95%PC

Ragebound is awesome, but anyone that says they did everything in under 20 hours is probably not telling the truth. This is a hard game, and even with assist mode on (which is basically cheating) there are all kinds of challenges that still take a lot of skill to complete such as beating a level without getting burned.

60%PC

The movement and combat design really shine when the stages are at their most dense, forcing you to juggle alternating charge colors while dodging projectiles and bouncing between walls, platforms, and enemies. So, I really wish the stages were a bit shorter and had less downtime between encounters and platforming challenges - every time there's a "slowly crawl across the ceiling" segment, I wonder why it's there. Curious to see how much more I enjoy it on the Hard difficulty, and whether it makes the stages feel more dense overall, or just artificially padded.

75%PlayStation 5

Dotemu always makes great retro styled games with modern flair, and Ragebound is no different. It has really fluid gameplay, and is a lot of fun to run through. It’s main mechanics are very well executed, which is what really matters in a game like this, although the story was very shallow, and didn’t do anything clever, or even interesting. In the end, I thought it was a fun game, but to me at least it will probably be a largely forgettable experience in the future.

70%PlayStation 5

A good game, but I personally find the hyper mechanics somewhat a hindrance to the overall flow of the game.

75%PlayStation 5

78%

70%Nintendo Switch

Güçlü Yanları

• Klasik Ninja Gaiden ruhunu modern bir dokunuşla geri getiren akıcı 2D aksiyon.
• Piksel-art estetik, detaylı animasyonlar ve müzikle birleşerek göz kamaştırıcı bir atmosfer yaratıyor.
• Guillotine Jump, Hypercharge ve Ninja Fusion gibi mekanikler oyuna stratejik derinlik kazandırıyor.
• Seviyeler hem platformik hem savaş odaklı olarak tasarlanmış, ustalaşma ve tekrar oynanabilirlik öne çıkıyor.
• Checkpoint sistemi ve Hard Mode gibi oyuncu dostu seçeneklerle hem nostaljik hem erişilebilir bir zorluk dengesi sunuluyor.
• Ryu Hayabusa’nın çırağı Kenji Mozu ve Kumori ikilisiyle oynanışa çeşitlilik katılmış.

Zayıf Yanları

• Hikâye kısa ve hafif kalmış, daha çok aksiyona odaklanan bir “oyun” hissi veriyor.
• Bazı anahtar düşmanlarla yapılan karşılaşmalar deneyimden çok deneme-yanılma hissi yaratabiliyor.
• Kısa süreli kampanya (yaklaşık 5-7 saat) bazı oyuncular için fazla hızlı bitiyor.
• Zaman zaman düşman hitbox’larının katı veya adil olmayan şekilde çalıştığı yorumları yapılmış.
• Gelişme sistemi sınırlı ve bazı oyuncular bu kısmın daha derin olmasını tercih ederdi.

Sonuç

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, seriye 2D aksiyon platform türünde güçlü bir dönüş yapıyor. Eski nostaljiyi modern oynanış mekanikleriyle harmanlayan bir yapım olarak dikkat çekiyor. Kısa olması ve bazen sert düşman düzenlemeleri can sıkıcı olsa da, refleks meraklıları ve retro aksiyon sevenler için mutlaka denenmesi gereken bir tecrübe.

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Strengths

• Smooth 2D action that brings back the classic Ninja Gaiden spirit with a modern touch.
• Pixel-art visuals, detailed animations, and atmospheric music create a stunning presentation.
• Mechanics like Guillotine Jump, Hypercharge, and Ninja Fusion add strategic depth.
• Levels are designed with both platforming and combat focus, encouraging mastery and replayability.
• Checkpoint system and Hard Mode provide a nostalgic yet accessible difficulty balance.
• Playable variety with Kenji Mozu, Ryu Hayabusa’s apprentice, and Kumori joining the gameplay.

