters tends to be significantly higher than that of the regular game. Beating the trial rewards additional currency to spend throughout the game.
Bosses are where the game really came alive for me, though. The combat in Ninja Gaiden 4 works best in one-on-one scenarios or small groups, thanks to a camera that I found to be very unwieldy. Enemies frequently attack from off-screen, and in the maelstrom that battle often devolves into, it becomes difficult to keep track of everyone.
While I’m talking nitpicks, let’s discuss the dodge/block situation. I have two issues with dodging and blocking. First, dodge and block are assigned to the same control. Now this doesn’t sound all that bad until you realise how the two work. Yakumo must stand perfectly still to block; if any movement whatsoever is engaged when blocking, he dodges instead. The fast-paced, frenetic combat generally means that you’re always moving and getting blocks in when I wanted them, which became more irritating than it should have been.
Secondary to this, the block/dodge button is assigned to the right trigger. So, we’ve got two commands on the same control that are highly dependent on movement and timing, and use a control that has travel time to activate. I did not like this at all. It’s doubly strange when you consider that the ranged attack is set to B, an action that is most associated with the right trigger. There are a couple of alternate button mappings that move blocking to the bumpers, but none to place them on the face buttons, nor can controls be remapped directly.
I played the majority of Ninja Gaiden 4 on Xbox Series X, and on this platform, there are three different modes of play available depending on the capabilities of your TV. The first of these is ‘prioritise Framerate’, which targets 60fps at 4K, with an internal resolution of 900-1000p. The second of these is ‘Prioritise Graphics’, which targets 30fps at 4k, with a 1440p internal resolution. The final option is a 120fps mode which, as you’d expect, targets 120fps at 1080p, with a 720p internal resolution.
Performance mode isn’t the sharpest image, but it was my preferred way to play. A game as fast-paced as this benefits enormously from the higher framerate. Visuals in general, I felt, were a bit of a mixed bag. In some cases, it looks stunning, and in others, very bland and barebones. Levels taking place in the city, especially, can look a little on the barren side, with rooms mostly being devoid of obstacles or detail.
It’s not bad looking by any stretch, but it doesn’t make me want to stop and just look at the environment, either. Voice acting is Resident Evil levels of campy in some places, but it’s to be expected by now and is kind of endearing. As for the soundtrack itself, it’s on the other side of the spectrum, being almost all excellent. Ranging from hard, detuned, metal riffs, to chilled out ambience and some jazzy sections too. It generally always seemed to fit the mood perfectly.
Final Thoughts?
This is the first mainline Ninja Gaiden title that I didn’t bounce from after an hour, so it must be doing something right. It’s the most accessible title in the series, thanks to Hero mode and a ton of other accessibility features and options that are available, which helps.
The plot is nothing to write home about, but that trademark PlatinumGames combat loop is there in all its glory, and for the most part, it’s so, so good (wonky dodging controls aside). It’s honestly worth checking out for that alone.
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