Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Hands-On Preview

Fans of the Ninja Gaiden franchise have a lot to look forward to in 2025 between the releases of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Ninja Gaiden 4. Team Ninja and PlatinumGames' collaboration on Ninja Gaiden 4 will bring the series' first new 3D game since 2012's Ninja Gaiden 3, but Dotemu and The Game Kitchen's Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound marks a triumphant return to the Ninja Gaiden franchise's 2D roots. After getting the chance to play an early preview build of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, it seems that The Game Kitchen is up to the task.

The Best War Games played the prologue level and first stage of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, followed by a later level in the story that gives players full control over both of the game's new protagonists: Ryu Hayabusa's protégé Kenji and the Black Spider Clan ninja Kumori. Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound protagonists offer players different toolkits, a tried-and-true challenge that the Ninja Gaiden series is known for, and an impressive array of new platforming and combat options.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound's Story Runs Concurrently to the Original NES Ninja Gaiden

One of the more surprising aspects of our hands-on time with Ninja Gaiden was learning more about the game's story, which runs alongside the events of the original Ninja Gaiden on NES. The game's prologue level even goes so far as to put players in control of Ryu's father, Jô Hayabusa, allowing them to play out the iconic sequence from the opening cutscene of the original Ninja Gaiden and his fateful moonlit duel. But that prologue stage is more than just fan service to the Ninja Gaiden faithful, serving as a great tutorial of the new elements Ragebound brings to the table while also setting up the game's new protagonist: Kenji.

Immediately following that tutorial prologue stage, the scene switches to Hyabusa Village, where Ryu is in the process of training a new ninja by the name of Kenji. After a brutal training gauntlet doubling as the combat tutorial, Kenji faces off against Ryu in a one-on-one duel that's cut short by the news of his father's death and demons ransacking the village. Ryu sets out on the adventure that will comprise the events of the original NES Ninja Gaiden, and he entrusts Kenji (and, by proxy, the player) with repelling the demon assault on Hayabusa Village.

While our hands-on time with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound only provided brief glimpses at the game's full story, it's already shaping up to be a strong new chapter in the Ninja Gaiden saga. It's especially interesting for longtime Ninja Gaiden fans to learn what transpired back in Hayabusa Village while Ryu was off defending the world against the villainous Jaquio. We also get to meet an enemy-turned-ally in the Black Spider Clan ninja Kumori, and her platforming-focused suite of abilities provides a nice counterpoint to Kenji's combat-focused one, along with her place as an important narrative foil.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound's New Combat and Platforming Abilities Shake Things Up

As ninjas, both Kenji and Kumori's standard abilities should feel right at home to anyone who's played a 2D Ninja Gaiden game. Players can still stick to walls and jump off of them to reach greater heights, cling to ceilings to shimmy across gaps, and successfully attack enemies using both ground-based and aerial attacks. But each of these new protagonists brings new abilities to the table in Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound that definitively set them apart from series mainstay Ryu Hayabusa in terms of both their combat and traversal.

The most significant new ability in Kenji's toolkit is the Hypercharge attack. This new one-hit kill move is a strategic option that becomes increasingly necessary during gameplay as Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound progresses and encounters become more difficult, and players have two options for how this attack is utilized. As a baseline, players can attack special flashing enemies in the environment to generate energy pick-ups for either their sword's Hypercharge attack or a Kunai Hypercharge attack that's great for attacking powerful enemies from a distance. The color-coded pickups that drop are dependent on the weapon players use to kill those special flashing enemies. Once the Hypercharge meter is full, players can immediately unleash a devastating assault against powerful foes that would normally take several hits to bring down. The other, more dangerous option is to voluntarily absorb some of Kenji's health to instantly generate Hypercharge, which creates a stressful risk/reward dynamic in certain tricky encounters where no flashing enemies are present to generate Hypercharge energy.

Similarly, what we were able to experience of enemy-turned-reluctant ally Kumori's special abilities showed them to be almost entirely tied to platforming. Kumori has a special Kunai that she can throw and then immediately warp to, and this new ability allows The Game Kitchen to get creative with how it sets up the game's platforming challenges. Kumori is the only one capable of traversing the demon realm, meaning that fans can expect plenty of challenges there. Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound feels familiar but exciting in terms of its place within the 2D Ninja Gaiden pantheon, and the two new protagonists and their unique abilities are at the heart of that novelty.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is a New Chapter in the Series

It's also worth pointing out that the game's visuals and art direction are some of the best seen yet in the Ninja Gaiden franchise. Like both of The Game Kitchen's Blasphemous games, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound features complex and detailed pixel art along with impressively fluid animations, which, together, serve to highlight the intensity of the on-screen action. Intensity is definitely the operative word, as Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound's speed and fluidity are impressively removed from the slower, more weighty combat of both Blasphemous and its sequel.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound also clearly offers a high degree of replayability. There are Golden Scarab collectibles to search for, as well as end-of-stage rankings that result in points to spend in Muramasa's shop, both encouraging players to go back, be mindful of their surroundings, and earn the best rankings they can. If our brief time spent across three of its levels is any indication, it's going to be a stand-out experience for Ninja Gaiden or platforming fans.

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