So, what better way to silence the critics than to take an old, well respected franchise, dust it off, use your design and solid-60fps-engine, and serve up a slice of gory Grindhouse action? However confident he was, there must have been in the back of Itagaki’s mind the realisation that Ninja Gaiden would receive a critical mauling if it didn’t deliver. It would be seen as a vanity project, and confirmation that his developers were little more than laddish upstarts with a lot of programming talent but no sophistication.

What does the gamer want out of a 3D action game these days? Well, something to compete with (and hopefully better) titles like Devil May Cry, Shinobi and Bujingai. Locked solid and tight in its 60fps frame rate, Hayabusa (star of the original and the DOA series) takes his first confident steps into a 3D world. The original saw our hero combat street punks in a typical eighties milieu, similar to Double Dragon, Final Fight and several other standards of the time. What mainly set NG apart was its use of the environment – Hayabusa could swing from lampposts, flip from walls and street furniture, climb along hanging pipes – as well as its high difficulty level. There are echoes of this in the way he interacts with his 3D universe, but amped-up to extreme levels.

Fluid movement is the key to combat, and what Itagaki has focused on in order to set Ninja Gaiden apart from the competition. Combat relies on well-timed combos (normally in tight areas) where transitional movement from one motion to the next is all-important. The face buttons control your attacks, jump and secondary weapons, such as Shuriken and the satisfying Crossbow. The rhythm of your slashing and stabbing attacks is handled in a very similar manner to a 3D fighting game such as Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive, as vicious sword slashes and bone-destroying kicks are activated with sequences of button presses in the P,K,K,P,K mould. This doesn’t mean that NG becomes a memory test in the manner of Tekken, though. With the ability to attack from walls, throw enemies, activate counters and throw shuriken with the jab of a button, NG remains true to its arcade heritage.

The expansive roster of brutal, deadly attacks is relatively simple to memorise given time, and this leaves the emphasis on correct use of your surroundings. Attacks are improved by upgrading your weaponry at various points throughout the game, and you get a familiar buzz from knowing your weapon both inflicts more damage and also gifts you a larger amount of attacking options. Weapons can be levelled up using the yellow orbs (called ‘Karma’) that are released by enemies when slaughtered. The more effective your combos, the more Karma received.

Magic (called ‘Ki’) can be earned/bought and used, but really doesn’t become effective until the latter stages of the game. The playground where you employ use of these weapons - the game’s levels - are huge and sprawling, with areas that are inaccessible when Hayabusa first enters them. The respawning enemies and the search for the hidden keys or switches, Resident Evil-style, provide ample time for familiarisation with the controls and attacks, but expose the first chink in the game’s armour. In later levels the puzzles require the use of acquired Ninja skills – you’ll be wall running, precision target shooting with the crossbow and running from tumbling boulders to outwit the monsters’ traps, in time - but the early and hokey key/lock puzzles hint at padding, and are intrusive.

Hayabusa’s tale (the search for a demon sword that could destroy the world in the wrong hands) is predictable, and mainly serves to introduce boss characters in some FMV or a comely cutscene. It’s watching the game’s narrative unfold in this way that the first, niggling “Hang on a minute…” moment starts to cohere in your head. There is a pattern to the game that’s a million miles away from its arcade parent: wander around large and sparsely-populated environments looking for artefacts, getting into the odd rumble and waiting for a cutscene to come along and gratefully mark the end of the area.

On chapter 4, for example, you are trudging around blandly-constructed city streets and opening doors – hardly the stuff of Ninja legend. The boss fights in these areas are the game’s obvious focal point: although every fight can potentially be your last, it is the monster crouched waiting for you at the end of the stage that is given star billing, which further reinforces the fact that you are in a large and empty playground for the most part, just waiting to be picked on by the local bully.

Combat, against the larger denizens of the night in particular, highlights another flaw in the game: the camera. Although not the worst ever seen, it often holds too tight to the floor, and too close to Hayabusa. With your vision restricted whilst being attacked on all sides, or when pinned into corners where wall running isn’t an option, it can be a bane until use of the R button to centre it becomes second nature. After that, it is only an occasional annoyance, but a significant one. Pinpointing enemies with the use of surround sound is a feasible alternative, but hardly compensation.

The game’s greatest strength is in the power of its engine. Not only will you trade blows in the most realistic and lifelike manner imaginable, but you will be desperately trying to outwit opponents who will block, back off, cover their friends with support fire and throw you if you cower behind your L button’s defensive posture. Although the levels where these confrontations take pace are often overlarge, the variety in their design is commendable (if somewhat plastic and antiseptic at times). You will, though, find yourself exploring the demon-choked ruins and Soviet Bloc-like city streets cast in the role of hunter, not hunted. A pity, then, that level construction is so trite and so rarely tests your athleticism. A greater number of tricky jumps and wall runs around tighter, more linear levels would have been appreciated, as well as a larger number of opponents and secret areas.

Ninja Gaiden is a substantial and very challenging game. Not only is it tough but fair, it is intelligent and far more restrained than Team Ninja’s previous work in tone (aside from some buxom, inappropriately dressed eye-candy appearing, that is) and visual design. If not for the bland level construction and an oddly low-slung camera this would be truly outstanding. As it is, Itagaki can simply be proud that he’s made a game built on moments of exciting content, not merely on technical expertise.