NINJA GAIDEN 4

NINJA GAIDEN 4 arrived on 20 October 2025 carrying an unusually heavy emotional weight. Days before its release, Tomonobu Itagaki — the director whose 2004 reboot transformed a struggling franchise into one of action gaming's most respected, demanding series — passed away at 58, and the timing visibly shaped how the earliest wave of reviewers approached this new entry. Co-developed by PlatinumGames and Team NINJA and published by Xbox Game Studios, it sits at Very Positive across more than 8,200 Steam reviews. Understanding both the genuine tribute the community paid Itagaki and the real, honestly argued debate about the game's own identity that followed is what this review sets out to do.

A launch shadowed by real loss

Multiple reviews in the sample open with direct tributes rather than gameplay impressions. "Rest In Peace to the Unc of action/hack and slash video games Tomonobu Itagaki. This earth couldn't handle your aura and even in the end you handled death like a g," one review states, while another quotes Itagaki directly: "At first it was easier, but then the testers said 'This is too difficult.' So I made it even more difficult." That specific quote recurs often enough across the sample that at least one detailed reviewer flagged the pattern directly and usefully corrected a common misconception: "90% of the reviews I saw were very bad, or the reviewers were just posting the famous Tomonobu Itagaki quote... he didn't work on [this game]." That correction is accurate and worth stating plainly — Itagaki left Team Ninja in 2008, well before this entry, and had no direct creative involvement in NINJA GAIDEN 4. The tributes reflect the community honouring the man who defined the modern series, not a claim about who actually built this specific game — a distinction worth understanding before reading the review sample's emotional register.

Combat that earns genuine, specific praise

Separate from that context, the combat system itself draws sustained, detailed credit across the sample. "This might be the best combat system in any action game I've ever played," one review states simply. Another, more measured but equally enthusiastic, frames the collaboration precisely: "In terms of gamefeel, it can really only be described as Platinum and NG having a lovebaby." A reviewer with genuine expertise in the genre elaborates on why that fusion works in practice: "the combat feels so good. It feels like a proper Ninja Gaiden game... it's fast, snappy, and responsive. The enemies aren't spongey, and you can delimb most of them real quick." Sound design and the sense of speed during large crowd encounters draw similarly consistent, specific praise, several reviewers describing the audio-visual feedback loop as a genuine highlight independent of any other complaint they raise.

The identity debate at the sample's core

What distinguishes this game's reception from simple across-the-board acclaim is a real, specific, consistently repeated argument among longtime fans about how much of the entry actually feels like Ninja Gaiden rather than a PlatinumGames original wearing its name. "This is 40% Ninja Gaiden and rest platinum," one detailed review states, going on to describe specific mechanical departures: "All the fundamentals of NG are thrown away for meter management, parry, glowing enemies, perfect dodges and dodge offset. The moves also magnetize so much that there isn't much" spatial control left to the player. Another veteran, self-described as having beaten the original two games on their hardest difficulties, states the disappointment directly: "This game is truly miserable for me as a fan of the series. It erases almost everything that made the original great in favor of a half baked generic action title." A third, more measured critique names the specific mechanical symptom several reviewers converge on: "There is no sense of space because every attack sucks you into an enemy and they in turn are magnetized to you."

This complaint recurs specifically enough, and from reviewers with credible series history, that it reads as the sample's central, load-bearing tension rather than simple nostalgia-driven grumbling. A related, structural complaint concerns the new protagonist, Yakumo, who takes over much of the campaign from series icon Ryu Hayabusa: "After the first 2 missions of the game, I began to realize why they designed the game for box arenas... still not a sign of Ryu to play," one review notes, describing a structural choice that several fans found emotionally distancing regardless of Yakumo's own combat design.

Camera, story, and a smaller thread of technical complaints

A separate, more mechanical complaint concerns the camera during the game's toughest encounters. "Camera issues combine with a somewhat simplistic moveset to make bosses and certain enemy types increasingly frustrating as the game goes along," one review states, a complaint echoed by several others specifically regarding boss fights rather than regular combat. Story and dialogue draw consistent, if generally forgiving, criticism as thin: "Story is whatever; Titty lady needs help and or is helping me. Dragon door needs opening, or closing, not really sure... but who cares, fighting is fun," one review states, treating narrative thinness as an acceptable trade-off given the genre's priorities rather than a serious flaw. A smaller thread of reviewers reported real technical issues at launch, including a specific ultrawide monitor display bug and, for at least one player, repeated crash-to-desktop failures severe enough to prompt a refund request — checking the developer's own patch history confirms continued updates through the game's first year, including the addition of a full paid story expansion, "The Two Masters," on 4 March 2026.

A genuine, if modest, commercial story

Separate from critical reception, available analysis of Steam sales estimates suggests NINJA GAIDEN 4 has performed more modestly than some comparable PlatinumGames releases — estimated Steam sales sit meaningfully below what Bayonetta 3 achieved on a single platform in a comparable window, according to independent analysis, though this review found no confirmed statement from Microsoft itself formally declaring the game a commercial failure. That's worth reporting as real, if imprecise, context rather than either dismissing the game's commercial performance or overstating it as an admitted flop.

Where this leaves a buyer

At NZ$119.95, discounted to roughly $72 at the time of writing, NINJA GAIDEN 4 delivers genuinely excellent, demanding combat that earns real comparisons to the finest work of both studios behind it — a specific, hard-won achievement worth taking at face value. The honest, necessary caveat, raised specifically and repeatedly by longtime series fans rather than casual critics, concerns how much of the original trilogy's distinct identity survives the PlatinumGames-flavoured redesign: magnetized combat, a new lead character displacing Ryu Hayabusa for much of the story, and camera issues during the game's hardest fights are real, recurring complaints rather than isolated grumbling. Players open to a stylish, PlatinumGames-influenced evolution of the formula are likely to find some of the best character action available today. Longtime Ninja Gaiden veterans specifically attached to the original trilogy's distinct feel should go in aware that a meaningful share of their own community found this entry a genuine departure rather than a direct continuation of what made the series legendary in the first place.