Ninja Gaiden vs. Shinobi: Year of the Ninja SHOWDOWN
Here it is: the comparison nobody asked for but I’m doing it anyways!
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Shinobi: Art of Vengeance are out in the wild and I’ve beaten them both. So, let’s talk about it – how do they compare? Which do I prefer? Is one or the other a clear winner in this totally made-up, ultimate ninja review showdown?!
3 ground rules for how this is gonna go:
I’ll be comparing these games across 11 categories, naming a winner in each and rounding it all out with who I’d recommend each title to
The winners in each category are MY OWN. There’ll be plenty of objective info sure, but I’m giving you my personal takes on each of these games
I’ll tell you rule #3 at the end – and if you don’t like it, TOUGH. MY GAME, MY RULES. NOW LET’S NERD OUT
Combatants:
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
Dev: The Game Kitchen; Pub: Dotemu
July 31st, 2025 – PC, PS4/5, NS, Xbox’s
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance
Dev: Lizardcube; Pub: Sega
Aug. 29th, 2025 – PC, PS4/5, NS, Xbox’s
Categories & Winners – read below for how each round was decided!
ROUND 1: COMBAT
Winner: Shinobi
This one is a clear win for Shinobi for me. The depth and variety of your combat kit just far exceeds what you have access to in Ninja Gaiden. Don’t get me wrong, combat still feels good in Ninja Gaiden, but you’re limited with how many abilities you can bring into a stage and it doesn’t encourage experimentation since some are simply better than the rest.
Meanwhile, Shinobi gives you combos to unlock, up to four Ninpo special abilities you can equip and change out on the fly, amulets that modify your passive and active skills, and special abilities that deal massive damage or save your skin with healing. I felt myself almost having situational builds and loving the experimentation with every single bit of kit the game gives you the deeper in you get.
ROUND 2: BOSSES
Winner: Ninja Gaiden
Okay, so if combat is deeper, more varied, and all around more fun in Shinobi, how the hell am I giving the boss fight category to Ninja Gaiden? Well, the bosses are the place where Ninja Gaiden’s combat does shine the most. And that’s not to say Shinobi’s bosses are lackluster by comparison, but they are a bit simpler and more straightforward once you figure out the pattern to each of those fights.
Whereas in Ninja Gaiden, I felt at least half the fights really push me and test my mastery of the game’s systems – which is what a great action game should do, on top of hitting you with tons of cool style and presentation. So for the heart-pounding challenge, Ninja Gaiden’s bosses just edge out this category for me.
ROUND 3: PLATFORMING
Winner: Shinobi
This one is tough because both games excel in different ways. Ninja Gaiden is almost run n’ gun-like, and it’s at its best when you’re constantly moving in an uninterrupted flow state – pushing towards almost a speedrunning mindset with your feet never touching the ground for more than a split second. Bouncing off enemies feels incredible and few games attempt let alone nail this style of platforming.
Shinobi, on the other hand, injects the structure of a metroidvania into its traditional arcade 2D ninja action game foundation. It gives you the space to explore and will even require you to return after beating a stage for the first time to reach new areas with additional Ninji movement abilities. But it’s not just methodical exploration – Shinobi also has chase sequences akin to what you find in the Ori games, and the optional Ankou rift platforming/combat challenges absolutely push you to master every ability in your arsenal. It's phenomenal.
ROUND 4: LEVEL DESIGN
Winner: Ninja Gaiden
Again, this decision seems counterintuitive. If I give the platforming W to Shinboi, why not the level design one too? And honestly, it’s a very, very close call here – one that came down to the finest of details.
Shinobi made metroidvania work in a stage-based, rooted-in-the-arcades style action game. But where Ninja Gaiden just beats it out by the thinnest of margins is in the nuances like how well it hides its secrets like hidden areas for optional platforming challenges. Also, some spots in Shinobi seem like odd placements for where it doles out resources like boxes for healing/kunai refills (they’re often right next to checkpoints that refill your health). It literally comes down to that level of nitpick for how close this round was.
