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Last week, with zero advance warning and in the midst of announcing Ninja Gaiden 4 at the Xbox Developer Direct, Koei Tecmo surprise-launched a remake of 2008’s Ninja Gaiden 2. It’s out now on Game Pass for modern Xbox consoles and PC, and it’s also available for fifty dollars on the PS5.
That might seem like a bit of a steep price to pay for a nearly two-decade-old action game with outdated design and gameplay mechanics (and I can’t really argue with that if you’re looking at paying for it on a non-Microsoft machine), but the visual overhaul here is so complete and impressive that I still think it’s worth at least checking out if you have access to the right subscription.
This is a beautiful throwback to a time before Dark Souls infected everything with its brand of slow and powerful action. Ninja Gaiden has a whole *different* style of chunky and satisfying hack-and-slash gameplay which is now strangely refreshing for how novel and different it feels. Its relentless linearity makes it a great little diversion from the endless parade of massive open world games and online-connected universes that still dominate this genre, at least as far as big budget development is concerned. Aside from a few obviously old animations and a distressingly…
