Ninja Gaiden 4: Competently stylish, yet unfinished and low budget

It has been 13 years since the last mainline game. Even after Tomonobu Itagaki left, Team Ninja was already losing the authentic Ninja Gaiden DNA. So when Microsoft rocked up with free Game Pass dosh, it is absolutely no surprise Koei Tecmo hired PlatinumGames to take the reins. It makes perfect logical sense. Platinum and Capcom are essentially the only studios left that know how to make these hyper-fast character action games. The fatal mistake was treating Platinum like co-creators instead of contractors. They basically allowed Platinum to create their own completely original game and just slapped the Ninja Gaiden IP on the box to sell copies.

The Game Pass budget completely ruined the value:

We do not know the exact amount of money Xbox handed to Koei Tecmo for this Day One Game Pass deal. Whatever Platinum received, it is blatantly clear that this game was made on a tiny AA budget. Selling this for a premium £60 base price is an absolute joke. Then they have the audacity to charge an extra £15 for an unfinished three-hour DLC. It feels disgustingly overpriced, clearly structured just to make up for the financial stupidity of the Game Pass model.

A cringe fanfiction OC wearing a Ninja Gaiden skin suit:

Platinum seriously decided to pull a Devil May Cry 4, except they fumbled it entirely. Sidelining Ryu Hayabusa to a secondary character after a 13-year hiatus is absolutely baffling. Instead, they went full throttle into pushing their cringe, fanfiction-level OC.

Yakumo has got to be one of the least interesting protagonists in recent memory. He is a walking cliché. He is your typical brooding, perpetually scowling edgelord who communicates mostly in low grunts and stares at the floor to look mysterious. He is entirely devoid of actual personality. It gets so much worse when Platinum aggressively forces him to be Ryu's equal within the narrative. They literally wrote the lore so Yakumo is the only one who can permanently slay the Dark Dragon, actively treating Ryu like he is second best in his own franchise. I will be completely blunt. I could not give a shit about Yakumo or the entire Raven Clan. They are absolute nobodies of zero interest, and every single line of their dialogue is just pointless, smarmy filler lacking any real insight.

Ugly cyberpunk designs and the Ayane disrespect:

Platinum decided to give everyone a bizarre dark Tokyo cyberpunk redesign, and it looks spectacularly ugly. The authentic, mythical, martial-arts-rooted aesthetic of Ninja Gaiden is completely dead here. Instead, everything looks like rejected concept art from Astral Chain.

The character models are a complete mess of over-engineered asymmetrical plating and glowing neon nonsense. They completely lack that sleek, glamorous Koei Tecmo appeal. Take Seori for instance. Her design is not cool, and it certainly is not sexy. She just looks stupid, wrapped up in these bizarre, utterly impractical purple ropes running straight through her cleavage for no logical reason.

Then there is the ultimate insult. They brought Ayane back for a cameo that lasts a grand total of 10 seconds. She gets exactly two lines of dialogue, and they forced her into a weird, bulky new sci-fi suit that completely ruins her iconic kunoichi silhouette. WTF?

Phenomenal combat suffering from an identity crisis:

There is no doubt about it, the gameplay is Platinum’s stylish, fluid action combat at its absolute peak. This is clearly where 90% of the budget went. The mechanics shine brilliantly across the board:

Weapon variety: Yakumo gets around eight uniquely different weapons that offer fantastic combat diversity and completely change your playstyle.

Flow and defence: You get brilliant options for offence, defence, and uninterrupted parrying combos that keep the momentum going perfectly.

Pacing: The gore and animations are awesome, making it genuinely the fastest non-stop action game I have ever played, especially when you crank it up to Master Ninja difficulty.

However, there is a massive identity mismatch at play here. This is not what Ninja Gaiden is supposed to feel like. Traditional entries are punishing, grounded, and methodical, requiring precise block-and-punish tactics against lethal enemies. This game just tosses that out the window for chaotic, Bayonetta-style air juggling, flashy Bloodraven mechanics, and screen-clearing nonsense. It is a fantastic action game, but a terrible Ninja Gaiden simulator.

Archaic cameras and bloated controls:

When you have an action game running at such a blistering pace, you absolutely cannot ignore the camera and the controls. For decades now, the genre has been severely limited by analogue sticks. The camera targeting here can easily ruin a flawless battle, getting stuck behind walls or violently spinning out of control. It has not improved a single bit since the PS2 era.

Now we are suffering from severe button bloat. When block, parry, and dodge are all mapped to the exact same button, that is an immediate red flag. It is about time developers start thinking about innovating the genre beyond cramming fifty different inputs into one trigger and hoping the game guesses your intention correctly.

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Izuna Drop off bridges for extra damage!

Copy-paste maps and a slapped-on Ryu:

The missions are painfully predictable, heavily suffering from "Halo 1 levels of repetition". Because the budget was so tight, you will spend hours running through barren rooftops and visually identical grey corridors. The enemy placement is incredibly low-effort. The game just relies on basic maths to pad the runtime, locking you in a square room with four ninjas and two dogs, and then doing it again in the next room with six zombies and three dogs. There are no bespoke encounters, though a few of the stylish map traversal options are fun, and the jet Tengu beast is a genuinely cool boss design.

The post-game and Ryu's integration are completely insulting:

The Ryu afterthought: You literally just play Yakumo's missions backwards. Ryu only gets his Dragon Sword and a half-finished DLC weapon. He is straight up just an afterthought they had to include to avoid a total riot.

Recycled content: The end-game just consists of running Master Ninja mode, a few trial challenges, and a half-arsed Abyss Tower run. Almost all of the extra content is just copy-pasted and repurposed assets.

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Technical crashes, Xbox bloatware, and a mediocre soundtrack:

If the recycled maps and terrible character designs are not enough, the actual technical performance is the final nail in the coffin. Because Microsoft is pulling the strings, playing this on PC forces you to constantly connect to Xbox services and run background processes like Game Bar. This forced integration causes immensely annoying crashes, weird stutters, and bizarre system hiccups that completely ruin the flow of a fast-paced action game.

The optimisation is an absolute joke. The game runs terribly in certain sections despite looking incredibly dated. We know Platinum intentionally gutted the environmental details, textures, and visual effects to supposedly hit a 120 FPS target, but the game still manages to heavily chug when the screen gets busy. You are left staring at muddy, subpar graphics, yet you still suffer from random frame drops.

The audio presentation is just as painfully low budget. The OST is incredibly "meh" and entirely forgettable, there were throwback tracks but otherwise the entire presentation feels aggressively cheap.