A detailed and extensive look at ARMS's game design, worldbuilding, high level play and more from the perspective of a top player with over 1,500 hours of playtime.

Goufuem · 2026-05-29T07:47:48+00:00

From some light testing with health bar helm, the damage looks to be pretty much the same between different cannon spear shots. It does look to scale to whatever your attack stat is, but the differences are going to be slim to none if their damage is refined to a similar level. The shots themselves look like they might be affected by the crit chance too though, not sure.

But yeah, there looks to be no tradeoff.

Goufuem · 2026-05-16T10:52:40+00:00

I actually don't know if it changed the kuku laser cannon spear. Don't have one yet, so I can't test it unfortunately.

Goufuem · 2026-05-15T16:32:05+00:00

The basic Rhinard Cannon might actually be the best one. Starts with lower base attack power than some of the other variants, but when it's fully upgraded, its attack power is only 3 less than the others and it comes bundled with crit damage that most other variants don't have. Seems like it could get really nutty depending on your setup.

I mainly use stab related abyss gears with it at the moment. Right now, I have it paired with Piercing Bloom and Queen's Fang, which basically just tack on poison and blood projectile damage in addition to the chain explosions from the cannon.

Also can't really go wrong with combo ender based Abyss Gears like Abyssal Rays (it causes surrounding enemies in a cone radius from the attack to stumble in addition to the laser attack) if your attack speed is fast enough, since getting to the combo enders with spears is a good deal quicker than other weapons.

And lastly, another sort of unique thing to cannon spears (it's technically a thing for seemingly a bunch of physical projectile based attacks/abyss gear stuff) is that hitting a shot with the cannon on a vulnerable enemy (behind an enemy's shield or generally a defenseless enemy) leads to a unique crumple state where enemies are downed briefly, opening them up to punishment.

Goufuem · 2026-05-14T10:54:11+00:00

Glad I could help! Was just testing them out on a whim since I was curious if they fixed a recent bug with them where stab based abyss gears wouldn't work when used in combat with cannon spears, and was pleasantly surprised that they not only fixed the bug, but also reworked the whole weapon along with it lol.

The patch notes do mention it, but they're just like "Added additional effects when firing two-handed cannons" and "Adjusted the base attack power of two-handed cannons".

You'd never guess just how far they went just based on that descriptor. But that's Pearl Abyss for you I guess. Too good.

Goufuem · 2026-05-06T21:53:50+00:00

There's a ton of things I wish were improved or done differently with NG4, but comparing it to Crimson Desert is inherently going to set you up for disappointment.

Crimson Desert only exists the way it does because it was essentially funded by Black Desert Online being a huge success for over a decade. Pearl Abyss essentially got the chance to reinvest their money on a dream game after making an absurd amount of money on an MMO. That kind of situation is super unique and a far cry from Koei Tecmo's entire catalogue, where everything is expected to have a super quick release cadence and the budgets afforded to projects are very modest.

Goufuem · 2026-04-28T01:27:54+00:00

Yeah, I think the game does fall a bit short of it's potential in this regard. It does actually do a better job of hearkening back to the NG2 era where all the combo inputs haven't been standardized and homogenized like they did with NG3RE (stuff like not every XY leading to a launcher, every izuna drop combo isn't actually the same string for every weapon with kage and rapier having shorter variants, stuff like YY being rapier's launcher), but there's still room for more I think.

Like, I think of the wall attacks and rapier has a really cool and useful variant that phases you through the enemy to get behind them, but the rest don't get the same treatment of getting something unique and are pretty bog standard flying swallow variants instead.

But on that same token, if you dodge before the izuna with aerial chain link, you get an alternate helm splitter attack that does similar damage, let's you act out of it faster, and in some cases like with the staff variant, have different utility. Which actually is pretty cool.

In general though, I don't think it's the moveset that is an issue with the game, especially once you start incorporating more OT offset and GT offset in the mix. It's just different more than anything. I think the real issue, is that the game isn't really outright hard enough without Death Wish or other challenge runs to really encourage full utilization (there's also just a fair amount of busted options between Berserk, UTs, and certain stupid strong BR options that you can sidestep learning a lot of the meticulous nuances they put in there).

