they removed coop and did not fixed majority of bugs if any. Instead of adressing the real difficulty issues they just nerf the ♥♥♥♥ out of master/ultimate ninja trials. Overall really lazy and disapointing from Team Ninja.

What a tough sell. If you asked me at any point before the final boss I'd say, while it's not the best Ninja Gaiden has ever been it's fun in it's own way. It's visceral, it's fast paced and Razor's Edge did quite a bit to make it a game worthy of the Ninja Gaiden title. After playing the final boss? Well, let's put it this way: not a single frame of the last fight could be considered fun. It's so poor it retroactively stole what fun I had. The truth is that RE is a bit tedious, the difficulty is all over the map and it's not great. It isn't until the last boss that the scales tip.

There are a few bosses that feel like they fall into that category, but the last boss takes all of the game's worst habits and then goes on for far longer than it should. This fight doesn't feel skillful in the slightest, it feels like you win when the game gives you enough breathing room and random luck to do so. Its hard to imagine anyone playing this fight and going, "Yes, that was satisfying, fair and a wonderful way to wrap up this game." It's tedious, its frustrating and it's the reason I can't really recommend the game. If this were just hard mode I could probably overlook it, but this is the normal difficulty. The game purposefully ends on this note. Should you finish the game the achievement should be, "Really? Why?" that sums up how it feels to complete it.

Once you experience that you look back at the game and realize a lot of it is like that. If you have to play one of these NGS2 is the most accessible, balanced and polished. NGS1 if you need want something a bit more grueling, and NG3RE if you just can't believe it's actually as bad as everyone says. If I had to recommend it I would say it's got the bloody charm NGS2 doesn't, and it's nice to be able to replay the games as the other characters. There's still some Ninja Gaiden in here to be enjoyed, but it's like recommending a roast beef sandwich with a tack in it. No matter how good that sandwich is, all you are going to remember is the tack.

I would not recommend this, but since you have to buy it as a collection you might as well play it; maybe you'll end up liking it.

My experience with the game was largely miserable and just frustrating. Razor's Edge has an entertaining combat system with changes for better or worse; however the actual content that surrounds the game ruins otherwise decent/fun combat.

Story is a big focus now, and its one of the most boring and cliche stories I've ever witnessed. Added on you have the typical abundance of Quick Time Events, forced walk and chats, a lot of scripted sequences, and boss fights are more spectacle focused. The level design and enemy patterns make some fights so annoying with disregard to parrying, counters, and sometimes launchers. It feels like the dev team noticed past move sets were good, but instead of balancing around them they just feel useless sometimes.

The most annoying experience was the boss fights; I did not enjoy a single boss fight in this entire game. They all felt like they boiled down to repeating the same attack and dodge combo until you kill them. They removed healing items entirely, but with no reliable way to develop your Ki to heal during a boss fight, you end up just dying and restarting dozens of times until you exploit a specific pattern. It never felt rewarding, and ended up feeling like a chore. The final boss might very well be the worst boss fight I've ever experienced in a game... seriously. Bad design doesn't even describe it.

There are literally no positives to the main story and scenarios that you experience. The only redeeming aspects are the moment to moment fights you have with standard enemies. However even typical encounters are disappointing since a lot of enemies are reused from previous games, and the challenge skulls reuse boss fights from the previous games as well. At least the camera is the least annoying in the series and I enjoyed using normal attacks more often instead of abusing Ultimate Technique charging like NGII/Sigma 2.

Most of this game's issues stem from the original release of Ninja Gaiden 3 being abysmal and a misguided sequel that steered too far into being simplified, mainstream, and story focused. That games enemies, bosses, story, level design, QTE's, scripted sequences, etc. still persist to some extent in this updated version too, and as a result Razor's Edge suffers immensely.

It's similar to NG: Sigma 2, where that game doesn't reach its own potential because its trying to build on top of and change things from an existing game but with a different director. The benefit in that case was that the foundation of NGII is largely solid, but not in the case of the original Ninja Gaiden 3 at all. Looking at it as an updated version of NG3, its actually quite a great improvement in a lot of ways, but its still based off of NG3...

Its a flawed game, built from a very flawed game. The combat is fun enough to maybe play Chapter Challenge and Ninja Trials, but after the main story I lost all interest.

