Ninja Gaiden 4 - Core Compromise | Review
Ninja Gaiden 4 - Core Compromise | Review. Ninja Gaiden 4 has arrived and I don't hate it or anything, but we certainly are a long way from Ninja Gaiden 2 quality, that's for sure. We're a long way from Razor's Edge quality, honestly. I can't say I'm that surprised by some of the trend-chasing elements of its design like its Suck To Target usage and Sekiro style bosses, but what has shocked me is how clearly rushed this game seems to be on just a fundamental level. Across the board, I can't imagine any player approving of its level design, balance, tedious progression elements, lopsided difficulty (starts hard, then becomes easy) and camera system - just to start. Of course, in this review I am going to be discussing the core design of the Ninja Gaiden series and see how Ninja Gaiden 4 stacks up to that, but also just on a basic level as a character action game - even in a Platinum style - this game has issues. I suspect what happened is that Platinum designed the entire game's system around freestyling on low difficulty mode enemies, and then just turned up the speed and intensity of the game on higher difficulties, which immediately shows its compromised core (difficulty clarifies design, for better or worse ha). It's sort of ironic how much this reminds me of the misguided original version of Ninja Gaiden 3 on release, put perhaps even more misguided. I think Platinum have attempted to merge together some confused sense of hardcore design with modern accessibility and somehow managed to achieve neither. The game isn't accessible and broad-reaching like Sekiro, but neither is it really that difficult or deep either. If this game wasn't selling itself on the basis of legendary the Ninja Gaiden IP and instead some scrappy new IP from an inexperienced developer, it would be interesting in a Mugen sort of way (though the horrific level design is still impossible to look past). But Platinum can't use the Ninja Gaiden IP and not expect to be held to the series standard. What I can only hope that Platinum does, like Team Ninja did with NG3, is take a serious look at the game and heavily revise it similarly to Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, because the issues go way beyond just a few balance changes. I think the systems need to be reworked from the ground up. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the game because despite the positive reviews, I don't think it's landing the way Platinum might have expected. Who knows? All I know is that I appreciate Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 more by the day. Amazing thumbnail by the master: @boghogSTG / boghogooo Patreon / electricunderground [$2 tier = Monthly Game Review Vote, Name in Credits, Exclusive Monthly Podcast] [$5 tier = Double Monthly Game Review Vote, By Name Shout-out, Name in Credits, Exclusive Monthly Podcast] Website: https://theelectricundergr.wixsite.co... Electric Reddit: / electricunderground STG Revision 2020 Discord (Shhmup Community Discord): / discord 00:00 The Core of Ninja Gaiden 06:40 Ninja Gaiden 4's Lack of Foundation 10:33 Meter-Based Blocking - No Triangle Anymore 15:42 Suck to Target Sucks 20:20 Beware the Magnetic Bend 26:23 Assisted Targeting - When a Game Plays Itself... Badly 29:39 Bloodbind - A Meter That Can't Manage Itself 33:33 I Agree... Ryu Feels Like an Afterthought 34:11 QTE Level Design, How Does Platinum Get Away With It? 39:55 The "Right" Kind of Difficulty, According to Platinum 45:27 Final Thoughts - Revision Required #ninjagaiden4, #ninjagaiden2, #ninjagaiden
