HIGH Linking seamlessly flamboyant chains of acrobatics and death.

LOW No rapid-fire option for automatic sword swings can wear on the thumb.

WTF Super Express to Hell!

Ninja Gaiden‘s been on vacation for a while at this point. Well, break time’s over, bastards — The Game Kitchen, developers of the highly regarded Blasphemous series, have decided to cook up a delicious new entry in this legendary IP.

Despite Ninja Gaiden typically being known for its bloodsplatteringly vicious 3D combat entries, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound instead hearkens back to the classic NES trilogy with a modernized take on the 2D ninja platforming that got the ball rolling in the first place.

After a short playable prologue, Ragebound’s new protagonist Kenji Mozu scoots through a quick obstacle and tutorial course introducing the most important mechanics and subsequently gets Izuna Dropped on his head by the legendary Ryu Hayabusa as a reward for completing his trial.

Things suddenly kick off in a serious way, Ryu has to leave for America in a hurry, and series veterans will undoubtedly be pleased to hear that the Hayabusa Ninja Village continues its longstanding tradition of being razed to the ground by demons every other week.

Before long, Kenji joins forces with Kumori, a Black Spider Ninja Clan operative with a penchant for hurling razor sharp kunai into the faces of anyone she deems unpleasant. The catch is that they have to literally fuse into a single body to survive, so while Kenji emerges from this joining as the dominant character, Kumori aids him as a powerful spectral sidekick capable of hurling projectiles and using ninpo magic to annihilate any fiends standing in their way.

I found these two new protagonists to be great, playing off one another as mismatched partners facing impossible odds — one full of zeal and righteousness, the other cynical and pragmatic. They may be original characters, but players familiar with the franchise are likely to recognize certain parallels in their design and combat style right away. Kenji is basically a greener, brasher approximation of Ryu Hayabusa and Kumori carries herself as an infinitely cooler version of Ayane from the Dead or Alive series.

As someone who may or may not be dead, Kumori is also able to step into the Demon Realm whenever Kenji comes across demon statues dotted throughout the stages. These tend to be where the toughest platforming challenges take place, but even though Kumori has to complete her tasks on a strict timer before being recalled, she won’t die if she takes too much damage or drops down a pit which allows for as many retries as the player needs to succeed.

Combat is slick, speedy and satisfying thanks to perfectly responsive controls. Kenji can kill many enemies with a single sword slash, cut through incoming projectiles, or kickflip off nearly every enemy or attack in the game using a technique known as the Guillotine Boost — and it isn’t just an optional extra thrown in to spice things up. Players will be required to frequently make use of it to cross yawning chasms filled with airborne baddies or to bounce their way towards secret areas and items tucked just out of reach.

The other major new addition is the ability to Hypercharge Kenji and Kumori’s attacks by killing specific enemies in sequence or sacrificing a little health, allowing them to slice through most enemies’ defenses to dispatch them in one murderously powerful blow. It’s exceptionally useful, and in order to fully leverage it, players will have to think quickly about the optimal approach to many situations.

It’s important to note that Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound isn’t a metroidvania or a roguelike — it’s a traditional stage-based action-platformer in the vein of the original NES titles. Nearly every stage looks fantastic in a chunky pixel art manner, with plenty of detail and great animation throughout as players follow Kenji and Kumori’s journey through burning temples, mountain pathways, across the tops of high-speed trains and more. I only disliked the design of one stage, a sickly and unpleasant biolab which simply didn’t hold up to the quality of the others.

Also of note is the amount of variations throughout each stage to help spice gameplay up. Whether fleeing from a demon who somehow learned how to operate a bulldozer, speeding across the countryside on a motorbike or having to take cover from powerful explosions in the background of an unfinished construction yard, there are plenty of neat setpieces to help keep things interesting.

The journey may not always be an easy one, but I absolutely loved it. It’s just… Goddamn, my thumb really hurts now.

