Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound The work of love. You can see it in every pixel, animation and the outflow of a new 2D game. It may be surprising that this is not a job Ninja teamThe studio, most closely associated with the series, but rather a newcomer to the Game Kitchen franchise. The Spanish studio is most famous for its work on Blasfemous, a series of souls similar to Metroidvanias, under the influence of its own Andalusian culture and the history of Spain with Roman-Catholicism.
“I am a child of the 80s,” says David Jaumandreu, game director and producer Ninja Gaiden: RageboundField “I still have a copy of the first Ninja Gaiden In the basement. “The way Jaumanreu says, Rage This is a dream project for him and his colleagues. Game kitchen began to work on the game about halfway to production Blasphemy 2Field French publisher Your pointmost famous because I released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Schredder RevengeHe went to the studio after he saw his work on BlasphemousField
There is some superficial visual overlap between Rage And Blasphemy 2But when it comes to tone and gameplay, they I could not be more heterogeneous. Where Blasphemy 2 dark and solemn Rage Bends into the origin of the franchise as a product of the 80s. It is loud and often stupid, but minimal. It is also much faster, with levels that evaluate how quickly you can complete them, often receiving as little damage as possible.
At the beginning of the project, one of the things that the team knew that she wanted to include two main characters, one of them comes from the Black Clan of the Spider. For the uninitiated clan of a black spider, he usually served as the antagonists of the Ninja Gaiden series. Rage Installed during the events of the 1988 NES. After the protagonist of the series Ryu Hayabus leaves the United States to avenge the death of his father, the demons descend to the peaceful village of Hayabus, and the newcomer Kenji to save his clan.
“We thought that if we return the series to its roots, would it not be great to control one of the black clans of the spider?” Says Jaumanreu. “This is similar to when you can make the Star Wars game, and you fantasize about the control of the character of the empire.”
To the surprise of everyone in the game cuisine, both Dotemu and Koei Tecmo – the original owner of the Ninja Gaiden license – liked this idea. In the demonstration in which I played, I did not see the exact circumstances of how Kumori Kenji and the Black Clan Clan ultimately work together, but his essence is forced to unite souls to survive a mortal meeting.
From what I can say outside the borders of one mission that serves as an introduction to a set of Kumori skills, you will spend most of your time, playing Kenji in Rage. However, as soon as they both combine efforts, Kenji's ability to attract enemies in the range increases significantly, since it has access to Kunai Kumori.
Moreover, some of the platform sections that I encountered during the demonstration demanded that I play for Kumori to go through the level. The difficult thing in these segments is that the Kumori can only appear for a short time, the sensor above her head, indicating how much time I stayed with her before I returned to Kenji, and he had to try the section again. You can expand its sensor by pulling the enemies along the way. At least in the demonstration, the Cumori segments were not too complicated, but I could also see how the structure could really check the players – perhaps not at the level Full knight The path of painSay, but something close.
One of the things that stood out in relation to both characters is how deftly they felt. Kenji can bite off enemies and shells to get an additional height above his enemies. During its platform segments, Kumori can use its Kunai to teleport through gaps and full jumps that cannot. Most levels also include ceilings that they can rise, and I often had to break through several enemies to get to the other end. Speaking about the battle, it is insanely, that mostly goes out of fashion in modern games. In addition to the bosses, most enemies will fall after one or two strokes from Kenji's kanji katana.
Even in early combat scenarios, I often had to fight with two or three enemies at the same time, evading and rejecting attacks in the range to my next purpose. As soon as the combat system began to press me, it was incredibly satisfying to cut off between enemies and use the abilities of Kenji and Kumori in unison.
I left my practical Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Glad to play the final product. Of course, the final test of the game will be how fans will receive it. “We really made a lot of efforts to create the game Ninja Gaiden,” says Jaumandra. “We did not want it to be a blasphemous game with a ninja. We really hope that when players receive a controller, they feel at home with a series. ”
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Arrows this summer at PCNintendo Switch, PlayStation And XboxField
If you buy something by reference in this article, we can earn a commission.