i am so fucking tired of every game being sekiro. please god can one acton game come out where you do something besides read animations and deflect on the right key frames. can one historical game about the tokugawa shogunate have some personality to it and not be more boring than reading a book about the actual events. can one open world game come out and have shit to do in it thats fun and beneficial for more than just clearing icons and getting bigger numbers. anyway, Like a Dragon: Ishin! is available now on digital storefronts everywhere

I like Ronin, I do. But I really wanted to love it. Everything about this game speaks to me; the setting, the combat, the narrative. It's so good, at least conceptually.

Unfortunately, at the end of my 40 something hours with Rise of the Ronin: I was left a little underwhelmed. Overall, as an open world title, Ronin has the basics down - it just doesn't evolve out from there. Ronin doesn't do nothing necessarily unique or special with it's open world - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think it's important to frame Ronin as Team Ninja's very first open world title, and it very much feels like it. I think with a sequel or the knowledge and expertise gained from developing this title, Team Ninja is better off for it. However, the activities found in the open world were just not very engaging - shooting galleries, gliding challenges, horse stuff and cat collectibles.There's just ultimately not alot to do here. Halfway through the game I just found myself becoming less and less interested in completing these objectives primarily for one reason: your reward.

I don't mind Nioh/Strangers/Wo Long's loot system. I think it works for linear structured missions, and the loop of entering a mission and looting and killing only to come back to your Dojo and upgrade etc etc works but only for those style of games. Rise of the Ronin copies this loot system, and it just does not work here. There is no satisfying loot feedback. I feel no attachment to any of my weapons. Clearing out enemy camps and stuff or getting keys to chests just leads to the same thing; more and more and more loot vomit. 55 swords and 55 spears and 55 bows and 55 guns I CAN'T DO IT!! It does not incentivize the player to want to do these side missions if the reward is for something that can be outclassed by the next side mission.

The narrative is probably where I'm the most sour. How do you finally have a cast of characters that are genuinely fun to be around (Ryoma Sakamoto my absolute goat) and you decide to have a custom protag who doesnt ever speak except like, 5 times max??? This could've been a smash hit with an established character with full voice acting. They want it to be this emotionally charged narrative about siblings fighting for different sides but only one of them talks????!!!! And the male voice sounds badass!! Really huge missed opportunity here. Again, my issue for this game is when it too heavily incorporates aspects from Team Ninja's previous soulslike-action game endeavors. They just DONT work here.


But enough about the negatives, the soundtrack is really incredible and the gameplay is Wo Long's combat refined to a point where it feels good to play in a casual way. Like it's the one thing they decided to rework to fit more in an open world game or something!! The gameplay easily carried me through the end, it's really satisfying to land parries and then it does a big air burst and all the grass blows and its like pshhshhvhh and its awesome.

Some other points:
-Gliding is arguably the best inclusion they added in to the game. So fucking fun
-Very annoying how the game wants you to climb all these walls and shit but climbing up them is jank as fuck, even though Wo Long had a really excellent wall climb mechanic that felt good to pull off
-Visually this game can be drop-dead gorgeous, but the cities are where the game kinda falls apart. The engine needs a rework here.
-Multiple maps yet they all feel the same, wish there was more environmental diversity. Theres snow missions but no snow map!
-The RPG-ness of it was a neat idea but it ultimately felt pretty underbaked, but i appreciate its inclusion.
-The Bond system was also pretty underwhelming, could've been a bit better had your protag had more involved interaction with the character (like speak to them) (stop making voiceless protags when its not necessary)

Overall, I thought it was okay towards the end. The strong gameplay carried me through an otherwise kinda boring last act, with a cast that was begging to have a bit more characterization (outside of Ryoma Sakamoto the goat). A decent first effort, but I hope the sequel fixes most if not all of my issues and delivers something truly special.

Playing Rise of the Ronin, I had the impression that this game is for Team Ninja what Elden Ring is for From Software. The game is not as good, it certainly lacks in terms of graphics, and the dynamic and not very responsive combat system will not be to everyone's taste. Nevertheless, Rise of the Ronin has so much good in it that it's hard to tear yourself away from the game, there's always something to do, and every activity is incredibly rewarding, so that despite the lack of a standard character development system, you feel that you're getting more and more powerful with every moment. It's worth giving Rise of the Ronin a chance, even despite the criticism of how the game looks, which is justified to some extent. Finally, it's worth mentioning that Rise of the Ronin is a more accessible game than other Team Ninja games. The game has difficulty levels and a few gadgets that can make combat much easier for people who don't want to play around with parrying and dodging enemy attacks. And there's also a flamethrower, which will be fun for everyone.