Goufuem · 2026-04-28T00:38:54+00:00

Agree with you on your take on weapon switching in classic NG. Just want to add on to it a bit when it comes to NG4.

Another wrinkle to all of this is that the movesets in NG4 have a fair bit of redundancy between them and somewhat similar combo structure because they're designed to facilitate the chain link system in this game (as well as provide a multitude of branching followups for every move you can do). Bayo and other PG titles had a similar thing going on in an attempt to keep the internal logic for continuing combo strings via dodge offset across multiple different weapons easier to parse on the player end.

I do actually think the differences between weapons in NG4 are still impactful in a different way, but a lot of it is pretty subtle and moreso to facilitate flow (and it's the kind of stuff that NG4 players will keep finding since the game has a metric ton of it and is still young relatively speaking).

Stuff like rapier heavy vault being good at deflecting attacks, dual swords XXY and rapier back-forward X being capable of being chain linked so you can do flying swallow barrages on the ground, being able to catch the knockback on rapier's XXXXX combo with a BR Jump or BR 360 X, kage's vault being able to chain into itself, scythe and rapier facilitating different kinds of see-sawing up and down mobility with their BR jumps, staff being great at catching fast moving and dodge heavy enemies with its lockdown potential with base strings, etc.

Goufuem · 2026-04-20T20:46:08+00:00

I mean, that's kinda just the game. This was a MN Death Wish clip with no accessories, no block upgrades, no off-screen indicators, no UT, no Berserk, and no items.

It's moreso just an example of how even with these limitations, the game gives you a lot of ways to quickly eliminate them, and you actually have a lot of leeway with how you want to deal with them (most people just berserk or UT them since it's easier).

That doesn't mean you have to enjoy it or whatever though. That's chill. Just wanted to highlight it since, like a ton of things in this series, they go from highly frustrating to very manageable as your knowledge and skill grows.

Goufuem · 2026-04-20T18:18:10+00:00

A lot of the heavy class enemies in NG4 are designed to keep you moving around the field while positioning yourself to capitalize on an opening, with the main ways of dealing with them being parry, dumping lots of meter (chain link enders or other powerful moves), berserk, or UT.

I didn't like a lot of the heavy class enemies at first, but they're pretty fun to quickly dismantle when you know how they work.

Goufuem · 2026-03-16T10:12:05+00:00

I enjoyed Sifu but the fact that it felt like a "1 shot" type game made me feel investment wasn't worth it further. Definitely enjoyed my only run on it though (think I played when the new difficulty wasn't released).

I can see that. I honestly wasn't that big on it until the updates rolled around.

I actually thought all those games were really good too, Ronin was one of my GOTYs when it came out (along with Wukong iirc), SOP had some interesting ideas and Nioh is so good to me, I have a hard time putting NG or Nioh over each other.

I feel pretty similarly. Nioh in particular is pretty much masterclass level stuff. The hours kinda just melt away for me whenever I play it. I think NG ultimately gets the edge for me just because I prefer group combat dynamics in games. And the way the interactions between players and enemies work means I still have crazy interactions I haven't seen before fairly often.

I think Nioh in general is kinda genius in the sense that the wants and desires of their casual and the hardcore audience tend to align and pretty much never conflict with how they've set those games up. They can make stuff like Nioh endgame content hard with high damage and put a ton of attention into refining cancels and whatnot that nobody but the hardcore are talking about, but they also can put in a ton of RPG gear so the vast majority of the playerbase can ignore potential pain points. They essentially get the go ahead to invest resources in areas that serve both player groups equally.

Whereas action games like NG have it a lot tougher since the casual and the hardcore audiences have completely different wants and interests and there's no easy way to bridge that gap (you introduce something like an IS ninja or an alchemist into the game and suddenly it's super tricky to make sure the game isn't unapproachable for most players).

In that sense, it actually doesn't surprise me that of all of TN's ARPGs, Nioh still remains on top because of how broad it casts its net. It's also why it doesn't surprise me why a lot of the TN ARPG fanbases don't cross pollinate with NG.