ROUND 5: ART
Winner: Shinobi
Ok this one is literally just pure personal preference and was NOT easy to decide. Both games are stylish as HELL. On one side, you have The Game Kitchen’s now signature pixel art style that shows their Blasphemous DNA but adapted to Ninja Gaiden. It’s not NES 8-bit but it walks an incredibly thin line for bringing forward the classic feel of the 80s and 90s while making it more approachable to modern audiences.
Meanwhile, Lizardcube took Shinboi in a wholly new direction. Evocative of hand-drawn, almost woodcut style art but infused with so much color as to almost be overwhelming, Shinobi’s art style is somehow both feudal and classic but modern and neon at the same time if that makes any sense at all. And also, you REALLY need to see it in motion. Every single animation on Joe is something I just wanted to stop and stare at for my entire 20+ hours of playtime.
ROUND 6: MUSIC
Winner: Ninja Gaiden
This is another round that I’m throwing out complete objectivity and leaning fully into my own preference. I won’t even pretend to be musically gifted or knowledgeable, but when I close my eyes and try to conjure up the score of each game, the one I remember most clearly is Ninja Gaiden’s.
It honestly could just be down to history and bias for me. I was already into the Ninja Gaiden franchise before Ragebound, but Shinboi is totally new to me as someone who grew up with almost zero Sega presence around. Add onto that years of listening to The Messenger’s OST and… yeah I’ve got a type.
ROUND 7: STORY
Winner: Ninja Gaiden
Oh hey look, another category that’s really just personal preference with little to no objective feedback! Neither story is exactly cinema here; both are pretty standard ninjas-do-cool-things-and-fight-militaristic-bad-guys-but-also-demons narratives. (Well, as standard as those things get – which is to say over the top, thin in the logic, and deliciously cheesy!)
The main reason I’m giving the win to Ninja Gaiden for this round is down to the main duo. I really liked the dynamic between Kenji and Kumori. It’s a really predictable enemies-to-friends arc full of playful ribbing – but one I found enjoyable against the backdrop of fighting the demons that burned your village and the CIA that’s there… because why not? Jet skis and rockets are cool.
ROUND 8: CONTROLS
Winner: Ninja Gaiden
This one goes to Ninja Gaiden again. It’s not by a huge margin, but is pretty definitive for me at least. Controls might be the single most impressive thing that Ragebound excels in – but not just in this head-to-head. It has some of the tightest, most responsive, best feeling controls in a video game I’ve ever felt – in 2025 or otherwise. This game sings on the sticks.
And Shinobi is no slouch either, but it’s just touchy enough that I can’t give it the W. Multiple times, Joe would mantle when I didn’t want him to, leading him to inevitably touch a hazard like a laser or a razor or (insert hot and/or spiky thing here) and end up sending my ass back to the last checkpoint. Another category down to the finest of details – but one I decided more easily than most.
ROUND 9: PROGRESSION
Winner: Shinobi
Rounds 9 and 10 might be the biggest slam dunk Ws on the list. Shinobi wins this category handily and that’s because the unsatisfying sense of in-game progression and unlocks was one of my main critiques for Ninja Gaiden. The abilities you unlock in that game aren’t linearly satisfying. Each new thing didn’t feel better than the last and wasn’t always worth trying when compared to what I was already relying on to survive.
But in Shinobi, every new ability was a reward and a treat. Seeking them out was a solid driving force for wanting to see what was around the next corner in the game. And since you can swap your loadout on the fly – even pausing in the middle of combat – it felt super easy to experiment with everything and I had things I preferred for different styles of encounters, tailoring my kit to mass mobs vs. one-on-one slug fests. Plus, the late game abilities that expand your movement and special attacks felt AWESOME.
ROUND 10: COMPLETION
Winner: Shinobi
Already gave this one away but it’s Shinobi again with a bullet. The experience of getting 100% completion in each stage was a TREAT. Once I unlocked a new mechanic that I knew would enable me to reach new areas in previous stages, I was heading back to see what treasures were tucked away in previously inaccessible corners.
