- Tested on Nintendo Switch 2
- Code transmitted by the publisher
- Home gameplay captures
- Finished in about ten explosive hours.
What if 2025 was under the sign of ninjas? Between Shinobi : Art of Vengeance and Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, the end of the summer saw two heavyweights competing, so as to prepare a fratricidal duel between two licences which marked with red iron in the late 1980s. These memorable franchises for old breakers were born in 1987 and 1988, respectively, in the middle of ninja-mania. It is the publisher Dotemu, to whom many renaissances of cult series are due, who bet on the success of Ragebound Out this summer. Developed by the Spaniards of The Game Kitchen who made his weapons on the series Blasphemous, Ragebound is the direct sequel to the original episode released on NES.
A ninja never admits defeat
Where « Ryu Hayabusa leaves Hayabusa Village to avenge her father's death, it is the young ninja of the Hayabusa Kenji Mozu clan who comes out of the shadow to defy the forces of evil ». Tadada! Are you still here? (Take a rough voice to read the rest of the synopsis). It is then that « Kenji will have to team up with a dreadful black Spider clan kunoichi ». All right, let's give you a break, we're not here to play Ninja Gaiden for his script that makes the strict minimum, not to say that he tries nothing. Some will blame him, others should appreciate the very direct side of the title. Some will blame him, others should appreciate the very direct side of Ragebound.
Instead of proposing two distinct playable characters, Ragebound proposes to marry Kumori's soul skills in Kenji's body. The two enemy brothers will merge their powers allowing Kenji to launch daggers and use demonic portals to spend a limited time at the implacable warrior known to saga lovers. Even if several ends are available, we feel that the game is designed for several (speed)runs and more particularly for the score. Also note the strange lack of a scoreboard of the world scores for an arcade game dedicated to the scoring.
The gameplay holds in just a few buttons and it relies primarily on the dexterity of the player and the play of the patterns. After a main adventure dispatched in a few ten hours, the game delivers its full potential with a tough fashion resolutely different from the first game. The placement as the number of enemies changes, new obstacles appear and more use must be made of the duo's skills. The gameplay consists of attacking with its short-range sword and, once remotely, with Kumori daggers. Pressure on the trigger allows to dash and avoid enemy attacks. You can hang on the cornices like the ceiling, jump and bounce on the opponents and projectiles by pressing the jump button again. This technique gives a very aerial side to the gameplay and is part of the DNA of any good ninja game.
Ninja Warrior
Finally, it will be necessary to choose to eliminate some enemies as a priority to benefit from super attacks that eliminate the toughest monsters at once, unless we prefer to sacrifice part of our life to trigger directly the hypercharge. The levels end most of the time with a boss not stung by the hannetons. On this side, the game offers particularly dynamic and varied combats while keeping a measured level of difficulty. The menu looks much more full-bodied in difficulty, where it seems that we have to sacrifice our lifebar more frequently to generate a super attack. A dilemma that certainly allows to defeat bosses faster on paper but that exposes the player more to the game over.
The levels chain at all speeds giving a small patchwork side punctuating as much on the side of Catlevania, of Contra licences Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden Of course. In order not to overwhelm the player's ego, the developers have integrated a lot of intermediate checkpoints, which limits frustration while favoring a little too blind offensives in order to rush to the next backup point. Regrettably, this pushes the flight forward, which in turn amputates some of the prestige of the victories. The depth may seem superficial, at first at least at least as the sacrosanct quest for the score pushes to boldness, all the more difficult.
Messenger in a bottle?
Without being as original and chiselled as the demanding The Messenger or more nervous titles like Katana Zero, Ragebound remains an effective fun condensation. Of course, as the above-mentioned titles attempted a step in terms of both narrative and openness to metroidvania, Ragebound could have been a little less academic. The Game Kitchen game prefers to play the nostalgia card. It is a spiritual continuation of the games of the 80/90s and it is already very good like that! Dotemu plays a score performed without false notes but which would have won at a hair of more madness. We feel the desire to stick to the closest memories of the players who grew up with these licenses by giving them an experience closest to the games of the time while modernizing the hardest points to grasp today. *
To resurrect a license, it is also good to surround those who gave him his chandelier. Ragebound The composers Keiji Yamagishi, Ryuichi Niita and Kaori Nakabai, to whom we owe the music of the first three works released on NES. They join Sergio de Prado, who had already worked on the precedents. Blasphemous. It is therefore a roded team that signs the very exciting OST of Ragebound. What also makes the game of The Game Kitchen developers charming is its generosity. The game can boast of having a relatively large bestiary that avoids falling into recycling. You feel the sincere will to never bother the player. Some alternative paths also allow to unlock special levels and each of them ends up with a score table with the S ranking at the key. You can also unlock some bonuses by recovering parchments and ingame beetles.
Ragebound prepares the ground for the exit of Ninja Gaiden 4. As such, licensing assignments are sometimes successful, and such initiatives would like to be seen more often. Finally, the only thing we can blame for the game is a certain academicism and a catapulted end; for the rest, The Game Kitchen understood very well what made Ninja Gaiden's salt. Ragebound should be a top candidate for speedrun enthusiasts. That's enough to put pressure on Sega and her Shinobi, who seems to be following the same path of scoring. Who of ninja or shinobi will delight the hearts of the players? We bet our balls on a duplicate, why choose after all? One ninja can hide another as they say in the jargon! Verdict very soon since Lizardcube's game is expected on August 29.
For
- Gameplay chiseled
- Easy to play...
- ...hard to master
- Pure and hard arcade
- OST
- Pixel Art with tuning
- Hard mode
Against
- Not very subtle
- No world ranking
- Very agreed history
For seeing you play there this summer, this one tries a lot!