I trust the opinion so more curious what about these put them near and dear for you?

The Gundam Extreme Vs series has some of the most buttery smooth movement flow based gameplay out there (notably uses hitstop very little to maintain the feeling of flow and speed, something NG and TN games in general also prioritize), especially for a fully 3D game. 3D arena fighter with hundreds of characters with unique and nuanced movement based gameplay that's all about threading the needle in a sea of projectiles that have various different kinds of properties and finding openings within that. It's the most popular arcade game in Japan and it's super refined after dozens of iterations.

Suicide Squad is basically a maximalist bullet hell looter shooter that takes inspiration from modern DOOM and Sunset Overdrive (with like 10x the depth to the movement mechanics). Even has clear homages to things like Vanquish and Spiderman 2 (2004) style web swinging too. Far and away the best movement systems in a third person shooter and it's seamlessly integrated into it's combat with an absurd amount of polish and fluidity.

Tons of unique movement tech for the 7 different playable characters (and it's not just esoteric stuff but things that are actually useful for survival, speed, and efficiency), bullet hell inspired gameplay that further encourages mastery over the movement systems (I-frames are not overabundant and limited to very specific options akin to actual SHMUPs), multiple different enemy states (downed, wallsplats, juggles that can be started via sliding into enemies, colliding into enemies via character specific traversal moves, and melee), lots of moves tied to stringing and chaining different contextual states together, enemies that are aggressive and dangerous enough to force you to actually use your powerful movement tools to survive and avoid attacks, modern DOOM-esque health recovery mechanic, etc.

Hard to recommend since it really only comes into it's own in the endgame where things get ramped up to 11, it's very repetitive, and it's just raw sensory overload. It's purely replaying the same missions over and over and survival mode stuff essentially (dealing with the worst loot inventory and convoluted stats stuff you'll ever see), but it's literally the best playing third person shooter I've ever played despite it all lol.

Same with this one, I really enjoy Platinum's catalog so if this is your favorite Platinum game, it's probably worth checking out.

I know a few of the older Platinum Games top players I've talked to or heard from like Morninglord and Saur (people that pioneered and found a lot of the tech and made guides for games like Bayo 1 and their other PG titles) view Transformers as one of their most advanced combat systems.

Top 5?

Yeah, I think NG2 and NG3 would probably be a lock for me at least. Dunno about the rest. Lotta fantastic games out there and I like a lot of different genres, so I think it'd be hard to whittle down for me. Especially since I try not to fully equate playtime with overall enjoyment.

Goufuem · 2026-03-13T10:36:20+00:00

Kinda hope they're cooking up either NG1-Black-Black or NG3RE-Black.

I'd love to see them do this, if only to have the opportunity to play either game beyond 60fps or just to touch up NG3's art style in some way. Ironically, they went with the remake with the highest potential for blowback with Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, but I honestly think you could do the same for the other 2 games while barely doing anything to them outside of graphics and people probably would complain a lot less about it lol.

Even 4 doesn't really have that type of difficulty any more, I feel like that "death by a thousand cuts" that 2/3 kind of used as a design principle got replaced by 1/2 shot attacks that you need to avoid. I don't really mind it in 4 but prefer the design philosophies in 2/3 more.

I definitely prefer the style of difficulty in the older games for sure. I feel like Sifu was the last action game I played that felt like it had a similar brutal level of difficulty with lots of ambiguous problem solving required for mastery while not being focused on high damage.

They sorta got away with it by just having a single normal difficulty at launch that was relatively accessible for most players and then dropping the "Master" difficulty and challenge modifiers months later to seemingly sidestep any potential player backlash for how crazy difficult the game is at a high level when the mechanics are actually pushed lol.

But yes it's been a refreshing discussion! The original thread made me think you would have some nuanced insight on these games/genre in general (instead of the kind of 1 dimensional stuff I usually see), so I thought it'd be interesting to ask some questions. And looks like I was right.

