Everyone online was mad while Team Ninja dropped a fresh gameplay clip for Ninja Gaiden 4, showcasing the more fancy combat mechanics. The tweet is muscle-flexing that players are going to obliterate all of their enemies with the smoothest combat ever owing to weapon changes in the middle of combos between Twin Blades, Rapier, and Staff. The Pre-orders are open, but reactions have been, umm… so all over the place.
Things first good: There are some fans enjoying it for its fluidity. Farrisken210 commented: “I mean sure the air combat screams DMC, but… this looks so damn sick.” CelestialReapr backed the new mechanics: “Seamless weapon switching → more ways to mess up enemies → more fun.” And really, who doesn’t want more ways to style on virtual ninjas?
Now, back to the backlash. Another section of the fanbase is just not feeling it. FLP_74 said very blandly: “Does not look like Ninja Gaiden, like at all.” Some other people, like cityhunter_sega, calling it “a disgrace for Ninja Gaiden fans,” claiming that it is pandering too much to Devil May Cry/Platinum Games audiences. Ouch. Those kinds of criticisms stem from fear that the franchise might be turning its back on the punishingly deliberate combat style for flashy, fast combo-based action. Pazelwurm went on to say that it is a design flaw because infinite combos on helpless enemies remove the challenge.
Then there is the Ryu Hayabusa problem. The players are scared that the legendary ninja might get treated like “vanilla NG3” (shudder) with very limited weapons. _yungsenku implored, “Give more weapons to Ryu too. We don’t want him to be like NG3 again😭.” Leek6428 theorizes that Team Ninja is probably afraid of overhauling Ryu’s moveset and so are just going to let him fall behind the new protagonist Yakumo.
Sound design certainly didn’t escape the akathisia, Trappylackypack told the guys: “Those sound effects still sound like shit.” JumpyFeller offered a more ambivalent take: “I’m good… 😐.”
Overall, that whole drama has made one thing clear: Team Ninja is going balls on. Whether this reinvention is a hit or a flop depends on how well they manage to marry the new idea with the series’ traditionally brutal roots. The pre-orders could only be truly put to the test when players finally get the game in their hands. Prediction will be either the greatest comeback or drifting identity crisis with angry forum threads siding hard on one.
And hey, at the very least, there seems to be one thing that unites every single one of us: nobody wants another NG3. Let’s just never bring that up.
