TL:DR Ninja Gaiden chewed me up, spit me out, and now I’m ready for more!
Long story short, me and Ninja Gaiden don’t have a very good history together. When I was a kid, I had a big temper and was a huge button masher. I mean I was so bad, I struggled with the first boss in DMC 3 on easy. Literally a chimpanzee could understand basic controls easier than I could. So naturally, when I heard about this tough as nails hack and slash game called Ninja Gaiden Sigma, I rented it without hesitation not realizing the horror that awaited me.
What followed was several hours of me raging and bashing my head against every encounter, on Ninja Dog difficulty mind you, in the first level until I met the first boss: Murai.   From this point I proceeded to spend the next hour or so getting my ass handed to me (all while my dad teased me in the background lol) before finally throwing in the towel and never touching a Ninja Gaiden game again.
That is until this year when NG4 was announced and NG2B was shadow dropped…
Ever since I was humbled decades ago, there was always a little voice in the back of my head telling me to give this series another chance.
Fast forward to now, so far I’ve beaten NG2B, NG4. And I’m proud to say, after shaking off the PTSD, I took the plunge and bought the Master Collection and I’m nearing the final chapter of my personal white whale, NG Sigma.
Now granted, these playthroughs so far have all been on normal BUT I will say that my mindset has changed and my motivation to keep pushing my skills is only getting stronger the more I play.
I finally feel like I’ve seen the light and idk if I can ever go back to other hack and slash games after this. I love this series!

It only took 20ish years!