Weaknesses

• Story feels short and lightweight, focusing more on action than narrative depth.
• Some key enemy encounters lean heavily on trial and error.
• Short campaign (around 5-7 hours) may feel too brief for some players.
• Occasional unfair or rigid enemy hitboxes can be frustrating.
• Limited progression system that could have been more fleshed out.

Conclusion

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound marks a strong return to 2D action-platforming for the series. By blending retro nostalgia with modern mechanics, it delivers a thrilling experience. While its brevity and occasional difficulty spikes may frustrate some, it’s a must-try for fans of reflex-driven action and classic arcade gameplay.

Metacritic Puanı / Score: 84/100

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100%PC

Es un action side-scroller increíble. La acción es buenísima, los niveles están súper bien diseñados, el pixel art es increíble y la música va muy bien con la acción.

Nunja jugué los Ninja Gaiden originales de NES, pero este me encantó.

85%Nintendo Switch

A not too ambitious but amazingly done 2D retro experience. Still challenging, but brings all the ''quality of life'' features of modern game design, so it's doesn't feel too punitive or discouraging. The Nintendo Switch version maybe be 30fps, but I didn't find it too distracting. Also, differently from the other versions, you can play it on the go. So I see an advantage.

80%Nintendo Switch 2

wish it ran at 60fps but it was still a lot of fun. Difficult but fair (most of the time)

100%PC

Excelente jogo. Ragebound é não só uma belíssima homenagem aos antigos jogos da franquia, como também um título que carrega consigo o espírito da The Game Kitchen.

Tecnicamente é quase impecável. O gamefeel é excelente, o peso e a velocidade dos personagens é muito agradável, os pulos são precisos e os ataques satisfatórios. A movimentação funciona muito bem mas, nem de longe dá pra dizer que é casual, já que a curva de aprendizado é um pouco complexa e pode ser normal morrer algumas vezes até pegar o jeito. Os amuletos e especiais desbloqueáveis são bem interessantes e realmente impactam na gameplay. Os inimigos em bosses são o mais variados que um jogo desse escopo poderia ter e, por conta disso, nunca dão aquela canseira de ficar matando o mesmo inimigo várias vezes.

Artisticamente é fantástico. Não existe nada o que se criticar aqui, tudo é perfeitamente desenhado com MUITA técnica e capricho. Os designs de personagens, inimigos e bosses é excelente; os cenários são lindíssimos e bastante variados, indo desde o Japão Antigo até linhas de trem modernas e laboratórios supertecnológicos; e as interfaces são extremamente competentes. A trilha sonora é magnífica e homenageia as faixas antigas com muito apreço.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound é uma experiência que vale totalmente a pena, mesmo a preço cheio. Recomendaria tanto a quem quer se aventurar nessa franquia pela primeira vez, aproveitando a qualidade de vida de um jogo moderno, quanto a antigos fãs que com certeza apreciariam ainda mais. Jogaria de novo e fico no aguardo dos próximos jogos dos desenvolvedores.

60%PC

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, A Mixed Bag

I came away with mixed feelings about Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. I didn’t expect it to perfectly mirror the classics, but I anticipated something closer in spirit. The game shines in several areas, the story, art style, soundtrack, platforming, characters, and level design are all excellent. But after completing it twice on both difficulties, I feel it’s held back by a handful of core issues.

Combat and Mechanics
The biggest problem lies in the combat and new mechanics. Enemies should have followed a “one cut, one kill” design to keep the pacing sharp; instead, mechanics like hypercharge and hypercharged enemies drag the flow down. These additions, along with the dodge roll’s inconsistent invincibility frames, feel unnecessary and poorly implemented. The Guillotine boost is a clever idea for platforming, but underdeveloped and weak in combat. Overall, the new systems feel tedious and restrictive rather than empowering.

