Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection

There’s no better way to see the Dragon Ninja Ryu Hayabusa in action than with the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection. Those that can deal with the odd loading stutter can experience some of the finest hack-and-slash combat on the market today.

The first and second Ninja Gaiden games are absolutely worth playing through and look great, whilst the third is slightly less recommendable.

Ninja Gaiden is one of the greatest action franchises in the history of video games. The original game was an arcade beat ‘em up in the style of Double Dragon, but it was Ninja Gaiden for the NES that perfected the action-platforming formula and pioneered quality cutscene storytelling. It is still heavily played by speedrunners worldwide and is a shoo-in for the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Port...

A competent collection of ports that does the bare minimum to bring the series to modern systems. The games themselves are still fantastic action classics but it’s a shame all versions couldn’t be included.

The games in the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection still hold up, but the remaster falters on bringing new quality of life features and fixing some of the trilogy's more glaring issues.

This master collection hopes to make Ninja Gaiden relevant again in 2021. But for a game that really shows its age, is it a series worth revisiting?

With all that said, it’s hard to recommend Ninja Gaiden Master Collection on Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S, as versions of all three games included are already playable on those consoles thanks to backwards compatibility. Some will argue that Ninja Gaiden Black and the original Ninja Gaiden II are superior to their Sigma counterparts as well. If you’re a PlayStation or Switch gamer looking for some ...

The Ninja Gaiden Master Collection is a barebones port of two of the greatest action games ever made and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge. The fact that these are the Sigma versions, and that Team Ninja has done nothing to iron out the weaker moments of these games, drags this collection down, but it's still a good way to play Ninja Gaiden on modern hardware.

The original Ninja Gaiden (well, not the original original on the NES) released in 2004 for the first Xbox (not the Xbox One, though the series has made its way onto that console as well). Two console generations later (three if you are lucky enough to have, and play on, a PS5), a remaster of a port that was itself a pseudo-remaster has arrived for the PlayStation 4, alongside its two sequels/rema...

Ryu Hayabusa has been enjoying an early retirement ever since the Ninja Gaiden series was put on ice years ago. Team Ninja has been busying itself with the Nioh games in the meantime, a more deliberate style of action title that takes things in a different, yet more modern, direction. Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection brings Ryu back with three major games in one package, but the genre has somewhat ...

Featuring two very good games and one fairly mediocre game in one package, Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection is well worth trying out, whether you missed out in the past or just want to slash up some enemies as Ryu Hayabusa all over again.

A curation that equally frustrates as it impresses, the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection is made for fans and newcomers who can overlook its obvious flaws to experience the remaining goodness in bits and pieces.