Ninja Gaiden 4 review: "Thrilling action and deep blood powers make this the series' best and a stunning return to form"

You might imagine ninja to be a stealthy sort, and while it's true that Yakumo, the new star of Ninja Gaiden 4, has a quiet, quick step, he's anything but subtle. A tap of the button near an unaware enemy will have him slice them to bits with his blade. But mostly, he'll be dismantling the limbs of large groups of enemies with bloody abandon without a care for who sees. After all, one thing is true – to see Yakumo coming means only one thing for you: certain death.

It would be tempting to call character action games like Ninja Gaiden 4 hack and slash, but that's doing a disservice to the carefully choreographed fights that you'll have no choice but to master. What may appear at a glance to be a spinning top of violence is only possible through careful execution of Yakumo's huge arsenal of ninja weaponry. A deadly dance. Ninja Gaiden 4 is, a lot of the time, close to a fighting game or a rhythm game. Mashing will only get you so far – usually towards your grave.

Instead, awareness of which weapons to use when, and which combos to deploy in each situation, are vital. Which is why mastering them feels so satisfying – more than enacting progressively gorier kills on demons and cyber soldiers, you feel a greater control in your own action, your own body. Ninja Gaiden 4 is about mastering your own will as much as it is in slaying gnarly foes – though that does help. Coming from developer PlatinumGames (in collaboration with Team Ninja), at times this can feel as much a successor to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance as it is a perfect passing of the torch forward for Ninja Gaiden. This ninja series can still play in the big leagues, finally giving Devil May Cry 5 serious competition.

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Blood soaked

Yakumo steps into Ninja Gaiden 4 fully formed, effortlessly taking the mantle of series star Ryu Hayabusa. His quest provides perfect reasoning for this perspective shift. Years earlier, Ryu battled and sealed the dark dragon over Tokyo – its suspended skeleton endlessly raining blood below, turning the city into a quarantine zone.

Only one from the prophesied Raven Clan will be able to truly cleanse the dragon, which means Yakumo and his allies will have to first revive it, putting him at odds with our former protagonist. Which means clashing with daemons, fiends, and even the security force that protect the dragon's supernatural corpse. Quiet, yet prickly and brash – Yakumo is the short king I didn't know the series needed, an occasional curse word from his lips causing me to cackle. I simply love his energy – eyes locked onto the mission, he is so done with any interruption. Dare to try to book him into a work call on a Friday afternoon and you'd be slain before even hitting the send invitation button.

Yakumo's clan works from the shadows, giving him some equally shady powers to go alongside action that otherwise feels like a natural evolution of Ninja Gaiden 2 – meaning this year's excellent Ninja Gaiden 2 Black release was well timed (and let's just say that Ninja Gaiden 3 has, for many years, haunted the series as a bit of a disappointment). Mixing together light and heavy attacks results in a range of steadily expanding combos for each of Yakumo's weapons, different chains of attacks allowing you to control the battlefield in unique ways. Enemies closing in around you? Perhaps go for a sweeping, area attack; or slash one foe into the air to keep up a combo while airborne. There's always an option in how to respond. And yes, while skybound you can still use the Izuna Drop to turn a foe into a twirling piledriver of destruction.

Slaying foes means red health orbs are dropped, which can also be sucked in to unleash an Ultimate Technique attack chain that acts like a drum solo of destruction, a pause in the action for you to reorient. Oncoming attacks can be dodged and parried, be that through perfectly timed blocks or simultaneously striking – all of which, naturally, open up unique attack windows for you to respond to the vulnerability. Slice off an enemy's limb, as Yakumo's deadly weapons often will, and they'll be primed for an obliteration technique, one of a handful of ever-satisfying finishing kills that are intensely, gloriously violent – yet, ignore them, and they can strike back even while missing a limb, doing extreme damage in return. Fights in Ninja Gaiden 4 are always about control.