Boss Design
Bosses are another sticking point. After Act 2, the difficulty curve spikes harshly; not because of smarter design, but because bosses are massive health sponges. Even with hypercharge, fights devolve into button-mashing marathons that outlast their welcome. Poorly sized arenas and gimmicks like ceiling spikes only add frustration, while inconsistent hit boxes further undermine the challenge. By the later acts, boss encounters felt more exhausting than rewarding.

Difficulty Balance
The base difficulty feels fair, but the design choices above inflate it artificially. Levels flow smoothly, yet bosses stall progress like brick walls, creating a lopsided experience. It’s not satisfying difficulty, it’s padded difficulty, offering little sense of progression beyond attrition.

Final Verdict
If you’re looking for a faithful Ninja Gaiden experience, Ragebound isn’t it. It looks the part but doesn’t play like one. The hype surrounding it oversells what it delivers. As a standalone ninja platformer, it has merit and could be worth playing, just wait for a sale.

80%PC

Some old school fun. Controls felt great. Challenging boss fights. Difficulty was mostly fair. Never got too frustrated.

70%Nintendo Switch 2

Was kinda just okay after my initial excitement wore off. The kumori platforming sections were the most fun. Later stages of the game kinda devolved into buggy messes of tons of monsters.

75%PC

Очень прогрессивная игра о том, что внутри каждого мужчины томится сексуальная женщина-ниндзя. Четвёртый акт – самое унылое говно на свете.

80%PlayStation 5

8/10

80%PC

I really enjoyed this game, did not know how it played going into it and expected it to be a metrovenia as blasphemous but was pleasantly, played like a side scroller and there was no metrovenia stuff in the game which was really good.

Bosses are good but were recycled but they played well so its fine, challenging but still fun, got ending B.

80%PC

The game is awesome, but a little buggy. I had to restart the later levels a few times because the game would be just stuck in some state - the character would not appear after a cutscene, Kumori would not spawn during the last bossfight and the like. Considering the very high difficulty this just sucked big time. I had to lower the difficulty after that and the last 3 levels would be just insane without the Accessibility options. Such a shame.

100%PC

This game is an absolute masterpiece. The combat system is simple yet incredibly fast and satisfying, the bosses are awesome, the music absolutely slaps, and the characters each have their own quirky small talk and personality. Add to that the excellent level design, stunning graphics, unique art style, and an enjoyable story. This is exactly what Cyber Shadow should have been, instead of the frustrating experience we got. A true ninja gem worthy of standing beside The Messenger, and even surpassing it in some aspects.

85%Nintendo Switch

While the game can get a bit repetitive at times, the gameplay is very fluid and never boring. I have to say that the bosses were harder than I expected. The inability to save the game at any time and having to start over from the beginning is a drawback. I recommend it to those who enjoy challenging retro games.

90%Nintendo Switch 2

I really wish I had time to 100% this game....but sadly I have a huge backlog I'm trying to get through. The story is ok, but the fast paced combat is where this game really shines.

There are only 4 chapters and can take anywhere from 5-8 hours to complete a single playthrough when you don't try to do 100%. The game also has a setting to adjust difficulty mid playthrough, where you can adjust the amount of damage you take from enemies. However, I personally believe part of the charm of the game is the difficulty so I did not touch this setting

This game has a very nice difficulty ramp up, where the first chapter is really easy as you're getting used to the controls and the last chapter you will get so overwhelmed by enemies and checkpoints are spaced further apart you probably will end up not killing everything. You can use talismans to augment your abilities in some way...or just make it harder on yourself just because.

When you beat the game once, you get access to a hard mode and character skins. Knowing I was not going to actually replay it any time soon, I made my normal mode harder to where I could die in 2 hits by adding a charm that you get very early on that in exchange for a higher level grade at the end of a stage it increases damage taken. You can have 2 talismans equiped at a time. My second talisman was one that increased my dps when my health was very low.....most of the time my health was very low.

