Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z hands-on – kiss your ninja code of honour goodbye
A sensationally lurid departure for the po-faced action series.
As motivations go, you can do a lot worse than single-minded revenge. It’s what spurred Ryu Hayabusa to action in the first Ninja Gaiden in 1988, and it’s lit a fire under his successor Yaiba Kamikaze, the foul-mouthed ninja protagonist of Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z.The difference is that Yaiba’s target is Hayabusa himself, and the death he’s avenging is his own. Never mind that Yaiba is arguably better off as a consequence, revived with a cool cybernetic arm and nifty powers after being sliced nearly in half by Ryu – he wants the Dragon Ninja dead, and he’s ready to carve his way through an army of zombies to achieve that goal.