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!

FINALLY FINISHED A REPLAY OF V3

i've done annual danganronpa replays every year (except last year) and every single time we got to v3, we always happened to stop on chapter 3. -when i say we i mean the new persona i'm playing the game with-.

honestly, a lot of the game was better than i remembered. 2-3 is a little bit of a drag at times but chapter 1, 4 and 5 are all so good... especially chapter 5. kaito means so much to me personally because of where i was at in life when i first played this game. love it.

when i played v3 for the first time... i hated the ending! despised it! it almost ruined the entire series for me!
but it wasn't as bad this time around. i still really dislike the mastermind and i'm not a big fan of the trope but it isn't game/series ruining like i once believed it to be. honestly the ending could've been genuinely good if the writing was better... because it felt so much weaker than ever before during chapter 6. outside of the main character that is.

oh also, the cast is just so weak overall. a lot of the characters with good personalities and traits {{spoilers kinda | ᵈⁱᵉᵈ ᵗᵒᵒ ᵉᵃʳˡʸ}}. the top 4-5 are very strong but the rest is just so ugh. the chapter 1 victim had so much wasted potential!!!!!!!!!!!

but yeah, i like danganronpa v3. i love danganronpa. happy i came around to not HATING chapter 6 like i used to....... but it's still not great