Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound review – tight platforming and snappy combat makes this one of 2025's best
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is the kind of modern successor to a cult classic series designed to welcome new and existing fans alike, mixing tight action-platforming with satisfying combat and boss battles.
Typical. You spend years waiting for a modern throwback to one old-school ninja-starring 2D action platformer, only for two to arrive at once. But whereas Sega 's forthcoming Shinobi: Art of Vengeance opts for a modern hand-drawn art style, Ninja Garden: Ragebound firmly keeps its foot in the retro realm using a beautiful, pixelated aesthetic. The kind of which developer The Game Kitchen is known for and swiftly became a master of.
Such an art style is key to much of the charm found in this sequel to Tecmo's classic NES series, which when combined with tight platforming and rewarding combat abilities easily makes this one of the standout titles of its kind. Regardless of whether this is your first or thirteenth Ninja Gaiden, Ragebound is sure to hook you with the full force of a katana slice.
Getting the obvious part out of the way, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound simply looks gorgeous. As a big fan of The Game Kitchen's two previous Blasphemous games, it's clear that the Spanish studio has spent just as much time, care, and attention finessing this world of ninjas, demons, and underground gangsters as it previously did 18th century Spain.
It's often hard to stand out these days on the indie scene due to the avalanche of titles utilising a pixelated art style to try and recapture a sense of nostalgia. Despite this, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is both beautiful and richly detailed in all the variety-filled locations you fight through. From helicopter carriers to pirate coves, there sure is a lot of them.
This same attention-to-detail is applied to the gameplay itself, which I have no trouble describing as tight, responsive, and rewarding. Roleplaying as an ambitious ninja apprentice proves to be incredibly easy as a result, as often while playing I felt I was moving through stages like butter.
Bouncing on the head of an enemy using Ragebound's patented Guillotine Boost jump, slicing through another one in mid-air, and then landing into a roll to lunge into another... Chaining kills as up-and-coming ninja master Kenji Mozu often has a great sense of flow to it, providing you read enemy attacks far enough in advance and know what you're doing.
While certainly not devoid of Ninja Gaiden's trademark difficulty – just wait until you run until the game's final string of bosses – Ragebound definitely takes a softer approach when it comes to onboarding. This helps not only if you've never played an old-school Ninja Gaiden game before, but also to learn all the gratifying mechanical quirks unique to Ragebound.
The biggest is undoubtedly called Hypercharge, where, rather than simply wailing on enemies repeatedly, certain foes will be coded blue or red. Attack those in blue with a sword attack or those in red with a special, 'Spider' attack, and your next hit is guaranteed to kill in just one hit.
The Hypercharge system takes a little while to get used to since it can substantially change the rhythm of combat. Grow accustomed to dishing out red- and blue-coded attacks as necessary, though, and you can save yourself a lot of time and effort. In fact, some of the most frustrating moments I experienced were those when I accidently unleashed a Hypercharge attack on an underling as opposed to a hulking, shielded enemy.
Someone that could have been defeated with one swipe suddenly demands several, severely slowing down my pace and making my actions feel less ninja like. Hypercharge is flexible in that it can technically be totally ignored, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice.
This strategic throughline bleeds into Ragebound's simple but effective upgrade system too. Essentially, Kenji has two talisman slots that can be equipped with different types of perks or penalties in between stages, all of which contributes greatly to how tough a time you'll have fighting through stages.
Although a specific hard mode is unlocked after finishing the campaign, choosing the talisman that, say, warps you right back to level's start instead of the last checkpoint, makes for a great way to tweak Ragebound to suit your preferred level of challenge. I personally could never take off the talismans that restored Kenji's health when passing a checkpoint or healed him when achieving a three-kill combo. However, there's sure to be a talisman combo ideal for your playstyle.
Air your rage
A pixelated 2D action-platformer isn't traditionally the type of game where I worry about the narrative. And yet, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound surprisingly does enough legwork in the narrative and characterisation department, that I couldn't help but care about the plight of our two main protagonists. You see, roughly as third of the way into the game a new playable protagonist, Kumori, is introduced, focused on ranged play and a tougher degree of platforming.
Demons threatening to take over the Earth is enough to force them to work together, and it allows for the Kumori sections to break up the regular bout of firing off Guillotine Boost jumps, Hypercharge attacks, and Spider abilities rather nicely. If anything, I would have liked Kumori to stand on her own a bit more, but she definitely has moments to shine as the story progresses.
Another slight nit I have with this otherwise tightly produced and carefully balanced package are the Secret Art abilities you can equip Kenji with. They work similarly to Talismans in that they can be swapped in and swapped out before selecting a level, but my issue is that I never really felt the need to try any others aside from those I started with.