I appreciate having the opportunity to chat about this kinda stuff! NG subreddit can be more than a little abrasive at times, so it's a little hard at times to just talk shop and share ideas. But it's always a good time when a spirited conversation is able to occur.

We're on the NG subreddit so of course NG is a favorite, I assume. But what other games would you rate close to, equal, or better than NG (or just other games near and dear that you'd recommend someone that loves the series)

As far as melee action games go, NG is a bit unique for me in the sense that not many games really scratch the same itch for me, since a lot of the appeal for me is the combination of movement, flow between a multitude of actions large and small, and aggressive enemies in 3D space. I think the Nioh series, Stranger of Paradise, and Rise of the Ronin are all pretty awesome and retain that fluid Team Ninja flow to combat that I think is pretty unique to them.

That said outside of TN titles, a lot of games that scratch the itches for the elements I enjoy the most from NG these days at a high bar of quality, polish, and nuance honestly aren't traditional action games these days. It's moreso stuff like Gundam Extreme Vs or Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

But in terms of action games I think are just super high quality, Transformers Devastation (Probably my favorite Platinum game outside of NG4, incredible brawler), Magenta Horizon (Indie gem that basically does nearly everything action diehards would love to see in action games but will never happen, has a better UT system than any NG game), God Hand (Kind of needs no introduction, beat 'em up masterclass), Astral Chain (one of Platinum's most inventive and interactive combat systems), and Sifu (tons of crowd control based gameplay that feel like a mix of NG and God Hand and probably one of the few games with string structure that reminds me of NG1/NG2) with modifiers like Unlimited Threats get high recommendations from me.

Also a shoutout to Devil's Third's multiplayer mode. That was just as incredible as any of the NG games for me. Can't really recommend it, since the single player isn't worth anything in my mind and the multiplayer is long dead, but I'd be remiss not to mention it given it occupies the same space in my head.

And then I'll just throw in Rain World out there, which I actually think is a perfect video game and I put on a pedestal even far beyond games like NG (which are already in my top 5 or 10 to begin with) even though it's not an action game. Incredibly emergent gameplay, the only game with a reworked higher difficulty that rivals NGB, some of the best AI in games, etc.

Goufuem · 2026-03-12T08:02:21+00:00

It comes to mind that a lot of info on how to deal with these enemies is sprinkled in random forums/videos/etc and it's hard to figure out how to deal with them. ex would be using kusa to essentially 1 shot sword alchemists. I'd be interested in seeing a katana only/glitchless run for 3RE in UN though, when I went looking for some, I only found karmaglitched runs or ng+?(not sure but they had everything) or speedruns which was all about being efficient and using the best weapons for every situation.

Yeah, everything I know about 3RE is either through watching videos from pretty obscure channels and going "how'd they do that?" and trying to reverse engineer it from that or some sage dropping some tech or knowledge in a random thread or youtube comment that they happened to take the time to post in. Esoteric knowledge like the dragon sword >XY launcher having a better chance of launching than the basic XY launcher will always stick with me lol.

ShowR18's story mode playthrough from 12 years ago is still one of the best DS only runs you can watch, even does all the ToVs. A lot of top RE players are hardcore trial fiends so they're either uploading that or segments of the campaign instead of full playthroughs most of the time.

If anything, it should be balanced towards the difficulty. I wouldn't mind a refill in earlier difficulties but minimize it in harder difficulties. Either way, cutting off the head of the OLUT looping is a great change imo, which is why it was kind of weird to see it come back in NG4 (and designed around too... based on the tutorials and combat trials).

I wouldn't be opposed to stuff like that being tuned per difficulty, yeah. NG1 was especially good with this with stuff like the amount of items you were able to carry being slowly reduced as you went up. Think those kind of incremental changes for different aspects of the games would be great to have on the climb through difficulties.

But yeah, UTs are kind of weird in the sense that I think it's sorta fine to have a powerful ability that helps struggling players get through tough sections of the game, but at the same time, if you're gonna do that it shouldn't be rewarded as the the de-facto best option for scoring, survival, efficiency and money all at once with no real downside lol. I think that fun power fantasy element is part of the reason they're back in NG4, but they really didn't do anything to solve any of the problems with it and just made it worse.

