You know, playing Vanilla Ninja Gaiden 2 and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge was an enlightening experience for me.
Ninja Gaiden 2 gave me a taste of Itegaki’s vision, before having to swallow the bull$hit he added on top of that great thing because of his ego.
I made a whole review about his game, which you can check at this link.

Razor’s Edge, on the other hand, I feel like the series was going in the right direction before stumbling upon some minor nitpicks that make me hate playing with Ryu but absolutely love playing with the Female characters (besides Ayane).
Something about the combat just doesn’t seem right.

And with the upcoming Ninja Gaiden 4, set to be released this year, I pray every day that this won’t be another flop for the Ninja Gaiden franchise.
I am not sure if NG4 is still in development or not, but it’s better late than never.

So here are my top 7 things Ninja Gaiden 4 must have to be the next best Hack & Slash.

1. More moves must be Cancellable (🔼🔼 + Dodge/S.C.)

I find it ironic that Devil May Cry games allow players to cancel most moves via jump, dash, evade, and, of course, Jump-Cancel, while the Ninja Gaiden games barely have any cancellable moves.

Why is it ironic, you ask? The reason is that Ninja Gaiden has aggressive enemies that are unrelenting and fast AF.
If enemies are gonna be aggressive, then the player needs the right tools to handle them.

Since Ninja Gaiden is not about air combo fest like Devil May Cry, the combat often revolves around iframe wars (e.g., Ultimate Technique, Oblitiration Technique, Izuna Drop, 🔃+🔼 moves on most weapons, etc)

Which makes the combat cheesy, and worse, 50% plus of your moveset is useless.

If you wanna make players to make use of all the moves available, then allow players to cancel out of them to dodge incoming attacks.
Let players either cancel with S.C. or just a regular dodge mid hit-string.
It’s that simple, honestly. And this should honestly be a standard in fast-paced action games IMO.

Do you know how many times I get hit in NG3:RE just because I could not dodge mid light attack hit string? It’s ridiculous.
And don’t get me started on how NG2 forces you to exploit cheesy tactics that make the game feel like a chore to complete.

2. Balanced & Fun bosses

I might have my gripes with Devil May Cry 4, but when playing with Nero against any boss, I’ve never felt like the game cheesed 🧀 my a$$ with cheap shots.

In Ninja Gaiden 2 and ESPECIALLY in Razor’s Edge, on the other hand?
Yeah, those bosses just do whatever the f*ck they want.

Again, cancel options can make intense boss fights more interesting, since you can’t rely on:

1. Izuna Drop, which doesn’t work on 99% of the bosses besides Genshin.
2. Obliteration Technique, which obviously can’t be done on bosses (besides that dragon from Sigma 2)
3. Ultimate Technique, which is a charge move
4. Need I say more about how the meta game (i.e., the iframe wars) of the Ninja Gaiden is not that good to begin with?

But besides allowing players to shift from slashing to dodging, Platinum Games also need to focus on boss attack patterns.
Sure, they can be aggressive as all hell, but when they perform a move that the player obviously dodged or parry, let the player goddamn punish them.

Do you know how many times I tried to punish Elizabeth’s thrust attack in Ninja Gaiden 2, only to be grabbed the moment she got hit by my slashes?
Or that damn “Regent of the Mask” which you can parry easily, but he will just iframe your counter to f*ck you up as he pleases?

It’s tiring, and this shouldn’t be in a triple-A game.

3. Control Ultimate Technique ❌

I am putting a ❌ on this point because, from what it seems, the UT in this game will probably behave the same as in the old games.
Here’s what it will look like for Raven, the newcomer:

My wish was that Ultimate Technique would grant players the generous iframes as before, but also allow us to control how to use it exactly.

Take, for example, Ryu’s UT with the Dragon Sword.
When fully charged, Ryu will slash multiple times at one enemy, then teleport to the next. He teleports at least 2 times, so you end up hitting at least 3 enemies or more.

The issue I have with this UT is that I have no control over where Ryu teleports.
So it would have been nice to have more control during this UT, for example.

But my intuition tells me that it’s a lost cause.

4. Making Ninpo 🔥 more engaging

Ever since the release of Ninja Gaiden 2 and onwards, the Ninpo felt like it was not integrated well into the fast-paced combat.

In Ninja Gaiden 2, players could stock multiple ninpo slots to use against cheap bosses or kill multiple enemies at once.
The problem was that the Ninpo cast itself took 3 seconds after activation, which breaks the combat’s pace.

In Razor’s Edge, the developers addressed the issue by allowing players to choose when to cast the Ninpo.
In addition to that, Ninpo kills restore the player’s health.

The catch to the idea is that the Ninpo slots were replaced with the Ninpo meter. The Ninpo bar is charged by the kills the player stacks
Ninpo bar’s length can change depending on which Ninpo you select in battle.
The “stronger” the Ninpo is, the more kills it demands to be activated.

Razor’s Edge’s implementation of Ninpo is fine, but I think they can improve with these minor updates

Allow Players to stack Ninpos again

Note: There’s one bull$hit I “forgot” to mention.
You can charge a ninpo that needs a lot of kills to be loaded (like the True Inferno 🐉), but if you choose a ninpo that requires less bar, like the Piercing Void 🌌, then besides the bar you need to cast it, all the other charge you gained is lost.

I don’t know if Ninpo is gonna restore health in Ninja Gaiden 4, but even if it does, I don’t think the developers should restrict players from stacking Ninpo.
After all, the Ninpo is a part of the iframe wars, which this game heavily relies on.

5. Badass Female Ninjas 💃

There’s nothing more to say, just add all the female Ninjas with their own Unique gimmick
Kasumi’s grabs, Momiji’s ranges, Ayane’s speed, and maybe Rachel?

6. Bring Back Coop! 👦+🧒 = More Fun

One of the good things about Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 on the PS3 for me was the co-op feature.

I am sucker for these kinds of modes and I wish they added this feature in the remake versions of Ninja Gaiden 2.
But for some god forsaken reason, you can only play with the useless bot 🤖!

Ninja Gaiden 3 had this unique versus multiplayer mode, which I never got to experience, but to be completely honest, Hack & Slash games don’t fit naturally into PVP modes like shooter games.

Just add the COOP please🙏
Look how cool this is!

7. On-the-fly Weapon Switching ⚔🔃🗡

I ran out of ideas from this point 😜
I could have talked about Bow 🏹 Combat and improving shooting mechanics in general, but so far I haven’t seen one windmill shuriken clip or a Bow in Team Ninja’s X/Twitter page.

Luckily, I remembered that there is one obvious thing Team Ninja & Platinum Games can improve.
And that is weapon switching.

Much like the Ninpo selection Via D-PAD, so too does the weapon switching be:

1. ➡ Dragon Sword 🗡
2. ⬅ Dual Swords ⚔
3. ⬆ Kusarigama ⛓🗡
4. ⬇ Lunar Staff 🦯
5. Double tap on DPAD for 2nd weapon slot (Much like in DmC reboot)

Outro

I have confidence that Team Ninja & Platinum Games will deliver the best & stable Ninja Gaiden game.
I think the developers learned the mistakes of the previous games and tried to form a new game that combines all the good elements from each iteration.

The new Raven character looks promising, and the bosses seem to get staggered more frequently based on clips shared on Social Media.
To me, it’s already looking like a step in the right direction.

On one hand, I want this game released ASAP.
On the other hand, I don’t want them to rush this game, because any mistakes made might not get patched later.

But you know what they say – “No one knows where a game flows“….. or whatever, at least I tried to end on a comedic note XD.