Ninja Gaiden 4’s recent release date trailer and Deluxe Edition have seemingly confirmed once and for all that Ryu Hayabusa is only going to have one weapon during his campaign.
Considering how long it’s been since the Ninja Gaiden series last had a new game, this year’s announcement (and impending release) ofNinja Gaiden 4 should be nothing but good news. While that’smostlythe case, there have been some pretty big question marks raised since the game was announced andeven more since its most recent trailer.
As awesome as new protagonist Yakumo and his interesting arsenal of weapons and abilities are, the biggest concern that most Ninja Gaiden fans have had about NG4 is its treatment of Ryu Hayabusa. Ryu has been confirmed to be playable in Ninja Gaiden 4, but it seemed like he’s hardly the focus and that he’ll have a far less complicated moveset. That now looks to be confirmed for good.
Ryu Appears To Only Have His Sword In Ninja Gaiden 4
RIP Falcon’s Talons
While the developers of Ninja Gaiden 4 already previously confirmed that Yakumo is going to be playable more than Ryu, there was still hope that Ryu would at least have plenty to his moveset. That hasn’t appeared to be the case, though, asboth gameplay trailers have only shown Ryu using his katana.
This has led to some fear that Ryu’s only weapon in Ninja Gaiden 4 would be his sword, repeating the exact same mistake that Ninja Gaiden 3 made at launch. Well,as pointed out by Redditor Royta15 on the Ninja Gaiden subreddit, those fears seem to have been confirmed by the game’s Deluxe Edition.
As you can see from the graphic above, not only is Ryu’s classic blue outfit locked behind the Deluxe Edition, but he’s also only got one weapon skin in the whole game. Compared to Yakumo, who has skins for all of his weapons, it makes it look as if Ryu really is just going to wield the katana for the whole game and nothing else.
Ryu’s katana is awesome and usually my go-to, but part of the joy of Ninja Gaiden’s combat is mixing things up with each weapon.
While it’s possible that Platinum and Team Ninja are just hiding the other weapons for now, it’s looking more and more like Ryu only has one weapon during his playable sections. That doesn’t exactly give me much hope for how often he’s going to be playable, so here’s hoping that there’s a bit more to him.
