Edit Edit: Based on a comment from the writer themselves they are NOT actually in support of peterson and blah blah blah im not going to rewrite what they said here but its all good news hence the score is back and im back to shilling this game constantly lol

I've always been a massive sucker for the subset of games that are modern revivals of classic games. As a lover of games on older consoles, it's always really cool to see how developers decide to bring those types of games back to the modern day and how they improve on them while still keeping it recognizable as inspired by the games from years and years ago. I think out of all those games that I've played; this is the best one. Ninja Gaiden is already a game I did enjoy, and a game that has also not aged as badly (key word AS) as I think a lot of games from that era have, and the Messenger perfectly adds to the core gameplay style to make it feel in line with modern platformers. Even the minute addition of attacking while moving adds so much to the fluidity of the game, and that's not even including the myriad of new abilities that you're given that let you feel like the greatest ninja on the planet. Now take into account that the game is actually a metroid-vania, lets you time travel on the fly, makes use of all its mechanics to the absolute fullest possible in super creative ways, has a plethora of super memorable areas and especially bosses (the chase scene right before the final area is one of the best sequences in any game period), and is also the FUNNIEST game you'll ever play but knows when to be heartfelt, and you have a package that I think is pretty much unbeatable in its genre. I cannot wait to play the DLC and continue to replay this game over and over again until the end of time, it's truly something special.