Full Review:
https://bigbaddice.pl/rise-of-the-ronin-recenzja/

WOWOWOW this game was so much fun

I'm so pleasantly surprised. Rise of the Ronin was insanely enjoyable, so much better than I ever imagined. I kinda assumed it would just be a fun 15-20 hour long samurai game with sorta decent map and a very basic story.... so happy to say that I was wrong.
Rise of the Ronin features one of the BEST character creators I've seen. I was actually happy with multiple different designs instead of being very unsure and going back and forth on options like other games. I'll be honest, there's a chance I enjoy this game a lot less if I'm just playing as some basic ass ronin LOL. Oh, and once you get into the game there's even more customization to do! I loved being able to mix and mix all sorts of different clothing I collected throughout the game, there's a lot of nice stuff to choose from. Character design in general was just so good.
The gameplay is 100% the star of the show here. I had an absolute blast the entire 51 hours I spent playing-- and I only used two different weapon types. There's the katana, two sword style, greatsword, odachi, bayonet, sabre, spear, polearm, oxtail.... and a gun LOL. I was pretty basic and just used the katana & paired swords for the entire game, but that was more than enough variety because of all the different combat styles you can choose from. Without thinking about it too hard, I wanna say Rise of the Ronin has top 3 combat in games? idk I really liked it! I guess the one bad thing about the gameplay is... the actual gameplay loop is sorta samey? But I didn't really care tbh. Most missions followed the same premise but I still found it all very fun.
What really shocked me was the story. Now it isn't anything too crazy, this is no God of War Ragnarok, Red Dead II, or Persona.. but omg was it great entertainment. It's pretty engaging, atleast to me it was, and there's so many characters you can talk to and form bonds with (similar to persona confidants i guess 😭). There's 3 acts to the story and each one was more exciting. I was also surprised to find myself really liking one of the characters! Ryoma is just chill as hell.
I guess the only area that let me down was the graphics... but at the same time I don't really care about that and they still looked pretty good-- just not THE PLAYSTATION 5 EXPERIENCE good. I just set the game to prioritize fps and enjoyed my time.
Edit: okay my one real complaint is that my headband and cool swords don't appear in cinematic cutscenes. the swords are replaced with basic black ones and my character has simply no headband at all-- but this hardly bothered me lol

So yeah, big fan of Rise of the Ronin tbh. I would say it's my Game of The Year but Persona 3 Reload came out.... but that's technically a remake so...... my NEW Game of the Year goes to Rise of the Ronin! Defos a new all time favorite.... I cannot express enough just how much fun it was.

9/10- could see it being slightly lowered if I actually get into other samurai games (Ghost of Tsushima)

GOT THE PLATINUM AT 62 HOURS PLAYED!! 11 more after beating the main game!

This game is boring in a lot of different fronts:
- Visually poor and with no outstanding art direction
- Super repetitive throughout, should it be on main missions or side content.
- Japanese and english dub have both problems and are uninteresting.
- Performance issues
------

Combat is probably the main sellout point of this game but even that has too many flaws for me o enjoy it properly. Too many weird controller shortcuts to access certain aspects, weird stagger logic and stupid difficulty spikes for no reason.

I couldn't find the development of the story any interesting and after reaching a certain point in the story that seems to kinda "renew" the progress that I had i couldn't take it anymore and gave up. Super uninteresting for me

A respectable effort from Team Ninja to broach the open world genre with another period piece. The familiarly tight and engaging combat elements have demonstrated to become par the course for TN. Regrettably I think they should focus more on shorter, tighter games, as this one started to grate toward the end in a way the Niohs never did. The elements that usually make open-world games fully engrossing have never really been their strong suit (Worldbuilding, game-long character dialogue, deep exploration, etc). So their first foray into putting more thought into those elements didn't rob from the great combat, but also didn't really serve to enhance the experience enough to make the open world choice a knock-out. Still a worthwhile Slashfest through the end of the samurai era.

First half I was having a great time, then the game got even more bloated and I was over it. It got to the point where I wasn't doing any "open world tasks" and sprinting past all enemies in missions to get to the boss faster. Combat is fun at first but then comes a problem. If you play on Normal or Hard it'll feel like you're getting your ass kicked but yet you still win the fight. Your items/resources in this game are way too strong. I also have an issue with the bosses following a different set of rules then your own character, I thought everyone was a samurai? Bosses are allowed to and this is no exaggeration pull off 10+ hit combos and if you swing your sword 3 times you're little puny character is out of ki and your stance will get broken. But none of it matters because healing items are super generous and weapon infusement items and ki blaze are stupid strong. I think they should be balanced out a bit more, maybe provide the player less items or weaken them and maybe lower the bosses' combos from 10 to 7 hits? I was thanking the heavens when I beat this game because I wanted it to be over so badly.