I forgot how rough this game was until i played it again in this collection. They absolutely butchered all the stuff they got right in the previous two games (the originals/Black, not Sigma). Not sure how it is on consoles but the PC port seems really unresponsive during several fights. It often just seems like your inputs arent even registering. They completely got rid of essence which really slows down the pace of combat when you cant quickly chain into an ultimate. The game as a whole is way too linear with basically no exploration and an insane amount of scripted/quick time events which totally destroy the feel and flow. Not to mention forcing this weird cringey family narrative and having Ryu turn into this super talkative emotional protagonist and having uninteresting side characters constantly talking to him throughout each stage without actually lending anything to the experience. Another major gripe is the way they handle health and healing. instead of sticking with tried and true items they opted for a weird mechanic where your health bar takes a certain amount of lasting damage as well as a recoverable amount. The recoverable amount regenerates after each encounter and the rest is only regained once you hit a save point. the problem with this is you wont always be able to enter a boss fight with max health because they neglect to put save points before a lot of them and you end up fighting a boss with 1/3 of your max health if you werent careful through the first part of the stage. This coupled with increasingly annoying/excessively robust enemies and what feels like a cheap bullet-hell experience in many situations, all just makes this a fairly insufferable experience. Hate to be this critical, i know Team Ninja can do an amazing job but they let this one down hard. Could have been a great addition to the franchise if they hadnt gone completely off the rails with their questionable changes.

More of an exercise in frustration than anything else. The combat is vastly reworked from NG(S)2, and it's much harder, but not in ways that feel "fair". Obliteration (executing enemies that are missing a limb with one button press) is still in, but the animations take longer. The most important change is that the enemies are MUCH more aggressive. If you're not dodging constantly, some guy is kicking you. This is actually fine once you get used to it. Makes fights much more dynamic and aggressive. In addition, sometimes enemies flash red and attack. If you get hit, it's a big chunk of damage. If you evade (or are just out of range) and hit strong attack, you can instantly kill that enemy (called steel on bone) and chain kill enemies in the direct vicinity. This is all good.
What's not so good is that the worst parts of Ninja Gaiden 2 (base game) are back: you're regularly being pelted with rockets from off screen, having to dodge your combat engagement to pick off the bastards with the rocket launcher with a bow. Sometimes it's not a bunch of dudes, but it's a helicopter instead. These soak up arrows, and dealing with very aggressive melee enemies and the missile spam at the same time is just not very fun.
The increased enemy aggression also emphasizes your move cooldown, making you get hit when you're just done attacking and had already input a block or dodge move.
The worst addition is an enemy type called Alchemists. These regularly appear in threes, and just evade or block almost all attacks. There's little rhyme or reason to when they're vulnerable, and since there's usually more than one of them, they are constantly kicking or throwing hadoukens at you. Beating them feels more like relief from their nonsense than victory through superior tactics/execution.
These things all make the game harder than previous games, but in addition to this, there are no more health potions. Instead, you can use ninpo (magic) to heal on hitting an enemy. This is only possible when the ninpo meter is full, which only happens if you hit enough dudes with normal attacks. After this it's drained and you have to hit a lot of dudes again to cast another ninpo. Alternatively, you can use steel on bone to heal a bit. Neither of these heal a lot, and they don't restore "red" damage, which is the type that shortens your lifebar until you get to a checkpoint to restore it to full.

Oh, and you don't have flying swallow (the series' main way to close distance and attack) from the start, you have to buy it from an upgrade menu. And you don't get new weapons and abilities organically, you just get them at checkpoints out of thin air, or when finding a set number of golden scarab collectibles. The additional weapons and content feel very sloppily pasted on to the main game. For instance, you lose the dragon sword for a bit, but should still have your claws. But because Ninja Gaiden 3 (base game) only had the sword, you temporarily lose the claws too.

On the plus side, at least the gore is back and you get to play as Ayane again.

This review is specifically for Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge:

This game has some of the worst game design philosophy I have encountered in a action spectacle fighter. Between invulnerable spawning enemies, quicktime events that break the flow of combat, mandatory camera movements that remove the focus off your character that you can still get hit during, artificial difficulty increase of simply adding more enemies to the encounters, and the port having atrocious stuttering for anyone not running their monitor at 60hz. I can say definitively that this is the epitome of kusoge. I feel like something could've been good in this game if they took more time to flesh out some of those problems I've mentioned. i will admit some parts can be fun and the steel on bone mechanic with the base combat system is fun in a vacuum outside of this game, but seriously don't play this at higher difficulties than normal or hero, as the the flaws become very apparent. Play something else that's fleshed out like DMC5 or hell even Kingdom Hearts 2 critical mode. Anyone who unironically has fun with this entry at higher difficulties is either huffing major amounts of copium or actually enjoys CBT.

I love ninja gaiden 1 & 2. They are hard, yet fair and satisfying. I really really really want to like it, but Ninja gaiden 3 is difficult for no reason. It's essentially video game masochism. I want to like it so bad but it chips away at my patience. You do more dodging than anything and when you are finally able to connect the enemy blocks like it can read your moves. every single fight goes on forever, even though the game feels like its running at 1.5x speed and enemies move at 2x. Even worse the semi permanent shrinking of the health bar just adds another layer of pain. If you hate yourself and like unnecessarily difficult games this ones for you. I like challenge, but bruh.

But hey. Ayane has playable chapters. And I like that. Team ninjas best character is always a big draw for me.