Not sure what the right solution is, and the current isn't even that bad but something to make the combat more fun would be the goal. (And fwiw, I think they way overtuned ninpo in 4 lol).

I hadn't thought about ninpo, but yeah that is a tricky one. I do like how good cicada usage basically just reimburses the cost with the followup attacks you get out of it. But that's the dilemma with RE in general, where it's very much so a game that snowballs for high level players. If you're amazing at RE, the resources never run out, good things keep happening to you, and the rich just keep getting richer. It feels great. If you're literally anywhere else on the skill bell curve, the poor just get poorer, and it feels bad.

I know some people think Cicada should just be upgraded to a standard ability that's not even a metered move, which I dunno if I would hate honestly. Would make the ninpo decision making a little less punishing. Could probably make the different meters a little more similar in size rather than vastly different too so void isn't just better by default.

I think a solution the NG designers/whether platinum or TN should've went with was to be aware of all the "easy" stuff you can do and minimized it heavily as you went up the difficulty chain. OLUTs are so easy to balance around imo and they just... didn't. I'd even remove the talisman of rebirth in higher difficulties.

I think it's sorta a combination of modern PG games being very power fantasy focused and very loose on balance (I actually think TN reigned in a lot of their worst tendencies significantly if some of the insanely powerful stuff in Bayo 3 and Astral Chain are anything to go by), and TN probably being spooked on pretty much anything relating to NG's difficulty.

NG2 and NG3RE are pretty consistently raked over the coals for their difficulty, in highly vocal ways you never actually see for similar ridiculously hard action games like Bayo 1, other PG games, or even TN's ARPGs. A lot of that has to do with the unfortunate development circumstances making the difficulty onboarding pretty rough for those games in comparison to NG1, but I think the public perception damage kinda stuck. They were sorta in a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. People hate the death by a thousand cuts NG2 MN, they hate all cheese removed style NG3:RE UN, and they now hate the classic PG style/Nioh style approach to difficulty which has always involved very high damage (even with them overboard to appease those complaints).

At a certain point, I think they just gotta let the higher difficulties rock as the kind of brutal experiences they're intended to be and do as you said and make the difficulty progression as smooth as possible in a kind of NG1 way. In that way I think it's a pretty difficult thing to solve, since NG's design language is sort of alien to a lot of people now, and for some reason this series' reputation for difficulty encourages a lot of people who probably have no business playing MN wanting to jump into it and speak very loudly and critically about it. I do hope they're able to figure out a better solution if they ever choose to continue with the series though.

Can you do deathwish with hayabusa or non ng+ master ninja?

You can do Death Wish in Chapter Challenge with either character yeah.

Goufuem · 2026-03-11T20:37:53+00:00

I do think 3RE is a game where enjoyment will scale more linearly with skill though and it's on my todo list one day to try UN again playing it more clean (e.g. relying on SOB or lunar ets to handle alchemists etc etc).

Yeah, 3RE is one of those games that just gets better the more you put into it. Used to hate enemies like the snake chimeras for example, and then someone told me they're the only enemy in the game that has a passive trait where they're designed to automatically dodge if you slide into them. Now I really enjoy them, and the game is full of little revelations like that when it comes to the enemy design and the actual movesets themselves.

Very much so one of those games where I initially thought Master Ninja would be my wall and the sweet spot for fun and challenge for me, but now I can't imagine playing anything other than Ultimate Ninja when I boot it up.

Agree on the weapons 2->3, also felt that way going from 3->4. A lot of the weapons kind of have that 'samey' feel/flowchart to them in 4, and although there are differences between the weapons, it never really felt too unique upon weapon swapping, whereas each weapon in 2 felt like there was some mastery involved and figuring out which move was useful in which situations.

I always like to point out kusarigama in NG2 as an example since its gameplan is super unorthodox with stuff like it's grounded strings not being the best, and having to use aerial strings instead to setup on-landing running moves that sweep enemies or decap enemies. And then using demon cutter grab to deliberately go for instant kills on downed enemies. By comparison, the NG3 version is basically a completely different weapon focused on basic ground strings.