The screen-tearing Ragebound art attack proved too useful when entering the later phases of a boss battle, while the Kama curved blade always came in handy to target hard-to-reach enemies behind walls or out of range. Still, Ragebound rewards players willing to check off every level's three specific challenge qualifiers – beat a boss under 4 minutes, don't fall into a pit, and so on – with a tier rating that unlocks these new abilities, doing a good job at encouraging you to play through them again after finishing the story.
While each level in Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is memorable to fight through and expertly designed for their own distinct reasons, I'd be remiss not to mention the truly exceptional boss fights on display here. Although incredibly tough at times (I don't think I ever beat one in fewer than 10 attempts) no one is ever like the last in terms of what's required of you to take them down.
From demons able to send lightning sparks flying all around the screen to those that force you to keep your feet off the ground for almost too much time as flames swirl, Ragebound's boss battles had me gripping my gamepad in a way I hadn't for years, with each truly primed to test every player's mettle.
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is one of the biggest surprises to come out in 2025 for me. Having little to no affinity for those original NES games, or even the 3D successors that followed, it still enraptured me with its thrilling, Hypercharge-powered combat system, glorious pixel art, and some of the toughest (yet fairest) platforming sections and boss battles I've experienced in a modern 2D side-scroller.
Against all odds, Ragebound finds a way to pay respect not just to the series, but the entire genre's past by imbuing it with plenty of modern features. The result is a near perfect concoction that makes roleplaying a ninja not only something to be enjoyed in the moment, but something not afraid to test these skills by offering up a decent challenge.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
10 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Developer Lizardcube talks reinventing SEGA's classic Shinobi series for a new age of players
Speaking to the lead game designer and lead background artist for Shinobi: Art of Vengeance to talk breathing new life into one of Sega's most treasured classic franchises. Having already worked wonders with Streets of Rage 4, we discuss with developer Lizardcube the tall task of trying to make lighting strike twice with a beloved Sega series. How do you follow up successfully reviving (and absolutely nailing) a beloved Sega arcade franchise for the modern era using punchy combat mechanics and a beautiful hand-drawn art style? By doing it again, of course. Such was the task developer Lizardcube faced when first starting out development on Shinobi: Art of Vengeance – the new, upcoming entry in the longstanding series of action-platformers set to launch this August 29, 2025. After playing roughly an hour of the game already and dubbing it a 'stunning and confident retooling' of the series in my preview, I have every reason to believe that the team is stepping up to the challenge and that Shinobi fans won't be disappointed. Sure, Lizardcube had already achieved great adoration for its work on Streets of Rage 4 previously, but sketching out various street-level environments to fight across is one thing, and creating a whole suite off attractive locations set within the Shinobi ninja universe another entirely. The key, says lead background artist Julian Nguyen-You, was to significantly increase the number of art assets created for each level. The hope being to provide players with much higher degrees of detail and variety, which should make living out their kunai-throwing ninja fantasies all the more enjoyable. 'Shinobi has more huge backgrounds,' says Nguyen-You. 'In Streets of Rage 4, it was only a straight area with some diagonals, but in Shinobi you can go everywhere in a stage'. This simple change from making a beat-em-up to a layered, vertically led 2D action-platformer was enough to almost triple the workload of the art department. 'All the assets we needed to create was maybe three times, four times bigger than [those] for Streets of Rage. For that game I was alone to do all the backgrounds, and for this one we were three people'. Purely in terms of scale, then, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance has turned out to be a far more ambitious project than Streets of Rage 4 ever was, even when considering the latter's follow-up DLC. However, for as iconic as Lizardcube's unique hand-drawn art style has quickly become, the goal wasn't simply to include more for more's sake. As Nguyen-You continues, 'We tried to put many memorable things in the background like a golden dragon, or something like this, and it was many, many hours of work drawing'. For as important as Shinobi: Art of Vengeance's art is to the overall game – it's right there in the title – such glorious visuals would mean nothing were it not backed up with tight, satisfying gameplay. A playable demo of the game's first level, Oboro Village, is available to download now for players curious to check out Lizardcube's combat bona fides, but it's been clear since playing through that first stage, plus the Lantern Festival level, months ago for preview, that this isn't your grandma's Shinobi game. No, instead, the team has been careful to sprinkle in all kinds of super abilities and special attacks to make Joe Musashi's moveset more fulfilling than ever. Master of the craft 'We really tried to pay homage to the first game,' explains Frederic Vincent, lead game designer on Shinobi: Art of Vengeance. 