It’s obvious that every single gameplay mechanic in Ninja Blade is ripped straight from another game. The combat and style are extremely similar to Ninja Gaiden, its pacing is Shadow of the Colossus-esque with near constant boss battles, and the emphasis on quick-time-events is straight out of God of War. Despite feeling like a complete rip-off at times, Ninja Blade manages to emerge as a whole that is far greater than the sum of its parts.

This is thanks to the incredibly amusing and over-the-top quick-time-event action sequences. These QTEs seem like corny action at first, but there’s an “ah-ha” moment when you realize that the whole thing is one big, wonderful joke. This moment comes during a sequence about a quarter of the way through the game. The main character gets thrown up hundreds of feet into the air to grab onto a motorcycle mid-flight, turn on said motorcycle, and then proceed to ride the motorcycle across flying debris. This culminates in the player ramping off a city bus (both the bus and the player are in mid-air, mind you) and throwing the motorcycle at the level’s boss. Of course it then inexplicably explodes inside the belly of the beast.

If you somehow see that and not realize the entire game is tongue-in-cheek, the action only gets more heavy handed. The game’s thesis of grand sarcastic exposition comes when the main character surfs a helicopter missile, diverting it from a building as if he were riding a skateboard, and then redirects it back at the helicopter that fired it. Awesome.