Review — Rise of the Ronin
How will you help shape Japan during the Bakumatsu in Rise of the Ronin.
Developed by Team Ninja and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Rise of the Ronin drops the player in one of Japan’s most impactful historical periods. The game is set during the Bakumatsu period, including the Boshin War, a contentious time between the Western-favoring Tokugawa Shogunate and various anti-shogunate groups unhappy with this western influence on their country. Until the 1850s, Japan was a highly isolated country, purposefully limiting influence from other groups and cultures, baring a few exceptions. However, in 1854, a United States expedition helmed by commodore Matthew C. Perry threatened to incite violence should Japan keep its borders shut, which resulted in the country opening up itself to more western influences. Rise of the Ronin allows the player to explore mid-19th century Japan and experience (and perhaps influence) this contentious time period.
Zero Hour
The game opens up with a cutscenes detailing the dual protagonists’ life, with their family being murdered by Shogunate ninjas and the young kids being adopted by a resistance group known as the Veiled Inheritance. Growing up, both younglings, whose genders can be chosen by the player, are trained in the art of warfare, and are eventually tasked with assisting in overthrowing the Shogunate. Their first mission is to assassinate commodore Matthew C. Perry aboard his ship, and to steal a secret message. Perry is eventually assisted by a powerful ninja known as the Blue Demon, resulting in the twins being overpowered. This results into one of them sacrificing themselves to save the other, a choice which is given to the player. However, it quickly turns out that their sacrifice did not result in their death, as the Veiled Inheritance base is attacked by Shogunate ninjas, including the supposedly deceased “Blade Twin”. The player character then decides to leave the Veiled Inheritance group in order to find their lost twin, an action not taken likely by the group’s leader known as the Bladesmith. After the player defeats the Bladesmith in combat, the game really starts, and the quest to find their twin truly starts.
This opening acts as the game’s tutorial, and introduces many of the core combat and gameplay mechanics. The player is tasked with creating and customizing two characters, with a plethora of cosmetics options to choose from. The only choice that has an impact on gameplay however, it choosing a “Blade Sharpening Origin” for each character, which will determine their starting abilities and skills and the weapon they are good at. There are six options to choose from, such as “Killer”, which excels in katanas and broadswords and can deflect arrows and bullets from the start, or “Seducer”, which receives a boost in charisma and allows the player to use subterfuge in dialogue to influence the outcome of said dialogues. As you level up your playable character, you’ll be able to expand into all skills, so the initial setup is not necessarily critical, but will have to serve your character in the opening hours of the game.
Those precious first hours of the game will be spend in Yokohama and its surrounding countryside, where your character quickly meets Ryoma Sakamoto. He informs you that in order to enter the city, you’ll need a permit, which you can loot of a band of bandits lurking nearby. From the get-go, you’ll be able to start exploring the open-world setting Team Ninja has created, and you can use your map to navigate around. The world is not just there for world-building, but running around and helping out people in need will increase your “bond” with the people of that area. This will open up new opportunities and map markers directing you toward certain rewards or side-quests. Helping with clearing out a village overtaken by bandits will allow you to buy items at a discounted price from the local merchant for example.
Aside from free-roaming around the map, most of the missions are confined to a specific area, and you’ll have to complete your objectives first unless you want to start over. During your travels across the world you’ll encounter a plethora of characters, each with their own thoughts on the current conflict, and helping them out will also increase your bond with them. Raising your affinity with a certain character will unlock exclusive items, or even allow you to take them with you on missions. You can enhance this bond even more by talking to them or giving them gifts.
All of this is set across the backdrop of one of Japan’s most famous and interesting but perhaps also most contentious historical periods, which sees the player learning more about difficult topics such as nationalism, colonialism, and the rapid rise of new technology versus the still very feudal and traditional Japanese culture of the time. While you character is custom made and therefore malleable to what is happening, you’ll encounter a huge cast of supporting characters that each have their own opinion on the matter. You’ll meet several anti-Western characters struggling with accepting the outside influence on their country from the American and British, but also the pro-Western Shogunate followers and historical people such as Matthew C. Perry or Yoshinobu Tokugawa. Rise of the Ronin puts its own spin on this historical time period of course, and has the player influence certain outcomes of historical conflicts. However, the story is certainly one of the game’s strong points, with a ton of gripping character and world building.
