Rise of the Ronin Review

rise of the Ronin confounds me on one hand it's an action game with combat That's A Cut Above most of its peers it takes place in an interesting historical fiction world with cool characters it has entertaining Co-op and sports plenty of neat little flourishes that make traveling through its map completing missions a lot of fun on the other hand it's heavily weighed down by the forces of the all game bloat the stereotypical Ubisoft map with tons of icons to clear and an outrageous amount of loot loaded with meaningless incremental stat upgrades if developer team ninja had used its razor sharp katanas to cut the weaker bits that only dilute its strength rise of the Ronin might have become more than the sum of its parts rather than [Music] [Music] less rise of the Ronin is in mid 19th century Japan just after Japan has forcefully reopened to the world your blade twins are kind of blank slates letting you customize the pair in a robust Character Creator and then sitting you on a mission to sneak aboard the Black Ships from America and assassinate Commodore Matthew Perry it's a compelling opening that quickly establishes the kind of game rise of the Ronin is and doesn't waste your time getting you right into the action the story gets much grander than that of course you'll meet historical figures join a pro or anti- shogunate faction and make tough decisions during one of the most interesting eras of Japanese history though your choices can only rewrite history so much do you too happen to know this man could you kindly stop him bothering me if you have a fondness for the period it's fun to P around with the fictional versions of genui kusaka and Sakamoto Roma we could just climb it then go swooosh right in how does one Swoosh exactly that said ronin's story is the video game equivalent of a fun popcorn movie enjoyable while you're watching it but easily forgotten the moment the lights come back on several dozen hours later I had hope to see you you finally come back to propose haven't you actual missions are a bit more memorable they're either encounters you enter and complete seamlessly on the world map who the hell are you or a standalone Mission zala ninja giden or Neo where protagonist and a pair of followers who you can switch to at any time take on a unique objective like breaking a friend out of prison or assassinating a government official the latter allows for either single player with AI teammates or co-op with two friends joining up as your allies I much preferred these to the more standard and mostly unremarkable open world tasks I'm short of wood could you gather some for me and being able to play them with friends is a fan fantastic addition my main complaint here is that I wish the two modes weren't so intertwined it's a bummer to be playing with a friend and do a one-off mission only to then have to do a couple more by yourself before you can play together again rise of the Ronin is at its best when you're clashing its many swords sure you can wield a katana like a traditional samurai but you can also use the quick and flashy paired swords the massive high damage odachi a western saber and a lot more I like almost all of them but my go-to quickly became the dumo whammy of the oxtail Sword and the great swword which allowed me to live out my Michelle yo and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and zek freed from soulcaliber fantasies simultaneously each weapon type comes with several fighting styles all with their own special techniques Styles follow a kind of rock paper scissors balancing structure with a couple of exceptions so picking the right option to beat whatever your opponent is doing will help you out considerably the downside of this system is that some weapons benefit from it more than others the Catana has eight combat styles to choose from including one that's based off of Ryu haab's move set in then is zuno drop and all but the paired swords and my beloved oxtail sword only have three or four though what's there is excellent the quickest way to take someone down is to choose a combat style that beats theirs and wear down their their key until they're staggered and land a critical hit that deals tons of damage throw in secondary weapons like bows guns smoke bombs and even a flamethrower and Rise of the Ronin gives you a lot of freedom in combat it also manages to look and feel good while doing it especially if you dismember your opponent with a critical hit as a grand finale enemies are aggressive and deadly even a regular run-of-the-mill dude can send you packing if they do you respond at the last bonfire I mean sight of Grace I mean veiled Edge Banner you interacted with minus the karma you've gained from defeating enemies with a vendetta against the enemy that killed you if you slay or even land a critical hit you get your karma back creating a high stakes duel against a worthy opponent it's a nice change of pace from the traditional Souls likee system where you just pick things up off the ground without spoiling anything yes the boss fights are fantastic and difficult in True Team ninja style they move fast force you to learn their attacks and reward you for using Advanced