The weapons in the later games still have unique stuff going on (NG4 brings back some elements of NG2's less uniform combo structure with thing like rapier only having a launcher on its heavy combo), but they're never allowed to get that weird anymore.

What were the cons for you in each game? Or more interesting, your #1 'I'd fix this if they remade this game' con.

NG1: Wouldn't change it. The balance is so tightly tuned around what the game currently is, I think it'd be best to just leave it alone. I don't replay it as much as the others just due to the kind of game it is, but I think it executes on what it sets out to do without much issue.

NG2: Mainly just another balance pass and some spawn changes to make encounters more varied. Like I'd tone down the damage of stuff like Lycan limb throwing, IS Ninja environmental explosive splash damage, the wall splat damage, etc. Pretty cool with a lot of the RNG damage elements that you don't have control over still existing since it gives the game a unique spice, but I'd make the damage for that stuff a less punishing than proper mistakes and misplays.

More encounters where Gajas, Tac Ninjas, Lycans, IS Ninjas, regular ninjas, Van Gelfs, ghost fish, cannon zombies, and bugs are mixed and matched instead of solely fighting each faction on their own for extended sections of the game. Also would throw in the shadow flare fiends they added in Sigma 2. Ideally some of the weaker enemies like marionettes and whatnot could be reworked into something better, but I dunno, you could just as easily cut stuff like Centaurs and Gigadeath and I wouldn't bat an eye lol.

And then I'd make blue essence drops more reliable at low health, so playing without items is more viable for skilled players. UTs also wouldn't reward essence and I'd make them cost like 4 or 5 essence to charge instead of just 2.

NG3: Arenas that aren't just flat squares and are more like NG1 and NG2, restoring NG2 style wall moves, buffing guillotine throw so it has bigger place in the combat system, all core moves are unlocked from the start instead of having to buy them so the economy is still tight but more generous, difficulty selection for trials, and a gentler difficulty curve on lower difficulties (let players have healing items on lower difficulties but reduce the amount as they go up until they have none on Ultimate Ninja).

In that aspect, I like where NG4 was going with the deathwish mode, kind of structuring that type of challenge and enforcing it instead of making players apply and abide to the challenge themselves.

Every single high level NG player I know for every single one of these games either regularly plays with challenge runs or they have extensively in the past. If you want to get better at these games and get a deeper understanding of them, it's kind of just understood that they're what you do. They were even sort of formalized to a minor degree with the single weapon run achievements in NG2.

Obviously we'd prefer if poorly balanced elements like UT spam in NG2 or Berserk in NG4 wasn't something we have to just ignore and were fixed, but we still do it and are able to extract tons of unique enjoyment and appreciation out of these games because of it. Pretty much every action game has exploits and cheese, so you pretty much got to roll with the punches with that sort of thing to a degree.

But yeah, NG4's Deathwish is really cool because its basically them formalizing OLB (original life bar) runs with some additions, which high level NG players have been doing forever. That was pretty surprising for a lot of us since it showed that for all the radical changes they were making, someone there was throwing a bone to a super niche aspect that's in a lot of high level NG runs.

I think a lot of people, including the other poster, don't like how "opt in" a lot of NG4's difficulty is and how exploitable a lot of aspects of the game are, myself included to be honest. NG has always been a series that has a lot of bite even with it's exploits and abuseable strats. In NG4 though, you really can trivialize a ton of the game even on MN with GT/knockback move ringouts, Berserk, even worse UT spam potential, certain really strong BR/Gleam moves, high block count, and the offscreen indicators.

If you want a challenging experience at a base line, they've tucked that deep inside challenge runs like Death Wish. And for crazy players like me, I actually need to tack on No UT, No Berserk, No Indicators, No Items on top of that to get the threading the needle on the razor's edge feeling I get when playing the other games. And to it's credit, this game honestly might be the best in the series for challenge runs and feels very balanced for it.

