I love Ghost of Tsushima, the Nioh games and Sekiro. The mix of open world, action packed battles and samurai/sword warrior setting has provided countless hours of fun.
Naturally, I’m also really looking forward to Rise of the Ronin, a game set in the middle of Japan in the 19th century, with a very interesting mix of Western modernization and traditional Japanese. And Team Ninja has delivered classics in the past.
Disappointing from the start
Unfortunately, it didn’t take very long because I realized that Rise of Ronin wasn’t quite going to deliver on the same level. First impressions of the game were a graphics and visual style not quite up to the level one would expect from a PlayStation 5 exclusive game. A combat system that seemed so far out of date, but relatively simple. And at the same time a story and voice acting that could clearly have been improved.
Sometimes nice.
Gøran Solbakken/Gamer.no
But I worked on, and after the first introductory missions, which provide a nice introduction to the game’s many mechanics, combat system and introduce several of the most important characters, the world opens up, and you are a little freer to do what you want.
And the activities are many. Here there are bandits and bases/areas that must be liberated, there are collectables and chests to be found, and there are various missions of varying importance that can be completed. All activities in an area increase your reputation, called “bond” in the game, which gives you various items or other things when you reach certain levels.
The open world is large and quite varied, but the activities become too repetitive, which is a bit of the weakness of open world games with this type of mechanics. It’s not as much fun once you’ve completed one or two areas, and the rewards you’re tempted with aren’t enough, at least not for me, to take the time to do everything.
What about the story?
The story is about when the Western countries began to gain power and influence in Japan, and how the population of Japan was divided between embracing or resisting the changes. You are a member of a secret organization of warriors, and with unique abilities you are more capable of battle and death than most. You have your own motivations for doing what you do, and through a long history you meet allies on both sides of the conflict.
History has its moments.
Gøran Solbakken/Gamer.no
There is very messy storytelling in the game, and you make sudden jumps at times where it feels like you’ve missed some absolutely essential missions. Things progress slowly, before suddenly a lot happens from one place to another, and for me at times it was almost difficult to understand what was happening.
You fight on both sides of the conflict, you build “bonds” with most people, and even though you make choices along the way that clearly affect the story, you still do missions in one moment that help the resistance forces, and right after that you fight them same people in the next. It gets really weird, and the story is simply not well told. The voice acting, at least in English, is very variable, but rarely good. I definitely liked it better to have it in Japanese, but then it becomes periodically difficult to catch everything, since it is often also spoken in the middle of the busiest matches.
As I said before, the world is big and there is a lot to do, but it is also a little disappointing. Pitted against Ghost of Tsushima, for example, the game doesn’t quite keep up graphically. The textures are sometimes downright bad, the color palette the developers have chosen is a bit bland and makes most areas look monotonous and one-sided. And even if graphics and visual style are not the most important thing in a game, it must be allowed to expect more from a game released in 2024.
Swinging Samurai Sword
What about the battle system, which is perhaps what everyone expects most from Team Ninja? The short answer is that it works, but that it can’t measure up to other games in the genre, nor previous games from the developer.
Bloody battles
Gøran Solbakken/Gamer.no
At the start, you choose two weapons, which range from typical samurai swords to massive two-handed weapons. You have a total of eight different weapon types in the game, and all of these weapon types also have different fighting techniques that you can switch between. You have at all times three different fighting styles that you can freely switch between. Different fighting styles are stronger or weaker against different enemies, and so they constantly jump between different styles and weapons.
What disappoints the most is that regardless of the style and weapons, there is little variety and depth in the battles. You have a light and a heavy attack on each button, and the battles largely consist of mashing one of these. There are few nuances, and there are few combinations you can or should learn. That’s why it feels so similar, despite the fact that you change fighting styles or weapons. I clearly prefer, for example, Nioh 2 or Sekiro’s combat system over Rise of Ronin, which are perhaps the two most similar in style.
In addition to this, you have parry that allows the enemies to be stunned, you have dodging and you have secondary weapons such as pistols, rifles and bows. The combat system in the game itself isn’t bad by any means, but the standard that Team Ninja has set for themselves in the past is high, and they simply don’t quite reach it here. It’s tight and good, the timing and response feel good, but not as good as it could or should have been.
Conclusion
Rise of Ronin is not a bad game. Everything it does, from world building to combat system, story and mechanics both in and out of combat is well made and works. But there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done better in other games, or that you’ll find a better version of elsewhere. Sekiro has better boss fights, it has even tighter parrying and mechanics. Nioh 2 has better flow and feel to its combat system, and there’s more variety and nuance. Ghost of Tsushima, despite being 5 years old, is a significantly better looking game.
Rise of Ronin feels unfocused in many ways. There is too much going on, and too little that has received the focus it perhaps should. A good illustration of this is that after 25 hours I was still presented with new mechanics related to the open world. It’s too much, and it all dilutes what could have been a much better and more focused experience.
There is virtually nothing in the game that I would say doesn’t work, or is just plain bad. At the same time, there is nothing that is exceptionally good, and then we end up with something that is well placed in the middle of the tree.
Rise of the Ronin will be released on PlayStation 5 on March 22.