Technologies

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Is a Forgettable Chapter in the Series’ Legacy

All style, but no heart makes Ragebound an easy game to skip.

It looks like 2025 is the «Year of the Ninja.» Assassin’s Creed: Shadows was one of the big hits of the year’s first half, a new Shinobi game is on the way, and Ninja Gaiden fans are being treated to a full trilogy: Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, released in January, Ninja Gaiden 4, arriving later this year and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, arriving Thursday. However, based on my experience, you might want to skip this installment: It’s charming but far from satisfying.

Ninja Gaiden Ragebound is a 2D side-scrolling action game that pays tribute to the original NES Ninja Gaiden trilogy. While the retro graphics are appealing, the gameplay lacks meaningful depth. It feels like a concept-first project where ninjas were added after the fact, with the Ninja Gaiden name slapped on to sell it.

Interestingly, Ragebound acts as a side-story to the original NES title. Ryu Hayabusa learns of his father’s death in America and leaves his village, setting up the events of the first game. In his absence, fellow ninja Kenji Muzo stays behind to protect the village. Soon after, a demon army invades. Meanwhile, Kumori, a ninja from the rival Black Spider clan, finds her home base under siege as well. Captured, Kumori tells Kenji to use a mystical dagger to bind her spirit to him.

This dual-character mechanic is Ragebound’s central hook. Players control Kenji, who uses a sword, while Kumori aids in spirit form by throwing shurikens. Occasionally, she can take physical form to reach areas Kenji can’t access. As the duo progresses, they unlock a powerful screen-clearing magic attack.

As clever as that sounds, it falls flat in execution. Kenji’s sword is his only consistent weapon, and Kumori’s shurikens are tied to a meter that only fills when Kenji lands hits. At full charge, you might get a dozen throws before it empties again. There’s a jump-based guillotine attack that feels vaguely Sonic the Hedgehog-like, bouncing off enemies, but it’s mostly used for platforming rather than combat. The moveset is shallow, as are the level designs.

Stages feel repetitive, filled with endless waves of weak enemies that die in one hit. Occasionally, one drops a power-up that lets you instantly kill a larger foe, but these moments don’t change the core loop that repeats again and again until you reach a boss.

To the game’s credit, boss fights are a highlight. Each has distinct patterns and grows more complex in its second phase. These encounters forced me to be more tactical with dodges and attacks, and a few required multiple attempts due to overcommitting or mistiming. But these fights are the only part of Ragebound that feels like it was designed with care.

The regular enemies are mindless and mostly exist to knock you into pits, which cause instant death. Otherwise, they’re laughably easy. With healing talismans and generous checkpoint placement, it’s difficult to actually die. In fact, with Kenji’s dodge ability, you can run past most of the level without engaging. You’ll be healed at the next checkpoint anyway.

Levels are set in various regions of Japan, and while one stage on a building under construction offers a bit of variety, most environments lack creativity or challenge.

The difficulty is also a huge departure from Ninja Gaiden’s legacy. The original NES games were notoriously punishing, and the Xbox reboots were even harder. Here, the default difficulty feels like «baby mode.» You can tweak settings to remove healing items or increase enemy damage, but that’s about it.

The 2D pixel art is from developer The Game Kitchen, known for the Blasphemous series. The style echoes the NES and SNES era nicely, but the charm fades fast. Unlike Blasphemous, which featured unique enemy designs and animations that oozed personality, Ragebound’s enemies feel lazy. They just run toward you, then pop like water balloons when defeated.

With six to eight hours of gameplay at a price tag of $25, I cannot recommend Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. It lacks anything of interest other than this side story to the original Ninja Gaiden game, and even then, it’s just introducing different ninjas that are fighting monsters. This game was supposed to be a love letter to the original trilogy, but instead, it’s more like a bad photocopy of a love letter made by someone who didn’t seem to care that much.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is available for PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, Aug. 1

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Aug. 1.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

I love it when the Mini Crossword is playful. The 4-Across and 5-Across clues are a lot of fun, and the clue for 1-Across is just plain adorable. It brought a little extra sparkle to my crossword experience. Looking for a hand with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Arm-y greeting
Answer: HUG

4A clue: Undiluted … or a country with its vowels swapped
Answer: PURE

5A clue: Ballroom dance … or a country with its vowels swapped
Answer: TANGO

6A clue: Played a role
Answer: ACTED

7A clue: Eisenberg of «The Social Network»
Answer: JESSE

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Ketchup brand
Answer: HUNTS

2D clue: Eggs on
Answer: URGES

3D clue: Crystal-lined rock
Answer: GEODE

4D clue: Marathoner’s concern
Answer: PACE

5D clue: ___ Mahal
Answer: TAJ

Technologies

High Noon Recalls Alcoholic Drinks Mislabeled as Celsius. What to Do if You Were Impacted

This packaging label mishap could lead to unintentional alcohol consumption. Here’s how to check if you bought these cans.