Given that Kenji and Kumori have fixed stats, players can’t simply level up by killing minions to overcome challenges through brute force. That said, there are numerous Golden Scarabs and Crystal Skulls tucked away in each stage which can be used to purchase items from a shop between stages. Obtaining new projectiles and super arts, and equipping up to two talismans that help or hamper their chances of succeeding in each level can make a real difference.

Positive effects can include healing on chain kills and obtaining Hypercharge attacks from linking multiple Guillotine Boosts together, whereas negative ones may involve not healing at checkpoints or restarting the entire stage upon death in exchange for higher completion ranks at the end. Every stage has a rank associated with it, and challenges can range from trivialities such as deflecting a few projectiles to more challenging ones such as beating Ryu Hayabusa in a duel fresh out of the tutorial.

Make no mistake, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound can be a tricky game, even on the Normal difficulty setting. However, it also allows players to make the experience as easy or as hard as they like, whether through unlockable weapons and talismans or by using an in-game accessibility menu that can slow down overall speed, reduce taken damage or even make players invincible to pretty much anything other than falling off the map — so while it’s a tough game by default, pretty much anyone should be able to succeed through tweaking various settings. There’s also no antiquated ‘lives’ system looming overhead, and plenty of checkpoints to quickly return to.

In fact, about the only real complaint I have about Ragebound is that there’s no rapid-fire option in the menus for repeated sword slashes. Some of these bosses can take a real pounding, so after a few deaths and hammering away at the melee button like a madman each time, my thumb started to feel somewhat abused. It’s not typically a concern while making headway through each stage, but some bosses have massive health pools to be whittled down, leading to serious physical fatigue.

Aside from that one issue, it’s hard to fault anything about Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. It’s damn near perfect, and offers an immensely satisfying experience with plenty of replayability — it’s so good, in fact, that after completing it for the first time, I sat down and immediately completed it again on Hard Mode.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by The Game Kitchen and published by DotEmu. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S/PS4/PS5/Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed twice with all achievements earned. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Gore, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Violence. The official description reads: This is a 2D action-platformer based on levels and characters from the Ninja Gaiden universe. Players control small ninjas as they battle enemies (e.g., human commandos, ninjas, demons) in fast-paced combat. Players use swords, thrown weapons, and magic skills to kill enemies. Combat is highlighted by impact sounds, cries of pain, and blood-splatter effects. Some attacks allow players to dismember or behead enemies, and a handful of boss creatures are depicted with exposed organs and/or skinless, flesh/sinewy bodies. Some female enemies are designed with revealing outfits (e.g., low-cut tops, a lot of cleavage). The word “a*s” appears in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. All dialogue is delivered through text. The subtitles can be altered and/ or resized, though seemingly not enlarged. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

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HIGH Clever story, neat characters.

LOW Being “killed” 53 times by the same boss and chase.

WTF What does Quarble spend his Time Shards on?

I played The Messenger for 17 hours, all the way to completion. During that 17-hour span, I saw the “death” screen 598 times. That averages to 35 “deaths” per hour. I put “death” in quotes because the eponymous Messenger is never killed, per se — technically he’s always saved at the last minute by a guardian demon named Quarble, but the player is still restarting from a checkpoint and trying again.

And again.

AND AGAIN.

Had I not been reviewing the game, there’s a good chance I would have set it down after one particularly infuriating stretch where I was eaten by the same demon over 50 times while trying to master a grueling sequence of jumps requiring near pixel-perfect timing while the eldritch horror chasing me used cheap catch-up AI to stay on my heels. I said the words “this is not fun, I hate this” out loud over and over again as I dreamed of winging my controller through my monitor.

…I guess I’m saying The Messenger is challenging, often unfairly so. However, there are stretches of platforming brilliance to be found, as well as some clever, oddly introspective and meta writing, interesting genre shifts, and a cool aesthetic which kept me going despite the difficulty.