One on One
Team Ninja is known for incorporating deep and interesting combat mechanics in their game, as testified by the Nioh series and their work on the Final Fantasy spin-off Stranger of Paradise. Rise of the Ronin is no different, and most of the gameplay will consist of putting the player’s skills in combat to the test. There is a variety of weapon types to choose from, ranging from the standard katana to a bayonetted rifle or an oxtail blade. Rise of the Ronin deploys a kind of rock-paper-scissors principle to combat, as certain weapons and weapon styles are more effective against certain enemy types or weapons. Aside from just choosing two weapons to swap between during combat, each weapons can be outfitted with up to three combat styles, which can be swapped at any time during combat as well. These combat styles are often received regardless of the weapon you are using, by defeating certain enemies or completing missions.
The combat controls themselves are fairly straightforward, with a basic attack slotted to square (which can be held down for a charged attach), and a dodge button slotted to circle. Your character can jump using the X button, and perform parries by holding block and pressing triangle. Each action consumes “ki”, the in-game equivalent of stamina, and this also goes for your opponent. The most common way to defeat your opponents is by depleting their own ki and performing a critical hit once it is fully depleted. This allows you to do a huge amount of damage, and can even startle surrounding enemies, lowering their own maximum ki value. Parrying is a pretty important element in combat though, and should you be able to parry an attack at the right moment, you’ll perform a “Counterspark”, which throws the enemy off balance and allow you to counterattack for a short period of time.
This is where picking an effective combat style is critical, as you’ll be able to stun your enemy for longer based on the style you selected. Certain enemies can be stunned after parrying one attack, but you’ll often have to parry several ones in a row, or at least try to parry the final blow. But don’t assume you’ll have plenty of room for a perfect parry, as the window to do so is often extremely small. Should you fail, you’ll run the risk of taking big damage and getting your ki depleted, which will result in your character being stunned for what seems like an eternity. Especially risky is trying to parry the enemy “critical” attacks, which are marked by a red aura. Counterspark them perfectly will result in a big window of opportunity for you to strike, but miss and you’ll end up regretting it.
Combat is enhanced by allowing the player to push the left joystick forward while attacking to close the distance between an enemy and strike at the same time, and by performing special attacks that are linked to your combat styles and are executed by holding R. and pressing triangle, square, circle or X as needed. Each combo style is limited to one of two weapon types, and provide a certain playstyle. For example, the “Hayabusa-ryu” style for katanas focusses on fast attacks and agile movement, while the “Hozoin-ryo” style for the spears focusses more on slower and longer sweeping moves to knock multiple enemies to the ground. The players are encouraged to experiment and try out different styles, and you’ll have to figure out what style suits you best. In addition to your main weapon, your character gets access to two sub-weapons, which can be a bow or a musket, or even a pistol at some point, and a grappling hook that can be used to hurl barrels or other items lying around at your foes or to drag enemies away from their position. Or you can roleplay as a ninja and prefer stealth combat, by sneaking around building roofs and assassinate enemies from above or throw shuriken around.
It Takes Two
Given that Rise of the Ronin is from the hands of Team Ninja, most known for their own take on the Souls-genre with the Nioh series, comparisons to their successful predecessor are inevitable. And yes, Rise of the Ronin does feature several Souls-like aspects. Strewn across the map are Veiled Edge banners, which act as fast-travel points but also as respawn points should you fall in combat. You’ll lose all acquired Karma upon death, and can recover it from the enemy who defeated you, settling the “vendetta” by killing them or just performing a critical hit. And of course: the combat is tremendously unforgiving. Nothing says Souls-like, like difficult combat. While you’ll occasionally struggle with some rag-tag foot folk, the bosses of Rise of the Ronin are something else. If you played any of the Nioh games you’ll feel right at home, with extremely fast bosses that feel incredibly unfair at first, but will always have the same move-sets that you can learn and exploit as needed. Rise of the Ronin even goes as far as allowing you to deflect bullets from rifles, which can set your weapon on fire for elemental attacks. And just like in many Souls-likes, you’ll have to carefully manage your consumable items, as your healing items are limited in the amount you can carry at all times, and you only have so many bullets in your pistol.
