If you bought the collection then you might as well play it, but really the most value you'll get is ninja trials or redoing chapters as the other characters. Cool to see Kasumi make a guest appearance though. Main story just feels like a slog and the last boss might actually be the most irritating thing I've ever had the displeasure of doing in a Ninja Gaiden game.

good games

So, this is the black sheep of the Ninja Gaiden trilogy, but... tl;dr I still enjoyed it.

The story is so much worse than the previous games. They wanted to make Ryu look more human, and ended up with a disengaging story. I was skipping most of the cutscenes.
But this game you don't play for the cutscenes or for the story.

They also decided to lean a lot more into QTEs, making the game more dramatic and cinematic, but ended up being annoying at some point. Too many, too often.

Gameplay is more accessible, although harder difficulties feel truly unbalanced - exactly the kind of challenge you'd expect from this series.
The combat is still the same, and that's why I feel like reviewing this game positively. It's fast paced, full of brutal, visceral action and slicing and dicing through seemingly endless hordes of enemies, be them humans or demons, never tires me.