It's been a month since I beat Rise of the Ronin. I really wanted to like this game more but unfortunately after the first 10 hours of gameplay, it simply fell off. At first I was loving the combat, the open world aspects, Sakamoto Ryoma and the fact that it is set during the Bakumatsu but at some point I found myself running through the main story just to beat it.

I was very excited for the combat since you'd only fight Humanoid enemies, which are typically the best encounters in FromSoftware titles and Soulslikes in my opinion. There's a decent amount of variety with the weapons and each weapon-type has access to 3 slots of "stances" that you can customize, and will act as a rock-paper-scissor system against enemies. Meaning you get different playstyles and they'll either be effective or not effective depending on who you fight. Counterspark/Parrying is an alright mechanic but it isn't as clean as Sekiro, Stellar Blade or even Lies of P, it's kind of weird how it can also serve as an attack except it's just bad when it is used like that.

When you're only fighting Humanoid enemies and bosses, if you're not introducing new and interesting movesets/patterns that are hard to deal with but instead just throw in another enemy, it removes all the fun from actually struggling and learning how to read your opponent. There is maybe one fight that actually skill checks you and it is in early game, after that all the fights that are annoying are the gank fights. I only used the support characters to help me clear the levels but I removed them as soon as I got to the boss encounters. Anyhow this game made me learn to actually appreciate beast/monster-type enemies, you know the big ones that really mess with your camera LOL. The reason why is because when you finally get to those Humanoid bosses, it feels good to fight them since all you've been fighting prior are those big monsters where you have no vision because they take up the whole screen and half of the fight is versus your camera. This is not the case here, like I said earlier you just fight humans who doesn't necessarily get stronger, you just fight an extra person or two and that doesn't make it more fun. I wanted clean one versus one swordfight battles where I have to figure out how to parry their onslaught attacks and have them beat my ass over and over again until I finally pick up on it, and each encounter should've been unique. I don't really have a favorite fight because it all just felt the same.

At this point I don't recall much from the story but the setting is cool and there were a few characters I enjoyed like Sakamoto Ryoma, Kaishu Katsu and Kogoro Katsura. It would've been nice if the MC actually talked more because they do talk BUT most of the time, they're just silent so it makes you feel disconnected.

When I first stepped into Yokohama, I was really excited to explore everything because the map was huge and there was a lot to do. I actually thought that the entire game would take place here but then I learned that there were more maps just as big and that's when I gave up on exploring and only pushed the story. It makes sense that it isn't the only area because of Kyoto and Edo but still, I wasn't willing to go through the Ubisoft loop multiple times.

Rise of the Ronin is a decent experience, however I wouldn't recommend grabbing it for full price. For the most part it has unimpressive graphics especially for a PS5 exclusive title with the frame rate dropping constantly on Performance Mode however I heard there was a patch that helped but I can't confirm because I beat the game before that went live. It does somewhat scratch that Sekiro itch but it is definitely not up there, hell I don't even think this game is that much better than Team Ninja's previous game Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

Amé este juego, es lo más parecido a Rurouni Kenshin que jugué en mi vida, jugas toda la época final del shogunato Tokugawa (el gaiden de Kenshin), hasta el cambio de régimen. Todos los personajes, organizaciones y clanes históricos aparecen con su personalidad y sus sidequest para hacer. Cumpli el sueño de niño de hacerme parte del Shinsengumi, entrené con Okita y con Saito, la parrie gatotsus( iguales a los que hace en Kenshin) a Saito, increíble, como un niño chico me sentí.
Respecto al sistema de pelea, es lo mejor que tiene, lo más pulido, es como jugar un Soul Calibur RPG por la variedad de armas, y las técnicas y estilos de cada arma, impresionante.
La música de combate es muy buena por momentos.
El mundo abierto está ok, las sidequest estan muy bien, y los enemigos también.
La customizacion del personaje es muy buena también y la cantidad de skins que tenés también.
El final es muy bueno, muy al estilo Rurouni Kenshin.
Lo único que le mejoraría es el modo online, para poder jugar en el mundo abierto con alguien más.

En fin juegazo y aguante Japón, lo mejor que vengo jugando en 2024.

I loved this game at times, was burnt out at others, and somehow saved all one hundred cats. The storytelling was almost entirely skippable, but the combat was so relentlessly enjoyable, that I almost didn’t mind that this consumed sixty hours of my life. But ultimately I was very done well before I hit credits because the pacing was over-extended, making the whole experience feel like a phenomenal thirty hour experience was underneath one twice as long. I’ve loved Team Ninja’s last five games, so I know they tend to be a little bloated. But this one lacked some special sauce beyond the pseudo-historical tourism.