For most of the game and even many of the individual missions, you’ll be fighting by yourself, but one of the game’s core mechanics if the ability to swap between team members. As you progress, certain missions allow you to bring one or two companions along. Depending on your and their combat style, or should your main character fall in battle, you can switch to another character and continue the fight. Additionally, you can play with friends or randoms by inviting people to your missions, which offers a nice addition. I’m somewhat of a single-player myself so I barely used this option, but it is nice t play with friends or call in the help of another player when you want to.
Four’s Too Much
As you progress, you’ll level up your character and unlock skill-points, which can be used across four different skill lines which are linked to the game’s main stats: Strength, Dexterity, Charm and Intellect. Each stat has its own perks of course, and the more points you invest in these perks, the more the associated stat will increase. These stats are critical when choosing a weapon or outfit, as these will scale off these stats as well.
I have mostly been raving about the game so far, with nothing but praise for the various systems. But nothing is ever as good as it seems, and Rise of the Ronin does fall flat in some aspects. First of all, a critique that many people have already uttered, is the enormous amount of loot you’ll collect. This is however nothing new for Team Ninja, as the Nioh games have the same problem. Basically every enemy will drop several weapons or armor pieces, which will rarely be better than what you are already have or received as reward from a mission. You can sell these or disassemble them for materials, but it does not take long before you inventory becomes cluttered with hundreds of items. It’s a good thing that inventory space is unlimited, otherwise you’d be spending more time clearing it out than you would be playing the game. The main thing I was looking out for were set-bonus items, which will grant special effects based on the number of items from that set you have equipped. Everything else: straight to junk… If I could, but you’ll have to find a merchant to sell your stuff to first.
Personally, I did enjoy the mini-objectives that are strewn across the world quite a bit, most notably collecting and petting all the cats that are wandering around. There are also historical landmarks to visit, archery and gun ranges that provide challenges, photographs to take, hang-glider challenges to complete and shrines to pray at. These do provide advantages, mostly by increasing your reputation with a certain character or faction, but for me they provided a nice change of pace from the bloody combat-focused missions.
It does feel nice to run around the vast map, ride your horse across fields with flowers blowing in the wind, or glide across the skies to your next objective. And it would feel even better if the graphics were just of a little higher quality. I could not help but feel as if I was playing a PS4 game at times. The world itself looks nice, but if you imagine the graphical quality of Ghost of Tsushima you can’t help but feel that Rise of the Ronin is a step backwards. It become painfully clear in the character models, especially in the cutscenes where they mostly stare at each other with blank expressions on their faces. It also does not help that the voice-acting is lacking in many departments. I played the game in Framerate Mode just to not get a headache from the high-paced gameplay, but I still encountered a fair amount of frame drops and texture pop-ins.
The Verdict
Rise of the Ronin combines a great story with exquisite combat mechanics, but sadly delivers that in a somewhat low-graphical quality package. However, I have always been of the opinion that gameplay matters more than graphics, and that is no different here. Rise of the Ronin is a great game in my opinion, and it is mostly saved by its intricate combat system and the huge variety in weapons and combat styles. I can excuse a lot as long as the game is fun to play, and that is certainly the case here. The world is fun to explore, there is a variety of side-quests to do and collectibles to discover, the story is great and the main missions are wonderful to play, and of course, the combat is stellar. Team Ninja is known for their attention to combat, and Rise of the Ronin harkens back quite a bit to Nioh, but is still unique and refreshing. While often unforgiving, the battles are the strong suit of the game, and the combat feels tremendously fluid and rewarding. But showering the players with more gear that can fit in a semi-truck every hour is perhaps a bit too much.
4/5
Reviewed on PlayStation 5.
Download code provided by the publisher and PR agency.
