Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound

Kenji, the lead character in Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, has a hard time accepting that he might have to work with a member of the Black Spider Clan.

- 

Frankly, as a series newcomer, he doesn't know the half of it. We've killed plenty of Black Spiders over the years, but only for self-preservation, whereas they've acted with bloody-minded brutality (peppering us with sticky explosive shuriken, for instance, or pulping us with last-ditch suicide attacks when they should by be dead), and we aren't yet ready to forgive. But that's the lot we're dealt here as Kenji meets Black Spider Kumori and the pair’s fates are entwined.

Their relationship status is very much a case of 'it's complicated', then, which isn't something we're used to in Ninja Gaiden, where Black Spiders usually deserve no more consideration than demonic fiends. And while it's hard to grumble about shades of grey in any story, we're not quite sure this is place for it. Similar could be said for the katana-and-kunai action platform game our duo must fight through, where modernising additions detract from a core arcade-like purity. It's complicated, in short, in ways it needn't be.