When people think of what a covert agent looks like, they often think of spies of the modern era. However, people who built their lives around espionage have existed since ancient times and one example of this is the ninja. Ninjas performed a lot of different duties in feudal Japan and a lot of the time in popular culture they're painted as professional assassins.
There is a lot of intrigue about ninjas and a lot of folklore that depicts them as having supernatural powers. Much of that gets incorporated into media about them, including video games. Games like Ninja Gaiden and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice are popular go-to games for fans of ninjas, but there are plenty of other great ninja games that have faded into obscurity and become just as elusive as the ninja themselves.
8 Naruto: The Broken Bond
Even for people who aren't into anime, the Naruto video games are well-known and several titles are considered good ninja games. The games in the Ultimate Ninja Storm series are considered to be some of the better Naruto games as they include a huge roster of characters, stunning visuals that let the player feel like they're stepping into the world of Naruto, and fun and dynamic gameplay.
However, there are other games that kind of fell by the wayside despite having similar qualities as the more popular games. One of these is Naruto: The Broken Bond. A sequel to Rise of a Ninja, it was a step in the right direction to flesh out the world and make environments more rich and dense. It was an Xbox 360 exclusive and was the last game Ubisoft developed before their rights to the IP expired.
7 Senran Kagura
The Senran Kagura series is full of fan service and it's not the most serious of ninja games, but it's still pretty good on its gameplay alone. The game is set in modern Japan where the covert arts of the ninja are still taught in secret schools around the country.
The majority of the games are beat 'em ups where the player follows the story of one of the girls. Players battle through hordes of enemies to build up enough meter to use their special Ninja Arts to perform powerful and devastating combos using their weapons, summons, affinity, and even their bodies.
6 Nightshade
Many ninja games are fighting games, but that doesn't mean that it's a requirement to be considered a ninja game. Nightshade still fits the bill as it's a romance visual novel about ninjas that lived during the Sengoku Period in Japan.
The protagonist of the game is Enju, the daughter of the head of the Kogo clan, one of the two main clans that had warred for years. For the first time since she began her training as a ninja, she's sent on a mission that sends her fate and the fate of her village down a dark spiral. It's a visually beautiful romance visual novel with five different love interests to choose from.
5 Nightshade (Kunoichi)
Nightshade is the title of another ninja game that came out in 2003 on the PlayStation 2. It's a part of the Shinobi game series and was originally released under the game title "Kunoichi," which is a term for a female ninja.
The game follows Hibana, a ninja employed by the government to stop the evil Nakatomi Group from collecting the shards of the demon sword Akujiki. Nightshade is a sequel to the 2002 Shinobi and the protagonist of the first game, Hotsuma makes a cameo appearance in Nightshade.
4 Aragami 2
Aragami is a stealth action-adventure game in which players follow Aragami, a shadow spirit who was summoned by a mysterious girl to help free her from her captors. The success of Aragami led to Aragami 2, which isn't exactly a sequel to the first one.
It's completely different from the story of the first game, as the Aragami are a group of warriors with the power to control shadows. Aragami 2 allows more freedom when it comes to combat and character builds and has also improved its co-op offering, allowing up to three players to play on an assassin squad.
3 Ninja Blade
Ninja Blade is another ninja game set in modern times. Very reminiscent of the Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden series, the game is set four years after a huge government coverup of an outbreak of a mutant hookworm parasite called Alpha-worm. The player takes control of Ken Ogawa, a member of a containment task force.
He's on a ninja team with his father and during an outbreak, his father and another member of their team become infected by the parasite, killing the rest of the team except for Ken. Ken is sent to eliminate all of those infected by the Alpha-worm. Ken has 3 different swords he can use as well as unique ninja abilities.
2 Ninja Master's
The name SNK and NEOGEO are known to many fans of the fighting game genre. King of Fighters is up there with Capcom's Street Fighter and NetherRealm's Mortal Kombat as one of the best fighting game series of all time. SNK has included several ninja characters in their fighting games, Mai from Fatal Fury being one of their most iconic.
In 1996, SNK made a fighting game with a roster of mostly ninja characters called Ninja Master's. The main character Sasuke is a skilled ninja whose goal is to defeat the evil warlord Nobunaga. Ninja Master's features the same gameplay mechanics as SNK's Art of Fighting series, including a strength gauge that increases damage.
1 The Ninja Saviors: Return Of The Warriors
The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors is a remake of the retelling of the original arcade game, The Ninja Warriors. It has all the classic beat 'em up side-scroller aesthetic and action that anyone could ever want and is available on the Nintendo Switch.
Adding two new android ninjas as well as including the original three, players must battle through eight levels to defeat the tyrannical alien invader Banglar. In the remake, Ninja Saviors also has co-op with support for up to two players.