I can proudly say that as of April 2024, Rise of the Ronin is my favourite game of the year and maybe even my game of the year. It is an impressive awe inspiring venture into Meiji Era Japan. The world pleads to be explored and is filled with plenty to see and collect. As someone who is new and partially intimidated by Team Ninja games I can say that I am impressed and looking for more even driving me to buy Nioh to give a try later on. I feel this game is an underrated gem which needs to be picked up by anyone who has even the slightest interest in historic Japan and samurai gameplay. Come on Ryoma and Katsura let’s get back to work. XD

Team Ninja always releases bangers, even though this is definitely my least favorite.

Pros:
- An actually really interesting well rounded cast of a metric shit load of characters
- A Ubisoft checklist style of open world that is actually not that boring
- Story that gets good for the middle and end at least
- Satisfying combat that feels good to learn
- Ryoma

Cons:
- Super watered down skill trees compared to Nioh and Wo Long, feels like very little character power growth
- Zero enemy variety makes an already long game feel like an eternity toward the end
- Too long (exacerbated by the previous two cons) if they condensed the game into the first two chapters it would have been better
- Some crazy difficult bosses

SPOILER BELOW













The biggest con is your blade twin easily. Feels like an edgelord kid’s oc being like “oh and my guy has a mechanical arm and can use all the weapons together and can win every fight.” A completely irredeemable hypocritical piece of shit character. Killing them was the easiest choice ever made in a game. Fuck em.

Rise of the Ronin is the newest game by Team Ninja and their first project set in an open world and with a bigger story. Unfortunately it does feel like Team Ninja tried to get everything right - combat, open world, story - but in the end all parts are just decent.

The open world
While the game does look nice overall, especially the cities which are fun to go through, the art style does get bland rather fast in the wide spaces. While the mobility with horse and glider is great, the world offers very little adventure and suprise. All activities are check list based (collect this, defeat X amount of enemies there) and way too many of them exist. It feels like a never ending check list to finish that just gets boring really fast unfortunately.

The story
Here it depends a lot on your interest. If you are interested in the story of the 19th century Japan, the game automatically is much more relevant for you, as it does show that era pretty well and offers a nice view of the events (while clearly fictional aswell)
The characters are unfortunately rather bland, due to the basic voice acting and writing, but there is a lot of interesting conflict here that could have been presented much better.

The comabt
As for all of Team Ninjas games the combat is the shining star. This one is heavily based on the counterspark, a parry mechanic. You basically dance with your enemies, waiting for them to attack > counter > drop your attackes on them. There are multiple combat styles that work like rock/paper/scissor and you pick the one that fits best.

That said: The combat is still better than 90% of action games - but the weakest by Team Ninja so far. For the Team Ninja fans a comparison:

Weapons dont feel that different as they dont have unique weapon skill trees (Nioh) or special abilities (Wo Long). You have a Ki Pulse, but it is just R1 after your attacks, without timing required for a better outcome. You have no stances as the fighting styles are just rock/paper/scissor. The parry counterspark is also an attack, so if you miss, you get insanely punished. While in Nioh you can dodge/parry/block and everything is valid, here only parrying is the proper method in almost all scenarios. Your big devil trigger (living weapon/Yokai form) is just a mode where you have endless stamina and do a bit more damage. There is no build variety cause the stats do not exist as before + the skill tree is irrelevant cause you get enough points to level everything anyway. While there are still set bonuses on armor, they feel way less relevant to actually make a good build. So instead most of the time you just pick "bigger number item" and move on.

So as a big Team Ninja fan, I am extremely disappointed. I do not think this is the right way for the studio and they should focus on the clutch, amazing combat they used to deliver before. I really hope we will see a Nioh 3 next that is not so simplified and streamlined.

I don’t have a ton to say about this one honestly. It’s a Samurai game set in an interesting time period with a solid combat system and a lackluster story.

The combat largely focuses on weapon variety and a satisfying parrying system and it is by far the standout aspect of the game. You get plenty of options on how you want to tackle fights with different weapons and styles on said weapons which essentially enforces a kind of rock paper scissors system built in to counter what your foes are doing.

The performance is…not great and kind of a disappointment given the downgrade in visual fidelity from something like Ghost of Tsushima, a title this game is (rightfully) compared to quite a bit. The game struggles to maintain the 60 FPS target a lot of the time and looks somewhat muddy especially on high end displays.

Overall, a decent experience that I’d recommend to fans of the action genre, but definitely wait for a sale as I find the asking price of $70 to be a bit steep for what you’re getting here.