Please recommend to me a gentle hack n slash game or series to ease me into the genre

After being really impressed with the Ninja Gaiden 4 coverage on the Xbox Developer Direct, It made me want to give it a try when it releases. The thing is I've never tried a game in this genre. I actually have Ninja Gaiden Black, but have never tried it due to its reputation of being brutally difficult. I'm only a casual gamer and usually play games to relax, so up until this point I've stayed away from something too challenging (Same with From Soft games). This new Ninja Gaiden might change that though.

Old hack n slash games are fine to recommend, I have the original Xbox, PS2, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and the Series X, so any game on any of these systems, regardless of how old they are is fine. They don't have too be too easy, I understand this genre is difficult so I don't mind multiple attempts but not something I'll spend all day trying to defeat a boss. I once saw a Sekiro stream early morning. Went to work and when I came home, the streamer was still on that same boss. I think it took him the whole day to beat him. Yeah something easier than that will do please :)

@worlds_apart: the recent Star Wars: Jedi games are accessible, and the difficulty scales up fairly well.

At the easiest difficulty, you can take time with reactions and really explore the combat. I believe there are also fine adjustments you can make to difficulty, so instead of a basic "easy/medium/hard" setting you can actually fine tune it so you can make enemies have more health, but hit for less damage, and so on and so forth.

Plus, they're some of the best Star Wars and action games in recent memory.

As a massive fan of 3D Slashers feel God of War is really the go-to suggestion. Not as challenging as the power three (Devil May Cry/ Ninja Gaiden/ Bayonetta)

If you have a PS2 you can get God of War and God of War II without issue. Can't recall if they ported the PSP games to PS2 but Ghost of Sparta is an excellent game and an easy recommendation. If you just wanted one game to recommend? God of War II. Easily. Not that challenging but is extremely well made.

As for more recent games Metal Gear Rising, it's not too demanding honestly when compared to the Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry games.

I played the first Jedi Fallen Order game and honestly found it pretty mid, is also kind of a hybrid of God of War III and Dark Souls and wouldn't exactly say it was as good as either. It's only really a half decent game if you are already invested in Star Wars as a franchise.

Now if you want to really go back in time before even the first Devil May Cry, look into Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.

I agree with the above posts. God of War 2 is probably the best answer, but Jedi does let you taylor the difficulty to your own preferences.

Now, I don't want to talk you out of playing Soul Reaver, it is one of my GOATs, but it's more of a Zelda/Metroid puzzle platormer than a hack n' slash. Legacy of Kain: Defiance is the one that takes inspiration from Devil May Cry, but the series is so story focused you probably shouldn't start there.

All that said, you could get the Ninja Gaiden collection and play NG Sigma 2. It's the easiest of all the different versions of the games.

@judaspete: While you're not wrong on the Zelda influence all the games above have Zelda'esk features and inspiration.

God of War II probably has just as many puzzles as Soul Reaver. And while the later entries would dip away and double down on combat the original Devil May Cry and Xbox Ninja Gaiden had platform and puzzle segments. Heck in DMC you spent a good chunk of the game in a first person mode underwater with no hacking and slashing, only a harpoon as your weapon.

Thanks for all the recommendations guys! Will definitely have my hands full before Ninja Gaiden 4 drops.

Well don't keep us hanging, curious what you went with and is it easing you for Falls NG4?

@RSM-HQ: Heh my bad. I bought the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver remaster and Metal Gear Revengence and after those I plan on buying the Star wars Jedi games. I like to play games in chronological order which is why I'm focusing on the older games first (even though the remaster is a new release). Thanks again:)

@worlds_apart: Solid pairing, one of the more recent beloved games (actually Rising is pretty old now lol), Jedi is still fairly new though, and the grand-daddy of the genre.

Only played the new version of Soul Reaver quite recently myself and had a ton of fun with it. I forgot how satisfying a certain weapon is to use. I won't spoil but it works the same as a Devil May Cry combo system, it ends when you're hit, but if you can avoid being hit the weapon is an absolute wrecking machine. Offers one of the funniest enemy kill animations in gaming.

Have fun

@RSM-HQ: Thanks man. Can't believe I'm only entering this genre in 2025. But hey, better late than never :)

@worlds_apart: Kinda died off around the 360 era, with only Platinum Games carrying the torch with smaller licensed games (Transformers and Korra). Most just went the way of making ARPGs instead if the game heavily featured melee combat, majority being mid Soul clones to get some From Software leftovers.

Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden have only recently been revived from a very long departure. & the reason was everyone stopped buying them, namely because the sequels strayed and generally sucked (GoW Ascension/ DmC/ NG Yaiba/ NG3). Platinum Games overspent on Bayonetta 3 and even got side-tracked making a game fans didn't want (it's a weird hybrid mess honestly)

Without DMCV doing so well (which Itsuno had to beg Capcom to develop) I'm not sure games like Stellar Blade, Hi-Fi Rush, or even Ninja Gaiden 4 would have been green-lit. The genre is back and booming, couldn't be happier.

Roll on to NG4 I say, my hype cannot be contained ツ

@RSM-HQ: Me myself am very happy the genre is making a come back. Long may it continue. Yeah Ninja Gaiden has always looked awesome to me, even though I never played it, I still bought it for that reason (NG Black). Ah I forgot to mention, I'm also considering buying the older God of War games you recommended, but at the moment I can't buy them all at once, but once I'm done with the ones I've got I'll probably buy God of War and the Star Wars games, Soul Reaver was pretty cheap for a new game so I'm not complaining:)

@worlds_apart: It's always worth just looking at the suggestions and picking the ones that stand out to you personally. No one can ever play every game ever made, heck even tracking down every game in this genre would be a massive struggle. Only got so much time. However hope you enjoy the games you've grabbed.

Happy gaming.