Ninja Gaiden 4 is hard, but don’t let that put you off from playing it.
I have been known to get « well into » games, but I can never predict what they’ll be. For example, I played so much of PS Vita/PS3 arcade racing game MotorStorm: RC that it was part of my personality for a month or so, and I’d negatively judge people who weren’t spending every waking moment knocking milliseconds off their best Time Trials. I have that obsessive trait in me, then, but at other times I just enjoy the feeling of a game, the vibes, the essence of having a great time. This is my relationship with Ninja Gaiden. No doubt some people will go all-in on Ninja Gaiden 4, a game that practically begs to be mastered and used as a showcase of skill, but I’ve always seen the series as less of a test of ability I don’t have and more as a finely-tuned piece of violent escapism. What I’m saying is, you don’t need to be a ninja to enjoy Ninja Gaiden 4, and this entry lends itself to that philosophy more easily than those that came before.
To stick up for myself a little, I’m not terrible at all video games. I’ve been playing them for about 35 years, I’ve finished Ninja Gaiden Black (Xbox) and Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox 360), and I can still beat my almost 12-year-old son at everything we play. But, let’s just say age has dampened my abilities and lessened the time I can spend getting « well into » games – this is the reason I’ve never felt I could feasibly play Elden Ring, for example.
Whereas you can’t really Chaos Mode (not quite the same as button mashing, to be clear) your way through a FromSoft game, Ninja Gaiden 4 fits this « I’m going to have a great time even if I don’t 100 percent know what I’m doing at every moment » ethos.