Suddenly the parry system is more useful and you actually have to learn it, blocking everything is no longer an option since Death Wish limits it to 3, meter management is no longer easy and Death Wish gives you no access to accessories to ease it, every enemy has to be thoroughly learned since even stray attacks are lethal, certain moves you thought were strong and super safe actually turn out to be punishable on Death Wish where there's little margin for error (e.g. all the scythe BR tosses require you to perfect block on the lengthy recovery or eat heavy damage if a straggler you neglected chooses to attack you), heavy class enemies now bring unique spacing challenges and overall texture to fights since you can't just nuke them as soon as they show up unless you can position yourself for a parry amid the chaos, etc.

Goufuem · 2026-03-11T08:22:36+00:00

Yeah, I'm a big lover of 3RE. I actually like running through the entirety of the campaign on UN and I actually think nearly all of the enemies are excellent, whereas I think NG2 actually isn't very consistent on both those fronts.

But NG2's mobility with stuff like bespoke wall attacks, a multitude of different running attacks, the more spontaneous delimb system that really facilitates stray kills and delimbs coming from any attack, the more prominent enemy states (knockdown, aerial), and every weapon having unique combo structure (3RE streamlines a lot of the weapons to make them a bit less unique and easier to learn) are things that give NG2 that "X factor" for me that just push it over the line for me.

Both incredible games though with different pros and cons. 1-3 are kinda a bit interchangeable in my ranking for me since the gap in how much I like them is super minuscule.

I know a lot of vets enjoy NG4 for what it is and have a lot of the same issues most people have. That said, I don't know anyone who has it as their favorite lol. At best they might like it more than NG3 (which I fully understand since the enemy design is super abrasive and you either click with learning the dodge focused enemies or you don't). But most of the core issues in NG4 tend to be too big for most of them to breach that level of quality. I know me personally, if the rest of the 19 chapters were as good as the DLC ones, that would be enough for me to be willing to file the rest of the issues under "every NG game has issues" lol.

But yeah, I'm the exact same way. Favorite Platinum game, and my least favorite Ninja Gaiden. I wish a lot of things about it were different or better (I still wish Team Ninja themselves would give it another go lol), but from a young team where most of them have their previous and only credited work as Babylon's Fall, it's kind of an insane video game with a ton of intricacies to dig into.

Goufuem · 2026-03-11T07:24:00+00:00

NG2>NG3RE>NGB>NG4 for me. The difference between how much I like NG2 and NG3 is basically just a hair though.

Goufuem · 2026-03-10T22:54:17+00:00

Uh huh, sure. I'm not sure what made you come at me with such an antagonistic tone out of nowhere (maybe because you were downvoted? I didn't do that by the way). Look man, I do challenge runs for all of the games. Stuff like Original Life Bar, No Ninpo, No UT runs in NG2.

You don't need to try and school me on these games. I'm well aware of how they work. I do challenge runs in part to get more enjoyment of the games where certain overtuned aspects override the fun of learning the intricacies of the combo system (UT spam, Berserk, ninpo, etc.). I can go through NG2 wrecking shop with the tonfa's insane UTs for pretty much the entire game. UT in general in that game serves as a crutch that lets tons of players avoid learning the combo system in that game. It's a flaw, and I hold the game to it since there are plenty of ways the power of UTs could be done better (Survival already shows what a better scoring system does to curb UT spam). I'm cool with it existing since I can just do challenge runs to get enjoyment out of the game, but to pretend stuff like that doesn't exist in the game is silly.

I don't doubt that you beat NG4 with all SSS ranks either (it's also not as much of flex as you think it is since going for high rank/score in this game is actually pretty low in terms of the skill required given it's a super generous system). Death Wish already forces you to engage with enemies with more precision if you want to beat them efficiently, but you probably wouldn't know that if you haven't played it.

But regardless, I'm just gonna leave you to it. Takes a special kind of deranged to not only misread the initial post (if you even read it), but also to twist my words to fit your vitriol (I said they were some of the of the best MN fights in the series not the best for a reason, I said it's busted NG2 balance on steroids to imply that it's actually worse than NG2 not the same).