So far, so Ninja Gaiden 2 – though returning action here is seriously polished and feels slicker than ever. What really sets Ninja Gaiden 4 apart? It's all in the trigger – holding down the left one has Yakumo expend a generous-to-obtain blood resource to enter his Bloodraven form. This completely transforms his weapon, unlocking whole mirror move sets, while also bestowing his attacks with special properties – namely the ability to defend against super attacks, strike through blocking enemies, and even knock bosses out of the wind-ups to some of their more powerful moves. Enter Bloodraven while activating a longer-to-buildup Berserk mode, and charge attacks can even deliver stylish, one-hit-kill, posed scenes to punctuate the violence.

Essentially what this does is give combat in Ninja Gaiden 4 a second layer. One you always need to be aware of. Blood fills up thick and fast, matching the speed of the action, so you almost always have the option of dipping into your blood tanks – Yakumo's dual blades becoming one massive red sword that's something like four times as big he is; a rapier shifting into a drill; a staff turning into a… rocket-powered hammer!? The arsenal is unhinged and I can't get enough of it.

It's a stroke of genius that Bloodraven form is mapped to a trigger, as it really feels like you're nudging it like an accelerator pedal mid-clash. Spot an enemy getting their guard up as you're mid-chain? Give it some gas, and smash right through it. It's fantastic in clashes with hordes of enemies as it feels like you have a nitro boost to push yourself through even the densest encounters, and gives a real sense of power against the hulking bosses as well – there's an almost Nioh 2 yokai power energy to having the much smaller Yakumo just lock in and bat away enemy moves like they're nothing before shredding a screen-long health bar.

Ninja Gaiden 4's action is pure electricity from start to finish, only getting better as you unlock new moves and weapons to hotswap between mid-combo. I do wish some of the abilities were standard from the start – a common character action gripe – but NinjaCoin currency quickly means you can scoop up the vital powers (weapon techniques, however, feel weirdly slow to earn).

Tokyo drift

Yakumo's quest to destroy each seal over the dragon has him journey through vastly different Tokyo districts, ranging from zombie-like nightclubs in the sewers, to a wind-ravaged valley littered with bloodthirsty tengu. Each area is absolutely gorgeous. For anyone who was enchanted with Ninja Gaiden 2's opening neo Tokyo level – the whole game basically just riffs on that aesthetic.

I have to tip my ninja headband to the level design as well, which avoids the genre danger of feeling like hallways between arenas. There's plenty of little side paths with collectibles, items, and hidden challenge levels to find, and combat that thrusts you into battle in unique spaces – from tight wooden bridges in the windy valley to dance floors. It feels varied and alive, and very few times do I feel like I'm fighting in samey arenas.

Battles are punctuated with some lightweight platforming sections that I've gone from being mixed on to appreciating. A grapple hook, for starters, actually has use in fights beyond just moving through stages – going a long way to helping you mop up annoying ranged foes on the fringes (a problem that still exists but feels much better balanced than many in the genre). An early stage with plenty of rail grinding gave me the fear at first (for as much as I love Ratchet & Clank), but these sequences are short but sweet, and as different movement options unlock, chaining them together eventually feels satisfying, and helps to give each area you move through a thrilling sense of scope.

It's no secret that Ryu Hayabusa is also playable – though Yakumo is the real star of Ninja Gaiden 4. The two characters play similarly, but different enough for both's inclusion to feel worthwhile, especially as a post-game stage selection means you can tackle any level as either.

Ninja Gaiden 4 is longer than the base games of its predecessors, stretching to a length closer to the re-release versions that feature bonus levels. Ryu's stages fill a similar role, and while they are leagues ahead of those in past games, still feel like they retread ground a little bit. They also come at a point in the story where the character shift to Ryu, who only has one weapon, feels like an odd step back in complexity – not to mention you, for some reason, have to re-unlock ninja techniques for him by finding chests. It's not hard, but feels like a road bump near the game's climax that can't quite deliver on the pacing.

Not that it matters much. Almost every second playing Ninja Gaiden 4 is a pure thrill ride, making it one of the best action games I've ever played. The controls are tight, deep, and, thanks to the Bloodraven mechanics, boast many layers. It can take a minute to get used to the extra demands, easing into weaving Yakumo's blood powers into scraps – but when it becomes second nature it's like little else I've played. A terrific return to form for the series in a way I never dreamed would happen, Ninja Gaiden 4 is a bloody good time.

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