High Noon has issued a recall on two of its Beach Variety packs because of the presence of alcohol in the wrong type of cans. Within these 12-packs of High Noon Beach Variety packs there may be some Celsius-labelled cans — which should contain an energy drink — that were shipped out with High Noon vodka seltzer inside them.

Cans that are filled with High Noon’s vodka seltzer are mislabeled as Celsius Astro Vibe Energy Drink, Sparkling Blue Razz Edition, and have a silver top instead of a black top. High Noon discovered the error after receiving a shipment of empty Celsius cans instead of empty High Noon cans, according to a statement.

Distributors shipped these drinks to Florida, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin between July 21 and July 23.

Here’s which lot codes were impacted and what to do if you bought these cans.

What to do if you were impacted by High Noon’s drink recall

High Noon advises people who bought the following codes of Celsius Astro Vibe Energy Drink, Sparkling Blue Razz Edition not to consume it and to discard it. The lot codes are L CCB 02JL25 2:55 to L CCB 02JL25 3:11. Other High Noon variety packs should not be affected.

High Noon reported that no illnesses or events occurred as a part of the mislabeling. If you’ve purchased the impacted drinks, contact High Noon Consumer Relations at consumerrelations@highnoonvodka.com for next steps and refunds. The recall is being conducted with the US Food and Drug Administration and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

CNET reached out to High Noon for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Technologies

How to Join the Battlefield 6 Open Beta: Early Access Sign Up and Weekend Dates

The next Battlefield game is getting a public beta next weekend. Tune into your favorite streamer to get into it.

EA’s DICE studio has blown the lid off the multiplayer for its upcoming military shooter Battlefield 6, and players will soon get to join the fray themselves. A Battlefield 6 public beta is coming on two consecutive weekends starting Aug. 9 — and if you’re lucky enough to get in Early Access, to play starting Aug. 7 — and here’s how to join.

The Battlefield 6 open betas will be the first chances for players to get to experience the game’s multiplayer before its full release Oct. 10. The first open beta weekend will start at 1 a.m. PT Aug. 9 through Aug. 10 and the second will kick off at 1 a.m. PT Aug. 14 and run through Aug. 16. Fans can visit Battlefield’s website to get info for the open beta, which just requires linking your EA account to your platform account.

Note that publisher EA hasn’t provided a specific sign-up for the beta just yet but it will be open to all players. We’ll update this post if or when EA provides specific instructions for signing up but we do know the open beta can be pre-downloaded on respective platforms starting Aug. 4.

The beta will be playable on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

How to get Battlefield 6 open beta early access

There is one way to secure your spot in the open beta a couple days early on Aug. 7: Watch your favorite streamer playing Battlefield 6 today (July 31), as explained in an official post on X. You can watch on the official Battlefield Twitch or on a participating creator’s channel but you’ll have to do it fast as the event ends at 4:30 p.m. PT.

Here are the steps:

Sign into your Twitch account.
Make sure you have drops enabled and the Battlefield 6 Early Access Beta Key Drops selected from among the drops campaigns list.
Watch a single streamer participating in the Battlefield 6 Early Access Beta Key Drops for 60 minutes — if you’re having trouble finding one, search for «Battlefield 6» and look for streams that include «Beta Key Drops» or often just «Drops» in their titles.
Once earned, find your beta key access in your Drops Inventory.

Players who have participated in Battlefield Labs, studio DICE’s pre-release feedback program for the game, will be granted early access to play the beta starting Aug. 7.

Studio DICE didn’t detail which modes, weapons and other options will be playable in the open beta but it did confirm that «Closed Weapons» modes that restrict certain guns to certain classes will be available to try out. If the preview is anything to go by, players will be able to load up a handful of multiplayer modes, like Conquest, Squad Deathmatch and Breakthrough, on maps like Siege of Cairo, Empire State and Liberation Peak.

Battlefield 6 open beta dates

August 7-8: Early access, starting at 1 a.m. PT on Aug. 7
August 9-10: First open beta weekend available to all, starting at 1 a.m. PT on Aug. 9 and closing Aug. 11 at 1 a.m. PT.
August 14-16: Second open beta weekend available to all, starting at 1 a.m. PT on Aug. 14 and closing Aug. 17 at 1 a.m. PT.

PC specific notice for Battlefield 6 beta

A special note if you haven’t played a Battlefield game on PC recently: Studio DICE and EA recently started requiring players to set their computers to Secure Boot when playing Battlefield games to combat cheaters, and Battlefield 6 is no different. To even play the open beta, you’ll need to delve into your BIOS and switch your PC to Secure Boot — check EA’s guide for help.