Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Ninja Gaiden 4's DLC, The Two Masters, was released a few days ago. It comes with a few new story chapters, a new weapon for Ryu and Yakumo, new enemies and bosses, new trials, and Abyssal Road, a 100-floor combat tower. To get straight to the point, if you like Ninja Gaiden, this DLC is the best $15 you can spend. It's excellent.
This is my first completion of the Abyssal Tower... I played all day after coming home from work and finished at 1am, so this run is so sloppy at points that I almost wanted to quit and redo it today lol. I was even forgetting my usual combos, but it all worked out. Whatever! 🤷♂️
I was expecting Abyssal Road to be more like Bloody Palace - a straight 100 floor gauntlet - but it's segmented into 10-floor sections. The lower floors start out on a low difficulty, and it slowly ramps up. It's really not challenging at all until you get to floor 60 or so, where I'd guess it clicks over into Hard difficulty, but the real meat is in floors 80-100. It's a 20 floor segment, unlike everything before it, and it plays on Master Ninja difficulty, so everything kills you in one or two hits. Oh, did I mention that there are now "frenzied" enemies? Killing one of them frenzies every other enemy in the fight, and this seems to make them more aggressive, and more importantly, they gain super armor on their attacks. Their health doesn't seem to increase by a significant amount, but in a mode where everything can kill you in one or two hits, the super armor can be extremely dangerous. I don't think it's a major issue until floors 91+, which are just brutal. I died there so many times that I thought I'd just rely on fairly safe play to get through it for my first clear, i.e. more ninpo and UTs than I'd like. But that just gives you something to improve on in subsequent runs. I'd like to aim for no item usage in my next Ryu clear, and go from there. I haven't even tried Yakumo in Abyssal Road yet, so I wonder how he compares.
The DLC also reintroduces green essence, which was the single most important thing in Ninja Gaiden 2's mission mode. It still functions as a score multiplier, but it works a bit differently in this game. Frenzied enemies are guaranteed to drop it when killed, which is a really smart way to synergize the two mechanics. The semi-random nature to it in NG2 made luck a significant factor when scoring, and this eliminates that issue entirely. But the multiplier doesn't last nearly as long in this game, and it's hard to effectively chain it through multiple floors... I'm sure that's intentional, but is it the best design? I don't know. Putting more frenzied enemies in to increase the chain potential could increase the base difficulty significantly, so it's a tricky balancing act. The more limited potential it currently has might encourage stricter score optimization, so it could be better overall. Hard to say, gotta play more.
I'm fine with the way this is set up, since the last 20 floors are practically a 15-20 minute long arcade game, and it should be pretty challenging to totally master. If I had one request, though, I wish they'd add the ability to do all 100 floors in a single segment, Bloody Palace style. And a difficulty select for it would be good too. Being able to play the whole thing on Hard from the beginning would be great.
But on the other hand, maybe it wouldn't be that fun going through the early floors every time... Maybe condensing them and turning this into a 50 floor gauntlet would be best. Even Bloody Palaces feel like they have a lot of filler, so maybe making the last 20 floors the main focus is a good move. An option for both would be ideal, though.
So yeah, I've been playing this DLC a lot since it came out, and for $15, it's a steal. It elevates an already phenomenal action game even further. NG4 is one of the all time greats.
0:00 Floor 80
2:40 Floor 85
7:04 Floor 90
13:54 Floor 95
18:51 Floor 100
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Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvMhpG1GR9sk8OYiWQMZZTgl
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvNFjpnJ59Th6N0IU1PSpD3d
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFE6B3779BE759F71
Ninja Gaiden 4's DLC, The Two Masters, was released a few days ago. It comes with a few new story chapters, a new weapon for Ryu and Yakumo, new enemies and bosses, new trials, and Abyssal Road, a 100-floor combat tower. To get straight to the point, if you like Ninja Gaiden, this DLC is the best $15 you can spend. It's excellent.
This is my first completion of the Abyssal Tower... I played all day after coming home from work and finished at 1am, so this run is so sloppy at points that I almost wanted to quit and redo it today lol. I was even forgetting my usual combos, but it all worked out. Whatever! 🤷♂️
I was expecting Abyssal Road to be more like Bloody Palace - a straight 100 floor gauntlet - but it's segmented into 10-floor sections. The lower floors start out on a low difficulty, and it slowly ramps up. It's really not challenging at all until you get to floor 60 or so, where I'd guess it clicks over into Hard difficulty, but the real meat is in floors 80-100. It's a 20 floor segment, unlike everything before it, and it plays on Master Ninja difficulty, so everything kills you in one or two hits. Oh, did I mention that there are now "frenzied" enemies? Killing one of them frenzies every other enemy in the fight, and this seems to make them more aggressive, and more importantly, they gain super armor on their attacks. Their health doesn't seem to increase by a significant amount, but in a mode where everything can kill you in one or two hits, the super armor can be extremely dangerous. I don't think it's a major issue until floors 91+, which are just brutal. I died there so many times that I thought I'd just rely on fairly safe play to get through it for my first clear, i.e. more ninpo and UTs than I'd like. But that just gives you something to improve on in subsequent runs. I'd like to aim for no item usage in my next Ryu clear, and go from there. I haven't even tried Yakumo in Abyssal Road yet, so I wonder how he compares.
The DLC also reintroduces green essence, which was the single most important thing in Ninja Gaiden 2's mission mode. It still functions as a score multiplier, but it works a bit differently in this game. Frenzied enemies are guaranteed to drop it when killed, which is a really smart way to synergize the two mechanics. The semi-random nature to it in NG2 made luck a significant factor when scoring, and this eliminates that issue entirely. But the multiplier doesn't last nearly as long in this game, and it's hard to effectively chain it through multiple floors... I'm sure that's intentional, but is it the best design? I don't know. Putting more frenzied enemies in to increase the chain potential could increase the base difficulty significantly, so it's a tricky balancing act. The more limited potential it currently has might encourage stricter score optimization, so it could be better overall. Hard to say, gotta play more.
I'm fine with the way this is set up, since the last 20 floors are practically a 15-20 minute long arcade game, and it should be pretty challenging to totally master. If I had one request, though, I wish they'd add the ability to do all 100 floors in a single segment, Bloody Palace style. And a difficulty select for it would be good too. Being able to play the whole thing on Hard from the beginning would be great.
But on the other hand, maybe it wouldn't be that fun going through the early floors every time... Maybe condensing them and turning this into a 50 floor gauntlet would be best. Even Bloody Palaces feel like they have a lot of filler, so maybe making the last 20 floors the main focus is a good move. An option for both would be ideal, though.
So yeah, I've been playing this DLC a lot since it came out, and for $15, it's a steal. It elevates an already phenomenal action game even further. NG4 is one of the all time greats.
0:00 Floor 80
2:40 Floor 85
7:04 Floor 90
13:54 Floor 95
18:51 Floor 100
-----
Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvMhpG1GR9sk8OYiWQMZZTgl
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvNFjpnJ59Th6N0IU1PSpD3d
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFE6B3779BE759F71