The only thing I disliked was that I could not play it on a monitor screen. I'm glad I bought it on Switch 2 and 98% was done in handheld mode. It looks crisp and it's easy to make out every detail (you need to constantly look around and memorize enemy patterns). When I tried playing it docked, it seems graphics and the environments looked a too pixelated (I think that's not a hardware issue but a design choice), but it made it really hard to watch out for environmental hazards or enemies...they would blend together.

Overall a really fun game and made me want to play through the older 3D games.

80%PC

Добротный такой коротенький хакНслеш. Несложный (ну есть ебнутые платформенные секции только в секретных миссиях), динамичный. Разве что музыка так себе, а вообще вполне хорошо

85%PlayStation 5

Very nice game challenging and fair, beautiful pixel art if you like challenging side scroller where everything is dependent on you, you will like this game

80%PC

This is a very solid action platformer that feels like a long lost Sega Saturn game. It’s rock-solid retro-action that reminded me of Mega Man, Contra, Shovel Knight, and of course Ninja Gaiden NES. On the downside, this is an arcade style game that you’ll burn through pretty quickly and won’t have legs for most people.

Action
There are a few interesting mechanics here aside form the expected jumping, slashing, and climbing. You can bounce off of enemies and you gain super slashes by beating certain foes with melee or projectiles. You can also equip different perks and spells which are purchased with collectibles. This is pretty hard but it’s very forgiving. You’ll die a lot but there are no lives so you don’t lose much progress. You can just try again until you succeed.

My main issue with the gameplay was that I eventually started running past a lot of enemies. Shielded enemies are a pain to deal with. They usually put a super-slash enemy nearby but it’s easy to mess this up and then the shielded enemy becomes a nightmare. Beating enemies charges your Ki and super-move which isn’t enough of a motivator… Beating shielded enemies in particular will likely lose you some health so why bother? I think this could have used a currency or something like that.

Aesthetics
This was made by the Blasphemous team and their pixel art continues to dazzle! The cutscenes look great too, and use pixel art unlike Blasphemous 2 which got lazy with its cutscenes. The music is also great. They have an in-house composer but also brought back 3 composers from the NES games which is awesome.

Brevity
While the action and aesthetics are spectacular here, there’s not much else going on. This is a short, linear, action game you’ll burn through in 5-10 hours, even if you do the extra missions. There's a little bit more content than similar games on the SNES/Genesis but not by much.

This is not a MetroidVania or anything like that and has even less exploration than games like Mega Man X or Cyber Shadow. I found almost every collectible on my first run as these levels are mostly a straight shot to the end. This is a retro, arcade style game! Of course, you can endlessly replay to get better ranks or play on hard mode but I haven’t had the patience for this stuff in ages.. There are too many games in my backlog for me to mindlessly play these levels over and over for achievements.

FIN
Given all this, I can’t say this is a must play for most people. Games like Cyber Shadow, Shovel Knight, or the Messenger have given us this retro-style action while also giving us much meatier adventures with more going on outside of the action. It's especially disappointing to me as this dev's Blasphemous games are exponentially more ambitious than this game. Ninja Gaiden Ragebound is very good at what it does and retro-fans will love it but it ultimately feels like a game from a bygone era.

70%PC

Early thoughts:

Was really hyped for this as I did enjoy Blasphemous II (did not like 1 much at all).

I forgot how much platforming the 2D Ninja Gaiden games had and well, platforming has always been the most poorly designed aspect of The Game Kitchen's games.

Sucks to say but nothing has changed on that front. The absolutely garbage Kumori sections, auto-scrolling levels and chapter 4 levels can be insanely infuriating at times as the game expects total precision from you but doesn't have solidly designed mechanics to warrant such an expectation.

The hit detection can be wonky and magnetizing to walls is so cumbersome and inconsistent that it'll either bring the game to a halt when you're climbing and trying to keep a kill combo going or, at worst, lead to some cheap pitfall deaths.

The pixel art, soundtrack and boss battles are all really well done and the earlier chapter levels, if you manage to get into that flow state, are tons of fun.