4.5/5 ★ – bryansbane's review of Ninja Gaiden Black.

Truly the Dark Souls experience before From Software landed on the scene. Ninja Gaiden Black is everything you could want from a modern series reboot. It’s badass, well designed and hard as balls. Ryu Hayabusa is a cool character to play as with a moveset that never gets old. Level design reminds me of Souls and RE4. High production value and a game that felt like it truly had a vision from inception to completion. As far as shortcomings go, the camera is pretty bad and often it’s hard to understand why Ryu missed a jump or climbed the wrong wall, but he’s more versatile than most characters in 2025 so it can be forgiven. The story is also confusing nonsense, but that never mattered anyways. If you’re not scared of the difficulty Ninja Gaiden Black is one game any fan of action should play. So dope.