NINJA GAIDEN: RAGEBOUND

Take on a demon army in this slice of retro side-scroller action

- Robin Valentine

As I played through the tutorial of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, I started to feel a fear very specific to videogames. You know the one. “If I'm already struggling in the training level, what chance am I going to have in the rest of the game?” I know, I know, get all your games journalist jokes out of the way now. But I did have reason to be nervous with this one.

But the tools Ragebound gives you are as powerful as they are precise, and as my confidence with them grew, I found I was much more in control than I thought I was. A few hundred dead demons later, and I don't think it's quite as hard as you might expect—but it certainly is satisfying.

Like Blasphemous, Ragebound is a 2D side-scroller, and also like Blasphemous it's gorgeous, though this time the pixel-art pops with color instead of grimdarkness. You play Kenji Mozu, a disciple of usual series protagonist Ryu Hayabusa off on his own bloody quest concurrent with the first Ninja Gaiden game.