mechanics you can just dodge and punish as you would in most Souls like boss fights but you'll be missing out the real trick to dispatching foes is counter spark which works as an attack that also deflects your opponent's attacks staggers them and opens them up for counterattacks the more advantageous your style is against theirs the longer you can open an enemy up for punishment counter sparking is risky because the window to deflect and attack feels relatively small and you're wide open if you miss but the potential reward is huge add in a grappling rope and abilities like violent Gale or blade flash which allow you to change the style mid combo and clean the blood off your blade after an attack to restore key respectively plus some other mechanics I don't want to spoil and Rise of the Ronin has a lot of depth and you'll need to mine it to win I went through the classic stages to feeling most bosses were unfair and impossible to feeling they were beatable if I played carefully and got a little lucky to demolishing them more barely scraping by once I learn their patterns it's an exhilarating feeling and it never gets old well if you're intent on denying me that then fight me instead another great idea is the upgrade system which rewards you for choosing how you want to play both in and out of combat each of the primary stats comes with its own skill tree and putting points into one also boosts the stats associated with it if I level up my speechcraft liar ability in the charm tree I also get a stat increase in charm which makes my weapons that scale off of that stat better similarly there are side quests that increase your character bonds with the people you meet rewarding you with additional conversations upgrades to any Styles associated with that character and weapons gear and items and then there's the long house your home away from home where you can chat with your friends one fine looking lady redo your character's appearance respect your skill points decorate and a lot more I can't believe it later on you'll also get the ability to go back in time via a book called The testment of Souls and redo missions from earlier in the story make new choices that can alter the present and finish up any stuff on the map you may have missed it's genuinely one of the best systems I've ever seen in a game like this because you can advance the story which takes place over several years and across several different maps without worrying that you've missed something by crossing a point of no return it's also cool that you can see what happens if you let a certain character live or side with a different faction without a whole new playthrough I just wish everything else worked as well as these systems do the entire package feels as over stuff as the loot pinata enemies who are always dropping mostly useless gear if you're not constantly in your menus getting rid of it you're likely to end up holding several hundred weapons armor pieces and items by the end of a few missions team ninja tries to alleviate this by letting you upgrade items you like and disassembling ones you don't for parts but it doesn't work well enough to hold back the Avalanche of largely Pointless Stuff that is constantly getting thrown at you even the side activities are poisoned by the loot overdose to be very clear I love finding cats because you get a cute little scene with them and interacting with the pilgrim dogs who I would gladly die for is adorable on its own I like the photography missions getting skill points for finding shrines the shooting gallery miname visiting real life landmarks and even developing new technology with inventor aichi isuka you must have the inventor of spirit it's not that any of these things are bad person say but when the reward is even more loot or filling up another reputation meter I just wasn't interested after a while please accept this as a token of my gratitude to be fair these tasks are mostly optional unless you need to grind levels but they all seem tedious next to using your grappling hook to scale a rooftop and assassinate somebody or scaling a tower with your buddies and whooshing into a walled prison on your glider look at me I flew like a F rise of the Ronin marries a cool historical setting team Ninja's Mastery of tough but fair combat and some smart RPG design to make a game that is immediately compelling and fun with friends it's full of cool little touches whether it's throwing something at an enemy with your grappling rope or dropping from your glider onto your horse unfortunately it's also a game full of map clutter bloated systems and a truly absurd amount of junk loot rise of the Ronin is excellent when it has the courage to be itself and lean into the challenging rewarding fighting too often however it feels stuck in indecision torn between being what it wants to be and what it feels it's expected to be and not even the best Samurai can overcome that for more check out our reviews of Dragon's Dogma 2 and Final Fantasy 7 rebirth and for everything else stick with IGN oh

Channel: IGN

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Id: GlowUGa7SbA

Length: 11min 3sec (663 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 21 2024