I remember playing this game as a kid, and it's still just as fun!

link to mod

NG4 Whale Enhanced v1.7.5 at Ninja Gaiden 4 Nexus - Mods and community

Title. For the sake of argument, let's compare games on their highest "non-gimmick" difficulties (so stuff like Dante Must Die, but not Heaven or Hell).

I'm one of those people who plays these games for the tough-as-nails challenge rather than score-chasing or messing with training mode. I've beaten almost all of the Gaidens and DMCs on their respective max difficulties (eventually I plan to add all the Bayonettas and classic God of Wars to that list) and I'm wondering what else might be worth adding to that trophy wall.

The internet has made it sound like Shinobi (2002) is right up there near the top, but I'm wondering if there's any other obscure stuff I'm not aware of.

Tried to do the no-ranged-weapons run but I couldn't pull out the DPS to even survive phase 2, so I just used the lantern in the end. If this game looks interesting, it's currenty getting sold on steam with half price.

Please read my arguements for some of them first, also added dmc 1 and norse gow just to just juxtopose their other entries.

Darksiders and greek gow are pretty similar while gow having better and aggressive enemies, the core in my experience has been mainly killing enemies efficiently, while the games lets you cancel moves and gives you lots of tools to do really complex combos. Its mostly efficient play in my mind.

Bayonetta ofc might be perceive as more freestyle, grinding my way through infinite climax and to play for score, it also involves a lot of efficient play maybe more than freestyle.

Dmc 3's combat depth cant be overstated but not being the most mechanically gifted player and making my way through dmd and mostly involves efficient play with DT explosions im putting it there

Ng4 has leaned more into air juggling with the weapon swaps and in my view has been more into freestyle territory.

Also please i dont want this to turn into which is better or not, its whether you think my placements are reasonable or you have better arguements to move the games so please

How much do you care about ratings/ ranking systems in these games? Do you find yourself more motivated to earn pure platinums in Bayonetta, SSS combos in DMC, etc? Or does it not matter for you? Do you expect or prefer CAGs or CAG-adjacent games to have some kind of rating system or not? What's your preferred approach to rating the player's skill/performance?

Im Not Sure this Ranking is Not Bad but i think Overall they ranked some Bosses to high & wheres the Bear Nushi?!