'And it's really not easy to find the right balance between what you're going to keep from the ancient games, and what you are going to leave and to keep'. Doing this meant gifting Muasashi with a new suite of moves while being respectful to the ninja idea. 'We wanted to recapture the feeling of playing a ninja using elegant moves, fast combat… that kind of stuff. It was more about what's the meaning of being a shinobi in the modern era'. My most recent time playing what Lizardcube has cooking up took me through two new levels, Fish Market and Neo City, both of which were a great display for Shinobi's combat. Fish Market is a stage just as slimy and grubby as it sounds, but still rendered beautifully using hand-drawn sketches. Using the Shinobi Execution to dart around the stage finishing off foes, unleashing the Fire Ninpo blast attack, and of course using Musashi's iconic kunai to attack enemies from a distance, it all felt great to do while hopping and dancing around the Fish Market's ever-moving containers and slippery streets. Neo City, meanwhile, is just as glamourous as it sounds, presenting totally different enemy types and enemies to tackle using super-responsive ninja attacks. Another way Art of Vengeance aims to set itself apart is by peppering in reasons to comb around levels, with plenty of hidden areas and collectibles to discover. Such inclusions help give this iteration of Shinobi a more, Metroidvania like flavour, as opposed to the simple linear arcade stages seen in previous games. 'For each stage you will have unique challenges you have to overcome,' Vincent continues. 'It's true that there is a lot of stuff happening in the first stage, but we really manage to keep this balance until the end of the game'. From specific combat challenges to ability-enhancing medallions to track down, Lizardcube has included plenty of excuses to let players fight and move through stages their own way. 'We implemented those features because they made a lot of sense for the feeling we wanted to get. The game feel of the combat, the way we ask you to move around the battlefield, manage some resources. Basically, we wanted the player to make some choices during combat, to really pitch what they want to do'. It's now less than a month until Shinobi: Art of Vengeance launches simultaneously on PC and consoles. And although the demo currently available offers players a small glimpse of what this incredibly stylised franchise return has to offer, Vincent and Nguyen-You both hint that there are plenty of surprises left in store. Shinobi does have the unfortunate challenge of releasing shortly after the unbelievably excellent Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, but the truth is that both ninja games are pitching a slightly different twist on the 2D action-platforming template – and there's room for Art of Vengeance to carve out its own identity within that.
The Guardian
14 hours ago
- The Guardian
Punch bags, penny pushers and Hillbilly shootouts: the 10 best classic seaside arcade machines
The seaside day trip remains an almost essential component of the school summer holidays, and although the big beachfront arcades have changed a lot over the last decade, they are still a magnet for small kids with handfuls of change, as well as adults hoping to spy an old Space Invaders cabinet in the back. As a child of the 1980s, coin-op video games were an obsession, but what really fascinated me were the older machines, the electro-mechanical oddities that hung on into the digital age. Here are 10 of the best – please add your own in the comments. Long before the arrival of computer chips and CRT monitors, arcade driving games featured projected images of landscapes or even scrolling paintings to give the impression of hurtling along a road. The first examples arrived in the 1930s and a few later models, such as Chicago Coin's Speedway and Sega's Grand Prix stuck around in seaside arcades well into the 1980s. I remember playing a later example, Kasco's astonishing 1979 arcade game The Driver, on the pier at Blackpool. It used 16mm footage of a real race to put you right in the action. There was a time when the rapid-fire noise of plastic pucks rebounding around large snooker-like tables was a constant soundtrack in larger arcades. Air Hockey was invented by US company Brunswick Billiards in 1969 and it quickly caught on across the globe offering a fast-paced alternative to pool and table football. You can still find them in retro arcades, especially in traditional seaside towns such as Great Yarmouth, Blackpool and Southend. These large installations feature tin horses lining up on a race track – six to eight players