It's crept up on us, appropriately enough, like a pad-footed ninja in the gaming night, but Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z is almost upon us. Something had to be unfortunate enough to be released immediately in the aftermath of Titanfall, but Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z is that title.

Still, you can't keep a good zombie-slaying cyborg ninja down, so we'd expect many a gamer to still be picking up Team Ninja's latest. Before you get busy with some cel-shaded undead-hacking though, we suggest you take a quick peek at the Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z system requirements... 

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z Minimum System Requirements

OS: Windows XP 32-bit SP3

CPU: 2.6 GHz Dual Core Intel Core 2 Duo E8190 or 2.8 GHz Dual-Core AMD Athlon II X2 240

RAM: 3GB System Memory

GPU: Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT or AMD Radeon HD 4730 

DX: DirectX 9.0c

HDD: 7 GB Free Hard Drive Space

Sound Card: Standard Audio Device

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z Recommended System Requirements

OS: Windows 7 64-bit with Service Pack 1

CPU: 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 or 2.9 GHz AMD Athlon II X4 635

RAM: 8 GB System Memory

GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5830

HDD: 8 GB Free Hard Drive Space

Sound Card: 5.1 Audio Device

So, the Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z minimum requirements aren't particularly demanding; any rig from the last five years or so should be capable of running Yaiba at minimum system settings. One of the more demanding aspects for the minimum Ninja Gaiden Z system requirements is undoubtedly the graphics card, with the 8000 series GPUs no longer cutting it; a recurring theme of many of today's system requirements. 

The step up to the Yaiba recommended system requirements is more of a leap though. Most eye-catching of all is the 8gb RAM recommended for Ninja Gaiden Z. Few games demand quite this much, least of all a console-oriented port such as this. The rest of the Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z recommended system requirements don't really make for pretty reading either, with a hefty GTX 460 or Radeon HD 5830 recommended, as well as considerable quad-core processors in the form of the Core 2 Quad Q6700 and the AMD Athlon II X4 635. 

Whether these requirements are the result of poor optimisation for Ninja Gaiden Z or not is anyone's guess for now, but we look forward to getting our mitts on it. The Ninja Gaiden series has always been about skill-based gameplay and lightning-fast reactions, versus hard-as-nails gameplay. This of course means that high frames per second in Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z are going to be hugely important. 

Remember, you can always check out how well your PC can run the Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z System Requirements here, where you can check benchmarking and performance from other users.

Compare your graphics card to the Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z GPU benchmark chart.

Okay then, what do you think of these system requirements?

Do you think it could be a poorly optimised port of Ninja Gaiden Z that is causing such high recommended requirements?

Let us know!