I want more ninja gaiden, but I hope any new game won't be as unreasonable as this one tends to get.

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge is the most f*cking disgusting game in all of the Ninja Gaiden Collection, the series that I love ever so much. Everything this game does is an insult to what made Ninja Gaiden so legendary. Let me break it down for you.

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's edge is insanely putrid in it's core and game design. It combines the bullsh*t of sigma 1's enemy and boss behaviors cranked up to 11 with its own choice really obnoxious Quick Time Events and really d*ckishly placed ranged enemies during certain parkour/platforming sections. They also decided to add really obnoxious enemy types (those stupid mages with sand magic in Act 2) that block your attacks every time and stagger you with said block, putting you at a severe disadvantage every time (and of course they bring this back in Act 3 for Ayane sections except this time they are bosses and constantly bombard you with range, counter attacks and blocks that stagger). You will also see them abuse tank-like enemy types a lot like the Licker lookalikes in Act 5. The bosses are extremely tedious and supremely sinister for the amount of time they waste especially Act 4's dinosaur boss and Act 9's mech boss which they most drone on with multiple phases and randomly switching with Quick time events or another gameplay change like running away from it, pepsiman style. The final boss is absurdly b*llshit and probably one of the worst designed boss fights in all of ninja gaiden history. It makes the Sigma 1 boss fights a cakewalk compared to that.

The other thing thats messed up is the health system, You can only gain health back using Ninpo magic, only if you hit an enemy. However, the meter for Ninpo charges VERY SLOWLY, making it nearly impossible to recover health if you are dealing with a massive horde of enemies that either swarm you or out-range you or both. Now every other Ninja Gaiden game gives you health potions to heal and ever since Ninja Gaiden 2, after certain enemy encounters, you will get a portion of your health back but 3 is very sadistic and almost doesnt give you any health after a big fight. Instead they decided to add a new mechanic where your health is constantly corroding every time you get hit, meaning your Max HP LOWERS every time you get hit and the only way to restore it is with a save point. Once again, Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 give plenty of save points and potions for you to get, 3 spreads apart the save points so far, that you will barely even get to it without losing more than 75% of your Health for douchebag enemies over parkour sections or just crude foes jumping you at random. Hell, Even Ninja Gaiden sigma 1 wasn't that mean.

It's no surprise that the people who went behind the original creator's back to create Sigma 1 decided to completely smear the heavenly dream that was Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 and create 3 which not only does not reference the NES Ninja Gaidens at all but also dumbs down the sense of adventure, story and characters of the first two games. The story could have been great if the entire premise wasn't about the Dragon Sword being stuck in Ryu's arm with those tedious Grip of Murder sections and 90% basic terrorist plot. The main villain is kind of an idiot and a really annoying one at that, the entire story of this game just makes your head spin and shake in disbelief of how low everything could get. Act 6 is the only section of the game where it feels good to play and is actually like a proper part of Ninja Gaiden's world.

Making the players have to unlock basic moves that were available by default in Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 is downright mean. Your counter attack, Izuna drop, Guillotine throw, The most essential part of your best defense and attacks, gone by some stupid experience points you need to unlock it. Did i mention that you can rarely wiggle out of any enemy grab ? What you could do in Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 is completely once in a blue moon in 3, where enemies constantly grab and you cannot escape whether its a suicide attack or not. I don't think I have to explain that the menus are a compressed hexagonal hell mess as navigating them is worse than being stuck in a psychedelic nightmare through a kaleidoscope. And whats even worse is that, it tries to be a combination of Metal Gear Rising: Revengence and Devil May Cry, but it doesn't know what the hell it wants to be. The enemy types are 90% basic military grunt while the other games gave you a blend of everything: Ninjas, Military soldiers, Demons, Mechs, Biological Monstrosities etc. Pointless stealth sections that were never in the first two games are easily one of the more mundane editions to this game. A lot of insignificant elements and piss poor ideas were mixed together when making this abomination of a game.

The only real positive points i can give about this game is the combat somewhat, but it doesn't feel as good or as smooth as 2's. Sure you get more time to play with the bonus characters like Ayane, Momiji and the new edition Kasumi, but Rachel is no longer there and there is no feeling of it tying it together from the first two games. Also I do like the fact they gave Hayabusa another side to him, a kinder side of the guy behind the ninja mask where you can understand him and his interactions with everyone and hell, it's kinda nice how he talks to his fellow ninja and friends and shows a lot of trust and genuineness. Of course, the blood is there and there are some cool costumes but other than that, this game just sh*ts on Ninja Gaiden core values.

Speaking as a long time fan of the series, please, if you value your sanity and well being, don't play Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's edge. You are better off playing Sigma 1, 2 and Black 2. Just stay away from this grotesque mud swamp of a game. 3/10.

ayane playable is the best thing in this game

Ill change my review when you fix the porting issues.