Rise of the Ronin Review
Rise of the Ronin just released on PS5 and it’s been on my most wanted list for a while now. I like to think I was one of the first people to preorder it. I had high expectations for it, I believed it could even be in the same rank with Ghost of Tsushima. For that reason, I had to play the game completely before making any judgments. Before you continue reading, let me inform you that this isn’t a spoiler-free review. So continue at your own risk.
Gameplay
Rise of the Rōnin is set in the mid-19th century, the time when Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy. The game portrays the fight between the Tokugawa Shogunate and various anti-shogunate factions displeased with Western influence. After being saved by a Bladesmith, a master of the warriors named Veiled Edge, the main character (you) is trained to be Blade Twins. An unstoppable duo forever bound by fate.
The game starts with character customization and picking out the sharpening origin. Sharpening origin is for determining the initial abilities, skills, and weapons they “excel” at. There are six options to pick from and if you’re stumped I suggest picking any. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t even matter. Eventually, you’ll be able to get all of them and have a ton of options to pick from. So just sit back and relax.
After you do that, the actual gameplay starts. In the first hour of playing, the game forces you to pick which twin to “sacrifice” and little after that to kill a woman who saved and raised you. After that emotional turmoil, you make your way to the city. But that’s a journey and a half.
While you are in the city, you can explore “freely” and do missions, help out people, make new connections, etc. Some of those missions can even lead you to the outside of the city. Some of them are to retrieve something lost, spy on some people, or even hunt a fugitive. A couple of tasks I found extremely enjoyable are finding lost cats and petting them and taking photographs of various scenery. And also stumbling on those cute Shiba Inu’s and petting them, which technically isn’t a mission but nonetheless, I loved it.
Movement
When I first watched the trailer of the game, one of the things that really caught my eye was grappling and gliding. I remember distinctly thinking how much fun it was going to be. Now, when I played the game, I was kinda disappointed by the amount of freedom I was given. Let’s take grappling in the city for example — you can’t just climb on any building, it has to be a specific one that allows grappling. It’s a very linear experience, a huge letdown in my books. The same applies to gliding — most of the time you can barely glide, and the lack of high places doesn’t help much. I understand trying for a realistic experience, but if you put a fun mechanic in the game, you might as well use it as much as possible.
Fighting
I wouldn’t call Rise of Ronin combat scenes difficult but they are interesting. There are numerous types of weapons and you can equip two main ones. For each weapon, you can equip up to 3 stances.
Some of them are locked but they unlock eventually along the way. You can also wear up to 2 sub-weapons. At the start of the game, I had a rifle and shurikens. I was going around fighting people and yelling “Take a throwing star”. Eventually, I replaced those with a bow for silent assassination and a pistol for close combat.
When it comes to the rest of the story, I can’t say I enjoyed it particularly much but it was an okay experience. I definitely found those side quests and exploration more fun. But hey, maybe it’s just me.
Graphics
The Rise of the Ronin did manage to bring to life Japan in the 19th century. It’s relatively accurate to how it actually looked. The graphic part of the game is definitely on a mediocre side.
Don’t get me wrong, It’s not bad but also I don’t remember anything being “oh wow look at this”. The audio part, if you believe it, is on a lower level. Deep into the game, I noticed that my audio was in English and when I started paying more attention to dialogs, it got very noticeable how badly it’s dubbed. Especially when the protagonist tries to speak, half of the time I had a feeling like he was a ventriloquist.
Rise of the Ronin Review: Final thoughts
When it comes to the Rise of the Ronin, my expectations were high but also realistic. I wouldn’t call it failure but it wasn’t what I expected. I enjoyed playing the game and for sure I did have fun doing it.
But in the end, nothing stood out to me. If somebody were to ask ”How’s the Rise of the Ronin game?”, the only answer coming to my mind is ”Oh it’s okay”. I can’t really pinpoint some big issues but it’s more of a microcosm of other things combined. And in the future, if they release DLC addressing some of the problems I had with the game, I would definitely play it again. For now, I think I had enough.