each sit at a cabinet in front of the course and throw balls at a target in order to move their equine racer toward the finishing line: the most accurate player wins. It seems the original version of the game, Kentucky Derby, was brought to Blackpool Pleasure Beach in the 1920s by George Valentine Tonner, an Irish-American soldier, jockey and amusement park concessionaire who also patented an early version of dodgems. Later examples swap horses for donkeys or camels, while a smaller variant, The Derby by Whittaker Bros, invited multiple players to bet on the outcome of automated horse races for a modest payback. Toy vending machines followed gumball machines into American stores, cafes and station platforms in the 1930s, but it was in 1965 that the first gachapon machine was installed in a shop in Tokyo by entrepreneur Ryuzo Shigeta. These dispensed their wares in cute little plastic capsules, and the idea caught on. More commonly known as egg machines in the UK, most 1980s seaside arcades would have a couple outside the entrance, the most famous examples being Glendale's Oranges and Lemons and Lucky Eggs machines, the later of which would dispense your prize from a rotating, clucking hen – which made it that much more special. You'd get rows of these large machines, often at the back of the arcade, giving players a number of chances to lob a basketball through a hoop, usually within a caged play area so you didn't accidentally launch the ball across the room. Classics such as Hoop Shot, Triple Jam and Full Court Fever added features including moving hoops and connected play so you could compete against pals on nearby machines. This was always where the rowdy teens hung out. Originating in the late 19th century these arcade and boardwalk amusements usually feature animated automatons, often stereotypical representations of Gypsies, witches or ancient Middle Eastern royalty. Put in a coin and the mystic character gestures, breathes and speaks your fortune (or deposits a card with your fortune written on it), accompanied by special effects such as a glowing crystal ball. Notable examples include Madame Zita, the creepy 1977 innovation Morgana, whose face is a video projection on to a featureless foam head, and Zoltar, which inspired the 1988 movie Big. Other automaton machines feature dancing puppets and absolutely terrifying laughing clowns. Beloved of young men keen to prove their masculinity, these have been around since at least 190o when the Chicago-based Mills Novelty Co released its Punching Bag model, complete with ornate oak stand. Modern versions have digital displays featuring accurate strength read-outs, but you're still just hitting a ball as hard as you can. Other strength testing machines include the Mr Muscle machine from Italian manufacturer Zamperla, which challenged you to arm wrestle with an intimidating plastic man. Also known as claw machines, these remain a staple arcade experience. You slot in a coin and use the joystick to direct an ineffectual grabber towards your desired toy. Usually, it makes a pathetic attempt before dropping the item millimetres away from the delivery chute (mostly because the claws can be set to only grip at full strength for a minority of attempts). The first commercial example is thought to be the Erie Digger manufactured in the US through the 1920s but since then well-known arcade manufacturers such as Sega and Bally have created their own examples, the former revolutionising the market in the 1980s with its UFO Catcher machines offering larger prizes and a brighter kawaii look. They remain irresistible. Light gun shooting galleries were in every arcade in the 70s and 80s, but my favourite examples were the large installations featuring lifesize scenes to shoot at, often with a wild west, pirate or gangster theme. The one I most remember playing – I think in Blackpool's Coral Island arcade – was called Hillybilly Moonshine and it had several mannequins dressed in overalls as well as a big copper distiller and various barrels and critters. If you hit the hillbillies they fired water pistols at you. You can still find these dotted about in surviving coin-op houses and they're really worth a go. Invented by Ramsgate-based manufacturing firm Cromptons in 1966 (though there were earlier variants), coin push games are the kings of the seaside arcade, dominating the floor space and enticing players with their piles of sparkling treasure surely ready to fall at any second. The original was called Penny Falls, but there are hundreds of variations now, including virtual coin pushers, which move the action on to a screen with lots of special effects. Oh, the hours I spent during summer holidays wandering the arcades of Blackpool and Morecambe, a plastic cup of 2p coins in my hand, scrutinising these seductive machines. 'Penny pushers are absolutely pivotal to the success of the British amusement arcade,' says lecturer and historian Alan Meades, author of Arcade Britannia: A Social History of the British Amusement Arcade. 'Alongside the fruit machine they are where the arcades made their money – penny pushers could last for decades – retooled with currency changes – and recouped their costs time and again.'