It was also a fairly intuitive experience with little to no need for a guide to find what I was missing – with only one minor gripe: a map bug that makes it so Joe’s current position doesn’t update on the map menu. But quitting out and reloading fixed the bug (and quitting to the menu autosaves, god bless)! Meanwhile, Ninja Gaiden will drop your progress if you quit mid-level and while the mechanical sense of mastery as you go from clearing a stage in 30 minutes down to 5 is insanely gratifying, again the rewards for doing so weren’t nearly as satisfying when compared to Shinobi.
ROUND 11: ACCESSIBILITY
Winner: Shinobi
This is one that I’m really happy to say is close. Both offer more accessibility options than I would’ve expected for traditionally challenging franchises built around tough action and platforming. Ninja Gaiden lets you modify things like damage ratios and even turn down knockback, as well as offers both modern and even dyslexic-friendly fonts for those who might struggle with its retro styling.
Similarly, Shinobi also offers accessibility options that let you modulate the difficulty and tailor enemy damage, health, and even attack rate, as well as make it easier to reap benefits from your passives/gear. There’s even a setting that affects environmental damage – the true final boss of this game (for me at least).
So with similar accessibility options on offer, this round comes down to accessible design – and I think I have to give that to Shinobi. Both games are tough action platformers, but the toughest moments of precision platforming for Shinobi live in its optional content, whereas the need for speed and precision for Ninja Gaiden live in its critical path. Add to that the less forgiving save states, and we have our final category winner.
RECS – WHO ARE THESE GAMES FOR??
Before I bring this one home, I wanted to pause and say who I’d recommend each of these games to by giving some frames of reference that might help put a bow on what I’ve said across all the above categories.
For Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound beyond the absolute “duh” answer of “I’d recommend it to fans of the original Ninja Gaiden games,” I’ll start with a semi-“duh” answer of recommending it to fans of The Messenger from Sabotage Studio (aka the devs behind Sea of Stars). The Messenger (ironically enough, given the comparison to what Lizardcube just did with Shinobi) blends classic Ninja Gaiden action platforming with a metroidvania twist of its own.
And if you haven’t played The Messenger – this is your sign to stop reading, go fix that, and come back when you’re done.
But another less “duh” frame of reference I can’t help but make here is to recommend Ragebound to fans of games like Cuphead. Because you are always on the move, battling and sniping enemies in some tough-as-nails combat scenarios and epic boss fights, I feel like it’s a weirdly great fit.
On the flipside, I’ve got a couple different flavors of metroidvania recommendations and comparisons I’d make for Shinobi. I already mentioned it, but I’ll just reiterate here that Shinobi has some awesome chase sequences that come closer to evoking the memories of conquering Ori’s challenging platforming set pieces than anything else I’ve played.
But I’d also throw out a mention for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. While not as pure of a metroidvania experience as The Lost Crown, Shinobi definitely comes close in how deep and satisfying its combat kit is, how tricky the optional platforming challenges are, and how rewarding the exploration and completion experience is. It doesn’t quite reach the same heights in accessibility, but it’s a great comparison amongst genre peers.
CONCLUSION – WHO WINS?!
So looking at the above, you’ve got 5 wins for Ninja Gaiden and 6 for Shinobi – so Shinobi wins right?
WRONG!
And here’s where I’ll let you in on rule #3: Both of these games win this fight, not in a tie – but legitimately because both offer such strong, unique, and complementary experiences that are worthwhile for anyone with any amount of interest to experience.
To answer the question of “Which is better, Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi?” in this battle of the 2D, stage-based, side-scrolling classic arcade ninja action game revivals, I’m seriously saying “Both. Full stop.”
Rule #3 is that both get to win, BECAUSE I SAY SO. And also: WE get to win, because both of these games exist and we get to play them. The year of the ninja has been phenomenal – and it’s still not even over. Ninja Gaiden 4 is on the horizon, and looking even further beyond, we’re rolling into 2026 with the likes of Onimusha still to come.
Ladies, gentlemen, and NBs: these devs are COOKING. And we are FEASTING. LET’S GO PLAY NINJAS.
