Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound vs Shinobi: Art of Vengeance
Ninja Gaiden vs Shinobi: 2025 Edition
It’s only natural that there will be times when two games that are very similar find themselves in the same release window. Creating a game takes a long time when you include development and pre-production, which is how games like Dead Space Remake and Callisto Protocol released within about a month of each other.
The stars have aligned again because in summer 2025, we will be treated to reboots of arguably the two most iconic ninja games ever made, which were both at their peak in the early 90’s with Shinobi: Art of Vengeance and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. For all intents and purposes, when you think of Ninja Gaiden, you think of Nintendo and when you think of Shinobi, it was Sega. Considering how prominent the epic competition of Sega Vs Nintendo was in the 90’s, it only feels right to pit these two against each other once again.
Nipping this in the bud, both of these games look incredible, both of these games look like at least 8’s and both will be a day one title for me, but nonetheless, it feels like the perfect opportunity to compare the two titles. Let’s start with a little history of each game, what’s exciting about each new entry and finally, which game we are anticipating more.
RYU VS JOE
Most people would associate Ninja Gaiden with Nintendo and Shinobi with Sega as that’s where the roots of these two series can be traced back to, despite both actually beginning in the arcade.
The Ninja Gaiden that most people are familiar with was on the NES back in 1989 when it released in North America. It might have been a beat em up in the arcade prior, but as an action platformer on the NES is where the series found its calling. The story of the original is about a Ninja who travels to America to avenge the death of his father and in the process try to stop the assassin from opening up a portal and unleashing an ancient demon onto the world. This story was relayed to the player with cinematic style cutscenes that felt cutting edge at the time. In the span of just a few years, there was a complete trilogy on the NES, which likely came with diminishing returns with that many entries in such a short time frame.
After about a decade the series was reborn in 3D on the Xbox in 2004 and would go on to be the beginning of another trilogy. The last core, original entry for the series was with Ninja Gaiden 3 in 2012, which released on the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Shinobi first released on the Sega Master System in 1988 and would come to other systems in the years following. Shinobi was about a Ninja who needed to free members of his clan who were kidnapped by an evil crime syndicate. The series followed a similar fate to Ninja Gaiden as there was a core trilogy including Shinobi, The Revenge of Shinobi and Shinobi 3: Revenge of the Ninja Master with the two subsequent entries being released on the Sega Genesis and not on Nintendo hardware as the console wars were at their peak at this time. Reception on all three titles was very high with the third entry being ranked as was of the greatest Genesis games by numerous outlets.
After a misstep on the Sega Saturn, Shinobi would go on hiatus until 2002 when it was rebooted on the PS2 with Shinobi and received average reviews. The last entry for the series was in 2011 on the Nintendo 3DS with Shinobi that also received average reviews.
When looking at the sales of these franchises, which is very speculative, due to the lack of readily available information for the time in gaming, Shinobi has lifetime sales around 5 million and Ninja Gaiden sales are around 8 million. However, the difference is easily identified by the Team Ninja trilogy that began on the Xbox in 2004 as Ninja Gaiden and its remastered version Ninja Gaiden Black accounted for 1.5 copies sold.
When you remove the Team Ninja trilogy and all of its remasters, these two series are a lot closer once again.
2025
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
Revealed at The Game Awards preshow, Ninja Gaiden Ragebound is a blending of both eras of Ninja Gaiden. The Game Kitchen, the team behind the massively successful Metroidvania series Blasphemous is handling development while Dotemu will be handing the publishing. Ragebound has not officially been called a Metroidvania, but I have to assume that since The Game Kitchen is devoloping the game, there will at least be Metroidvania-lite elements involved.
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound tells the untold chapter of what happened when Ryu went to America, as you play as young ninja Kenji Mozu, who is from Hyabusa Village and must deal with the army of demons that has been released from another dimension.