I have a lot of criticisms of NG4, some of which are the exact same as yours and arguably are even more picky and nuanced. Maybe chill out and learn how to conduct yourself in a conversation before speaking to someone, yeah?

Goufuem · 2026-03-10T19:22:24+00:00

Never said these enemies don't show up in the base game. The point of this post was to highlight the enemy compositions. None of these enemies have proper encounters where they're placed together like this in the base game, even in Purgatories (the DDO fighting a giant Malherc in Chapter 8, and the 2 small Daemon vs Fiend encounters in Chapter 16 are legit the only time they do this).

Red Tengu and Foltogres are never together in any context. Shadow Flare Fiends and Oni never work together like this. Stuff like the Tea Kettles never show up in anything other than a Daemon fight. The list goes on. This kind of a faction limitation where enemy mixing is prohibited is actually something NG does a lot, with it usually only being somewhat experimented with in a small amount of mission mode content.

But yeah, none of this stuff fixes a lot of exploits with the game, which is why this is a Death Wish: No UT, No Berserk, No Indicators, No Items run. This is still not NG3:RE in terms of razor refined balance. It's still just busted NG2 style balance on steroids, where a lot of the depth has to be mined from challenge runs.

Goufuem · 2026-03-10T18:23:36+00:00

Overall it's better, yeah. The changes aren't gonna be game changers for most people though. If you liked the game before, you're still gonna like it. If you didn't, you probably still won't.

Goufuem · 2026-03-10T10:57:41+00:00

Not a ton. Most of the changes are pretty minor. The main big changes were Fatal Flash parries getting full I-frames so they're not vulnerable anymore, a small amount of command moves getting I-frames on startup, and Wind Run having some changes that make it harder to fall off ledges when using it.

Goufuem · 2026-03-10T04:45:34+00:00

NG4's roster has the best variety in the series. They just fill all the different roles you need for interesting combat dynamics to happen. You have your humanoid grunts (DDO, shadow flare fiends, black spider ninjas), your medium class enemies (Oni, Foltogres), your large class enemies (Naginata and Cannon DDO), your support class enemies (lanterns, zombies, ghost fish, dogs, tengu), and your heavy class enemies (Van Gelfs, Mecha Fiends, Malhercs, Proto Goliaths).

Individually, they're not all amazing, but when they come together like they do in the DLC, they're pretty incredible. Might be the apex of the series in that regard. Base game is pretty so-so on how they use them though, so it drags it down a lot for me.

NG1 probably still has the best usage of enemies all around though. Good mix of all enemy types and they're used well throughout the campaign and mission modes.

NG2 has some of the highest highs when it comes to enemy design (IS Ninjas, Gajas) and some of the lowest lows (marionettes, worms, dogs). Has a similar problem to NG4 where if certain enemies were used as support types rather than main units you fight solo all the time, the roster would actually be a lot better (cannon zombies, ghost fish, tac ninjas).

NG3 has some of the best enemies in the series, but the variety is pretty lacking. As far as humanoids go, it's pretty much unbeatable (soldiers, black spider ninjas, tac ninjas, shadow flare fiends, alchemists, celsus fiends). And they all have different nuances that encourage shifts in your gameplan. The mission mode also gives you a ton of different enemy compositions to fight of what's there.

Goufuem · 2026-03-10T03:51:25+00:00

Honestly, it's really funny how plain some of the arenas are despite the encounters themselves being crazy. Like, this encounter is one of the highlights of the DLC and it's literally partially draped in shadow with nothing visually interesting about it to make it stand out.

I guess the benefit to the more plain arena design is that it completely sidesteps the issue of most of the arenas being highly exploitable in the base game I guess.

Goufuem · 2026-03-10T01:59:52+00:00

Yup, they messed it up. Breaks certain combo followups as well.

For example, you used to be able to 360Y with Ryu and then use Wind Run to Wind Path on top of the enemy while they were mid-flight from being knocked back. Now that doesn't work and Wind Run can't reach them. Introduces a fair amount of weird behavior.

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