Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
Image: Dotemu

It’s been a long time since we were last graced with a proper 2D Ninja Gaiden game, so you can imagine our shock when Dotemu revealed Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, a brand-new side-scrolling action title from Blasphemous developer The Game Kitchen, currently scheduled to launch in Summer 2025.

We recently went hands-on with the game in a generous 90-minute demo that took us through the prologue section, a tutorial, and the game’s opening levels. Now, the good news is that this is a remarkable evolution of that classic NES gameplay, leaning heavily into fast-paced traversal, a seemingly unending wave of expendable enemies and vicious boss characters. The bad news? Well… we had to stop playing eventually.

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Although it’s early days yet, we came away from our time with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound feeling utterly elated. It’s exactly what fans of the 2D entries have been wanting for so long. Given The Game Kitchen’s talent and experience with Blasphemous and its sequel, we had high expectations to begin with, but this is clearly a studio that knows Tecmo's series and respects its origins greatly.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
Image: Dotemu

It didn’t start off quite so hot, though. Although the NES trilogy is famous (or perhaps infamous) for its brutal difficulty, Ragebound’s prologue was a bit of a cakewalk by comparison.

You play as Jô Hayabusa, Ryu’s father and leader of the Hayabusa clan. Though we were prepared (and eager!) to have our butts kicked to the floor from the word ‘go’, it became clear that the prologue was sensibly designed to set up the story and allow us to acclimatise to the controls.

While disappointment seeped in during this short, introductory segment, it quickly melted away once we gained control of the main protagonist, Kenji Mozu, who begins his journey by brushing up on a few skills with Ryu Hayabusa. During this section, you’re taught how to execute the Guillotine Boost, in which you hit items, enemies, or projectiles to keep yourself airborne, and Hypercharge, a burst of energy gained from defeating certain glowing enemies.

The hypercharge ability is essential to defeating larger creatures, and the game does a great job at ensuring there’s almost always a glowing enemy nearby to enable activation. If not, you can charge it up on your own, sacrificing a small chunk of your health in the process.

There’s a strong sense of risk vs reward during the game’s more chaotic moments in which you might be struggling to fend off multiple enemies at once. Do you persevere and try to survive through skill alone, or do you risk your health to unleash a devastating Hypercharge blow?

Once you’re done with the tutorial, you’re tasked with defending your village against an onslaught of ninjas and vicious, hellish creatures. It’s here that the classic Ninja Gaiden gameplay really comes to life, as enemies come at you from all directions, flames spew up from the ground, and the maze-like environment necessitates copious wall jumps and Guillotine Boosts.

During the latter portion of the demo, another playable character becomes available, albeit for brief periods. Some areas might be closed off to Kenji, and so he enlists the help of Kumori, a spirit of sorts that Kenji can inhabit in order to open locked doors.

Essentially, you encase Kenji in a cocoon and immediately gain control of Kumori, whose focus on throwing knives and teleportation makes her a unique and engaging addition to the Ninja Gaiden world. Once you’ve completed your short objective as Kumori, Kenji leaps back into action. It’s a nice little way of breaking up the action a bit to focus on more puzzle-based gameplay.

With stunning pixel-art visuals, a thumping retro-inspired soundtrack, and slick, responsive gameplay, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is shaping up to be another win for The Game Kitchen and a wonderful reintroduction to the series’ 2D origins. As long as the team can really nail the difficulty and give veteran players the challenge they’ve been seeking, this stands a chance of being the studio’s best title yet.