The end result of NG4 really does vindicate everyone who knew Platinum was an ill-fitted choice for making a Ninja Gaiden game. Ninja Gaiden is a game where every action you preform is one that should be done with deliberate intent. When you preform attacks, you have to commit to them. Platinums style since Bayonetta is one where you are very much encouraged to be non-committal to your actions, and the perfect dodge reflects this. As you are rewarded for disengaging and reacting to on coming attacks with a dodge instead. Due to dodge offset, you can still finish your combo after that dodge, nothing is exactly lost from this non committal combat style, but that simple isn't what Ninja Gaiden's Gameplay Philosophy is.
NG4 gives you every tool possible to continuously apply offensive pressure in a fight, the only thing holding your actions back is how fast you can react. Prior NG games wanted you to have good reaction timing as well, but they more so encouraged methodical and efficient decisions. The most obvious thing present in NG4 that highlights it being a Platinum game, rather than a typical NG game is that the Perfect Block is essentially the intercept technique from NG 2004's DLC. They're both a mechanic that reward blocking with good timing, but it was recognized that the Intercept was too overpowered, and there was no reason not to just mash the block button and get rewards from it. NG4 has not just the perfect block, but the perfect dodge, and parrying when performing attacks against an emeries attack. I found simply mashing light attack with the Rapier would reward fairly consistent and easy parries.
The way NG4 does things isn't necessarily bad, but this all just isn't part of the design philosophy of NG. The enemies in NG4 so long as you can manage your meter for breaking their super armor, can be rendered incapable of doing anything. The aggression of NG2's enemies were made so that even if Ryu was hyper lethal when played correctly, the constant aggression and sheer amount of enemies still kept you on your toes, and necessitated that lethality. NG4 only gives you one type of essence, it can heal you, but barely at all. There is basically no reason not to charge a UT with it. Where in NG1 and NG2 if you used a UT then essence was only ever yellow, killing enemies without a UT could have them drop Blue essence to heal you, or Red Essence for Ninpo. Absorbing Red or Blue essence gave you a Level 2 UT, but at the cost of not gaing health or Ninpo, and it made Yellow essence worth much less currency. Ryu in NG4 can just use his meter for Ninpo. So this decision-making on how to kill enemies, and how to make use of essence is gone. NG3RE may have got rid of essence, but the rest of the game was designed to accommodate the removal of essence.
We are still at the point where NG1/Black is the only NG game that's truly a masterpiece. Each other NG game tries to take the combat into another direction to commendable and interesting results, but NG1/Black it's still the most well-rounded overall game, and it has far more going for it then just it's combat.