The Messenger starts out as a typical ‘run to the right’ NES-era nostalgic platformer with a standard run and jump, and it does this very well by mixing all the expected tough jumps, item-filled lamps, and evilly-placed enemies one associates with the Ninja Gaiden-inspired gameplay The Messenger is paying homage to. However, it does introduce a clever innovation as the main character can jump a second time immediately after attacking an object or enemy in mid-air, which becomes an essential survival tactic and way to inflict damage on boss characters in later stages.

As levels are completed, additional abilities such as a wingsuit allowing the character to float, a grappling hook and climbing claws are unlocked. These upgrades are generally accompanied by witty meta-dialogue asking why this stuff isn’t given out at the start, and this commentary is at odds with the more serious storyline of a nearly-dead world awaiting the second coming of a hero. It’s incongruous and distracting at first, but becomes more enjoyable as the narrative becomes more introspective, discussing the very nature of storytelling and heroism while cracking jokes about cutscenes, hints, and power-ups.

The Messenger’s worst-kept secret is that it shifts genres and art styles at the midway point. Transitioning from an 8-bit platformer to an 8- and 16-bit metroidvania, the game allows players to revisit previous levels and access new areas via accumulated abilities and “time butterflies” which send our hero back and forth in time. It’s a clever hook, and the transitions are seamless, including an incredible switch between alternate versions of the soundtrack. I spent several minutes travelling through the same portal just to keep experiencing the phenomenon.

Unfortunately, the time butterflies are placed a good distance apart and often in a dangerous area, seemingly to artificially increase the game’s length, rather than simply giving them control over when to enter the two versions of each realm. The backtracking is never particularly egregious, but there are times when it becomes tedious to travel across portions of a map just to acquire the MacGuffin of the moment, and then do the same in reverse with slightly different enemy and obstacle locations to use the item in its proper time period.

Backtracking aside, my main complaint with The Messenger is with the unforgiving difficulty spikes, especially during boss battles and some late-game stretches.

I understand that boss battles are supposed to be a challenge, but some require more rote muscle memory than strategy, which becomes boring as the “deaths” begin piling up. In terms of traversal, I like the way new challenges are provided after being granted additional abilities, but the game pushes players’ abilities to the breaking point rather than allowing the feeling of being powerful, fast, and agile for any amount of time. Saves and checkpoints are unevenly spaced throughout levels, and without a controller, simply crossing the world becomes impossible when the protagonist is required to cloudstep across multiple objects and moving enemies — a single misstep requires a checkpoint restart.

All that said, it feels amazing when a tricky section is completed, especially if that path never has to be taken again. For those wanting even more challenge, there are 45 “Power Seals” to find, located in the most inaccessible portions of each level. I managed to snag 18 of them, but decided the reward wasn’t worth the continued irritation, no matter how much my completionist soul burned with the need to collect them all.

The Messenger scratched the itch for a classic “Nintendo-hard” platformer, I loved the homage to all things Ninja Gaiden, and I’m proud of myself for completing it. Did I enjoy it the entire time? Definitely not, and I’m glad I won’t need to go through some of that pain again. Was it worth it? That’s harder to answer. There were some strong moments, sweeping vistas, great tunes, and the good primarily outweighed the bad, but I won’t forget how close I came to scrapping the whole thing more than once. Rating: 7 out of 10

— Jeff Ortloff

Disclosures: This game is developed by Sabotage and published by Devolver Digital. It is currently available on PC and the Nintendo Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 17 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Violence. The game features animated violence against various monsters and demons, some of whom may be too scary for younger children. There is an implied dismemberment in a story told by an NPC.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue in the game is text-based, so no story elements will be missed. However, one later-game puzzle relies completely on sound cues in order to traverse a maze, with no apparent visual component to help guide the player, basically making this section impassable. Subtitles can not be resized, nor is there a color option.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. This game does not offer a controller map diagram, but movement is on the left stick. Jumping is A (flying when earned is achieved by holding A). Attacking is X. When earned, the grappling hook is B. Alternate attacking using shuriken is Y (when earned). Left Bumper calls up the map (when earned). The back button calls up inventory.

The post The Messenger Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.