Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound review: "Absolutely proves Ninja Gaiden deserved to be revived – I've never been happier to be right"

In a sea of retro revivals, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is uncommonly good. It pulls elements of classic Ninja Gaiden games – the precise platforming of the 2D era, and the lightning-fast combat of the 3D era – but it doesn't exactly feel like anything that's come before. The Game Kitchen, the Spanish studio behind the beloved Blasphemous games, has put its own spin on a classic series that absolutely proves Ninja Gaiden deserved to be revived – I've never been happier to be right.

You play as Kenji, a young ninja trained under longtime series protagonist Ryu Hyabusa, who's left to more-or-less singlehandedly defend the clan when a demonic incursion comes through. Kenji has all the moves you'd expect of a ninja, letting you go sword-slashing, wall-climbing, and dodge-rolling through a bloody swathe of evil monsters.

The action feels simply sublime, down to the last detail. The best part is the Guillotine boost, a quick mid-air attack that doesn't do much damage, but allows you to soar to new heights . It's basically a double-jump, but one you proactively have to leap into danger to use. You can even use it to effectively pogo-jump on bosses, in the style of DuckTales on NES or Shovel Knight, staying above the fray to dodge big attacks.

Jump like an assassin

Kenji's arsenal dramatically expands when he takes on the spirit of Kumori, a member of a rival clan who's sure to be a new guilty crush for lovers of toxic girlbosses everywhere. Kumori's abilities – governed by a meter that refills as you kill enemies with melee strikes – let you make ranged attacks with daggers, big flying axes, and other items that you unlock in a shop with collectables gathered throughout each stage.

Each level forces you to use your moves in fun ways, and it simply feels sublime to run through those stages, bouncing between enemies and platforms in an unbroken ballet befitting a ninja assassin. Guillotine boost across a small swarm of flying enemies, climb across a ceiling tossing kunai at incoming threats, hop down into a melee battle, dodge-roll through an impending attack and lunge forward with a final thrust. 2D action games that feel as good as this are rare indeed.

The heart of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is the Hypercharge attack. Certain enemies will be marked with a glowing aura, and if you defeat that enemy with a matching attack – blue auras need a melee strike, while purple auras require a ranged kill – you'll have a brief window where your next attack will take out any foe in a single strike.

You'll frequently find the path out of any given combat encounter guarded by a big, heavy enemy who requires numerous attacks to go down – unless you have a Hypercharge attack ready to go. The rhythm of most combat encounters, then, is about clearing small enemies, waiting for a foe with an aura to appear, then quickly killing it and dodging past the rest of the encounter to slice through the heavy before the Hypercharge disappears.

Nailing the pattern to quickly clear the fight is satisfying every single time. Ragebound doesn't require the same amount of memorization as classic Ninja Gaiden games – this game just isn't as punishing as its forebears – but the Hypercharge system rewards you for building a perfect path through each fight. It offers the satisfaction of nailing a tricky series of enemies without frustrating you for not knowing where every single bad guy is going to spawn.

Most levels culminate in a boss fight that really puts your abilities to the test. These big monsters have old-school attack patterns that are difficult to dodge on sight, but soon become predictable on successive attempts, and more than once I found myself absolutely wrecked by a boss on my first try, only to do the fight almost damageless once I got the pattern down.

Not quite NES hard

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is challenging, but not overly so. It has generous checkpoints, and you can take as many retries as you need. A hard mode unlocks once you beat the game which substantially ups the number of enemies you'll encounter, but again, it doesn't quite measure up to the legendary difficulty Ninja Gaiden is known for. For my money, that's a good thing, but if you have any experience with 2D action games you won't find too many roadblocks in the five or so hours it takes to finish the main story.

Every single level in Ragebound is an absolute blast, but by the time the credits rolled, I found myself missing something I had a hard time putting my finger on – one more little twist that could set a hook beyond the core action. The upgrades you can purchase give you new abilities, but I found myself settling on one build very early on that I kept coming back to. I kept gathering collectables because the challenges that unlocked them were fun, but each new unlock had me essentially going "That's nice, but I'm going back to the moves I already love."

Without the draw of new abilities, then, Ragebound struggles to offer that extra little reward to entice you back to explore its deepest depths. Beating the game had me a little disappointed, like there was a "that's it?" at the end of it all, especially given the story's relatively short length.

And yet… Every time I sit back down in front of my Steam library, I find myself firing Ragebound up once again, speedrunning through levels to get another taste of that satisfying action. With some vanishingly rare exceptions, I've grown to hate long games, so understand the praise I'm giving this one by saying I wish there was more of it. There are few action games, 2D or otherwise, as satisfying to play as Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, and whether or not that next upgrade is worthwhile I can't stop coming back for more.