The Guardian
18 hours ago
- The Guardian
Punch bags, penny pushers and Hillbilly shootouts: the 10 best classic seaside arcade machines
The seaside day trip remains an almost essential component of the school summer holidays, and although the big beachfront arcades have changed a lot over the last decade, they are still a magnet for small kids with handfuls of change, as well as adults hoping to spy an old Space Invaders cabinet in the back. As a child of the 1980s, coin-op video games were an obsession, but what really fascinated me were the older machines, the electro-mechanical oddities that hung on into the digital age. Here are 10 of the best – please add your own in the comments. Long before the arrival of computer chips and CRT monitors, arcade driving games featured projected images of landscapes or even scrolling paintings to give the impression of hurtling along a road. The first examples arrived in the 1930s and a few later models, such as Chicago Coin's Speedway and Sega's Grand Prix stuck around in seaside arcades well into the 1980s. I remember playing a later example, Kasco's astonishing 1979 arcade game The Driver, on the pier at Blackpool. It used 16mm footage of a real race to put you right in the action. There was a time when the rapid-fire noise of plastic pucks rebounding around large snooker-like tables was a constant soundtrack in larger arcades. Air Hockey was invented by US company Brunswick Billiards in 1969 and it quickly caught on across the globe offering a fast-paced alternative to pool and table football. You can still find them in retro arcades, especially in traditional seaside towns such as Great Yarmouth, Blackpool and Southend. These large installations feature tin horses lining up on a race track – six to eight players each sit at a cabinet in front of the course and throw balls at a target in order to move their equine racer toward the finishing line: the most accurate player wins. It seems the original version of the game, Kentucky Derby, was brought to Blackpool Pleasure Beach in the 1920s by George Valentine Tonner, an Irish-American soldier, jockey and amusement park concessionaire who also patented an early version of dodgems. Later examples swap horses for donkeys or camels, while a smaller variant, The Derby by Whittaker Bros, invited multiple players to bet on the outcome of automated horse races for a modest payback. Toy vending machines followed gumball machines into American stores, cafes and station platforms in the 1930s, but it was in 1965 that the first gachapon machine was installed in a shop in Tokyo by entrepreneur Ryuzo Shigeta. These dispensed their wares in cute little plastic capsules, and the idea caught on. More commonly known as egg machines in the UK, most 1980s seaside arcades would have a couple outside the entrance, the most famous examples being Glendale's Oranges and Lemons and Lucky Eggs machines, the later of which would dispense your prize from a rotating, clucking hen – which made it that much more special. You'd get rows of these large machines, often at the back of the arcade, giving players a number of chances to lob a basketball through a hoop, usually within a caged play area so you didn't accidentally launch the ball across the room. Classics such as Hoop Shot, Triple Jam and Full Court Fever added features including moving hoops and connected play so you could compete against pals on nearby machines. This was always where the rowdy teens hung out. Originating in the late 19th century these arcade and boardwalk amusements usually feature animated automatons, often stereotypical representations of Gypsies, witches or ancient Middle Eastern royalty. Put in a coin and the mystic character gestures, breathes and speaks your fortune (or deposits a card with your fortune written on it), accompanied by special effects such as a glowing crystal ball. Notable examples include Madame Zita, the creepy 1977 innovation Morgana, whose face is a video projection on to a featureless foam head, and Zoltar, which inspired the 1988 movie Big. Other automaton machines feature dancing puppets and absolutely terrifying laughing clowns. Beloved of young men keen to prove their masculinity, these have been around since at least 190o when the Chicago-based Mills Novelty Co released its Punching Bag model, complete with ornate oak stand. Modern versions have digital displays featuring accurate strength read-outs, but you're still just hitting a ball as hard as you can. Other strength testing machines include the Mr Muscle machine from Italian manufacturer Zamperla, which challenged you to arm wrestle with an intimidating plastic man. Also known as claw machines, these remain a staple arcade experience. You slot in a coin and use the joystick to direct an ineffectual grabber towards your desired toy. Usually, it makes a pathetic attempt before dropping the item millimetres away from the delivery chute (mostly because the claws can be set to only grip at full strength for a minority of attempts). The first commercial example is thought to be the Erie Digger manufactured in the US through the 1920s but since then well-known arcade manufacturers such as Sega and Bally have created their own examples, the latter revolutionising the market in the 1980s with its UFO Catcher machines offering larger prizes and a brighter kawaii look. They remain irresistible. Light gun shooting galleries were in every arcade in the 70s and 80s, but my favourite examples were the large installations featuring lifesize scenes to shoot at, often with a wild west, pirate or gangster theme. The one I most remember playing – I think in Blackpool's Coral Island arcade – was called Hillybilly Moonshine and it had several mannequins dressed in overalls as well as a big copper distiller and various barrels and critters. If you hit the hillbillies they fired water pistols at you. You can still find these dotted about in surviving coin-op houses and they're really worth a go. Invented by Ramsgate-based manufacturing firm Cromptons in 1964, coin push games are the kings of the seaside arcade, dominating the floor space and enticing players with their piles of sparkling treasure surely ready to fall at any second. The original was called Penny Falls, but there are hundreds of variations now, including virtual coin pushers, which move the action on to a screen with lots of special effects. Oh, the hours I spent during summer holidays wandering the arcades of Blackpool and Morecambe, a plastic cup of 2p coins in my hand, scrutinising these seductive machines. 'Penny pushers are absolutely pivotal to the success of the British amusement arcade,' says lecturer and historian Alan Meades, author of Arcade Britannia: A Social History of the British Amusement Arcade. 'Alongside the fruit machine they are where the arcades made their money – penny pushers could last for decades – retooled with currency changes – and recouped their costs time and again.'