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound combines that old school pixel aesthetic, action of the original then blends it with modern precision and layers of depth from the modern Ninja Gaiden titles. The hope is that Ragebound honors the originals by including plenty of animated cutscenes as they were a large part of what felt so special about Ninja Gaiden. The trailer featured some great animated cutscenes, which bodes well.
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance
At The Game Awards in 2023, Shinobi was teased as one of the many Sega franchises that was in developed along with other franchises that began in the 90’s including Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Crazy Taxi and more.
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is being developed by the Paris based indie studio Lizardcube, who also were the main developer behind the 2020 beat em up Streets of Rage 4. Reviews for Streets of Rage 4 were in the high 80’s and it also sold upwards of 3 million copies. Lizardcube is only about a dozen people, but they clearly have an eye for strong art direction, as Streets of Rage 4 was gorgeous and Shinobi: Art of Vengeance jumps of the screen with stunning visuals.
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance will see the iconic series lead, Joe Musashi return home only to find his village has been burned to the ground. Driven by vengeance, Joe sets out on a quest for revenge against hordes of enemies and larger than life bosses. Your adventure will take you through more than a dozen different hand drawn worlds that are rife with multiple paths to discover, and unlock.
In Shinobi: Art of Vengeance you will unleash limitless combos, acquire amulets for enhanced abilites, and harness tools to overcome obstacles and uncover new paths. On the PlayStation Blog, Toru Ohara, Chief Producer at Sega said “in true Shinobi fashion, this is a level based game, so it differs from metroidvania titles for example where you usually explore one huge map. That being said players will obtain certain abilities in later stages that will allow them to explore hidden areas and discover secrets they couldn’t access in prior stages. We feel this offers a lot more depth than just clearing each stage once”
.This quote piques my interest as i’m curious how they are going to entice the player to return to a previous level.
Year of the Ninja
In terms of similarities, there are a lot that go beyond the obvious Ninja connection. The similarities began on the surface level as both have a title with a colon in it, both are 2D re-imaginations of the classic, both are action platformers (although, both are treading into metroidvania territory), both are being developed by indie studios who have been entrusted with the IP, both series have been dormant for almost a decade and both are coming out in Summer 2025.
Both titles also share a Streets of Rage 4 connection as Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is being published by Dotemu, who published Streets of Rage 4 and Lizardcube is developing Shinobi: Art of Vengeance and they were the lead developers on Streets of Rage 4.
Once again, this needs to be repeated and emphasized, I am very excited for both of these games and can’t wait to play both, but when discussing my excitement level, I am more excited for Shinobi: Art of Vengeance for two reasons.
To begin with, Ninja Gaiden is being developed by The Game Kitchen, the team behind the Blasphemous series, which were fantastic Metroidvanias, but the art style of Ninja Gaiden looks to borrow a lot from that series. After two games and multiple DLC’s, I’m ready for something fresh. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance features a very unique art style that feels reminiscent of Streets of Rage 4. There is a clip that shows what is likely a super move and it oozes style with whole screen turning red and dragons entering.
In addition, Lizardcube showed with Streets of Rage 4 that they were able to create a game that paid tribute to the retro gameplay, but with plenty of modern touches that allowed them to strike the perfect balance, which is challenging when attempting the revival of a franchise. There were new combo abilities, characters with noticeably unique traits, star moves gave the series a much needed breath of fresh air while still remaining a true beat em up.
Finally, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is putting you back in the shoes of Joe Musashi and back where the series began, whereas Ninja Gaiden although it’s returning to the moments that began the franchise, you are going to be controlling Kenji Mozu, who stayed to protect the Hayabusa village as Ryu went to America to avenge his fathers death.
When I look back at times when things got pitted against each other, the winner was the player. With Nintendo vs Sega, it was two consoles that were trying to outdo the other and the result was an abundance of incredible games and when it comes to these two Ninja titles landing in 2025, I expect both to be incredible experiences that offer something very similar, but also very unique.