I get often excited when I preview upcoming games. Who wouldn’t do it? Checking out the game’s pre-release and then sharing the experience is one of the joys of this job. However, I’m sure I started drooling when the code for a new build of Ninja Gaiden Ragebound came into effect in my inbox. That’s really Pavlov’s reaction. See, our ninja Gaiden Sikkos have been pinning the good old days for a while, but this year it was like stumbling over a desert oasis. Only Oasis has air conditioning, order menus from your favorite local joints, and an open bar. Ninja Gaiden fans have been wandering through these sands for a long time. But this year, I feel like we’re coming home.
I hadn’t played the demo I previewed last time, so RageBound was a new experience for me. But it felt like it slipped into a pair of old shoes. It took me a while to get back to swinging things – I wasn’t playing 2D Ninja Gaiden in hot seconds, but I’ve done it once, but it felt like I never left. There’s a lot to talk about here, but we’ve already done a more traditional preview of what’s more, than seeing the meat and potato experience playing ragebound, so let’s dig into the heart this time. These are seven cool things Ninja Gaiden Large Bound.
#1: With Guillotine Boost you can bounce off (and “it” is everything)
There are plenty of cool mechanics in the Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, but everything else flows from there, so we start with a guillotine boost. When you’re in the air, you can attack the enemy and jump again when you’re trying to contact the enemy to bounce back for another jump. Isn’t it cool?
But it’s not just the enemy. This can also be done on projectiles. There are also enemy attacks. Obviously, you can use guillotine boost to reach places you wouldn’t otherwise be able to, but you can also use it to bounce back between enemies and continue your attack. I was able to bounce back for seconds to Gurthka, the second level boss of the demo, while he was about to attack me. And what about those strange smurai spear spirits? Bouncing off their attacks and continue. Is guillotine as cool as Izuna Drop? No, there’s nothing. But that’s pretty close.
#2: Hyper Charge is 1 hit kill in style
Now, the guillotine boost allows you to reach difficult-to-reach areas, continue your attack and maintain your boss’s style. But what if you need to kill something in one stroke? Well, that’s where the hypercharge comes in. You can obtain a hypercharge by killing enemies with your aura. This will give you a supercharged charge for a few seconds. When you have it, your next attack will instantly kill the enemy. To be fair, most enemies in Ragebound die on one hit. But what isn’t? You don’t want to go to toe with those cats. In a pinch, you can sacrifice health to manually recharge, but you’ll want to avoid it if possible. When you’re really cooking, you’re chaining these together to quickly cut down enemies in a row, or unleash them with the boss, stun them and lying in the wounds, which is a great feeling. Come to think of it, that brings me to my next point.
#3: Simon says he’s cool right now
Many video games like Simon mentions combat design. You see what I’m saying; enemies use certain types of attacks because they are of a certain color (I’m looking at you, DMC: Devil May Cry), or drop a stance constructed to argue against it as they are swinging a certain weapon (I don’t think I’ll notice, Tsushima’s ghost). It’s a bit boring, isn’t it?
Ninja Gaiden Ragebound says Simon and combat design, but it runs away because it does it in a cool way. You can still kill anything with the Ragebound demo I played in any way you wish. But some of those auras that give you super charge? If you want that overcharge, you must kill those enemies in a certain way. A blue aura means that it must be sliced together with Kenji’s katana, while a purple aura means that it must be used with kunai. Once you receive that hypercharge, you can use it the way you want it. However, forcing Aura to match the right weapon to the right weapon will add an element of welcoming challenge, especially if the enemy needs to respond quickly, especially on the screen for a few seconds.
#4: Rollin’ at Kumori Rocks
At some unspecified points in the Ragebound story, our boy Kenji blends with the cowgirl. Like a good member of Hayabusa Clan, he is rather upset by his upset with the Spider Clan ninja, but he should not. There are many benefits to walking with a spider. First, she not only accesses kenji to kunai to deal with enemies in range (and teleports to specific objects in the environment), but she is also a spider weapon. In my demonstration it took the shape of a throwable sickle that arches to remind me terrible of the slow axis from Castlevania. And she will give you access to screen clearing rage bound arts. When everything around you must absolutely die aggressively, you will not accept replacements. Hey, more toys, right? But that doesn’t all bring to the table.
She can also mate with the devil’s altar and navigate the other world. With a different mind than Kenji’s body, roaming around the other world allows her to go to places he can’t do and open up new paths. She also has access to Kunai without Ki or anything Kenji doesn’t have. A drawback? She needs to constantly refill her meter to stay in the other world. Otherwise, it’s back to Kenji and you have to do it again. Sometimes, it means you repeat the section several times. It also splits the action and offers new ways to play. It’s pretty cool. Also, the cows say a lot of “good sadness.” i love her.
#5: Exploration is worth your time
One thing I really appreciate about Ragebound is its purity. It is not another logelite in the never-ending sea of logelite (thank God). This is an intravenous, side-scrolling action game in the original trilogy of the series. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth leaving the beaten path. There are scarabs and crystal skulls to find, but although it was unclear which of these would do what (scarabs act as currency for Muramasa stores that were not available in my demo, I can only guess what he offers) but it definitely gives you an excuse to explore. My favorite “Do your bits of options, do cool things” section had to navigate tricky, teleport-like platform sections as spiders. It took some attempts to get it right (I kept messing up at the end), but by the time I nailed it, I knew something like the back of my hands. And I feel that good.
#6: Rewards your mastery
Oh, and talking about mastering something, Ninja Gaiden Reigbound wants you to play these levels as many times as you want. Once you defeat it, you can immediately access it again from the map. And every time you play, you get scored on time, collectibles, the number of enemies killed, and your best combo. If that’s not enough, there are also optional challenges, such as completing levels, killing many enemies with a charge attack, or defeating Ryu Hayabusa herself in the tutorial. I… didn’t do that. He said Izuna dropped my ass. It was rad like hell. I’ll take you one day, Ryu.
#7: It hurts very much
The Ninja Gaiden Ragebound itself is not easily called, but it is not impossible even in the usual difficulties. This series is like a legacy to maintain in terms of difficult things, and you have to become a kind of masochistic person to see the deepest level of practics that it has to show you. What can you say? I like pain.
Hitting the demo is good news for me when I unleash one hard version of the level I just just played. And um, um… that’s much more difficult. There’s a new enemy! Everything is on fire! The game kitchen developer put something in for Sickos. I appreciate it.
I came out of time with the Ninja Gaiden Large Bound. Thank you, but I want more. What can you say? I love action games and this series holds a special place in my heart, especially. When you’re not around, I get shaking, the voice of a ninja. But it’s very good that you’re back.
