Rise of the Ronin Review

Rise of the Ronin‘s first hour came searingly close to breaking me.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise for myself, who was thrown to the wolves across two Nioh games. As an immense fan of difficult games, Nioh 2 featured one of the few skill brick walls I’ve encountered during either casual play or during a review period. The fangs of that game sunk in deeply and I found myself at a loss as how to progress outside of petty grinding.

When Rise of the Ronin flashed two difficult boss encounters in front me of, sandwiching a grueling gauntlet of “fodder” enemies, the sweaty flashbacks arced across my mind’s eye.

After navigating through an exhaustingly robust character creator for not one but two characters, Team NINJA funnels players through a series of combat tutorials. For a veteran of their past few games, it was the normal smattering of attacks, parries, stance changes, and new mechanics.

Then, a mission infiltrating an American ship in the black of night. Culminating in a fight against a Matthew Perry who is absolutely not your friend, my samurai was shot at and slashed at, belligerently trying to survive.

Then, another boss comes in for the killing blow, one meant to defeat you but can be felled if the player is some predestined combat saint with immaculate timing.

Then, our samurai pair’s base of operations is razed and overtaken with deadly ninjas or shinobi or assassins.

It was here my resolve began to crack. My toxic, masochistic video game trait is that I enjoy playing games on the hardest difficulty, often when playing them for review. Stupid, I know. But I knew myself well enough and when Rise of the Ronin at the onset offered me the choice, I accepted pre-defeat and opted to play at the normal difficulty, not wanting the brick wall to be reinforced with concrete, lead, and humiliation.

Rise of the Ronin‘s lithe, dual-sworded attackers tore me asunder. I died more times to the first handful of those enemies than I had in most boss fights in games championing prickly difficulty. I tried sneaking around but only one foe could be killed instantly. You see, at this point in the game–the beginning–the player has limited healing items. And here, the player has no option but to encounter a number of enemies in a throughline to the end goal. Numerous times my medicine pills used to heal were gone after the first four enemies were dead.

“Please god just let me get to the open world,” I thought. Surely, a game where players can use a glider to soar through the skies of Japan and scale roofs won’t be contained kill boxes meant to bleed me dry, right?

Stubbornly refusing to “git gud” I made the next best decision: run.

Like Forrest Gump fleeing cosmic persecution, I ran. The location of the ninjas I had killed about a dozen times was cauterized into my mind like a core memory, I had briefly shook hands with the next group who hid among trees, I think I could avoid them. Who the hell knew what lurked beyond prior bloodshed.

It was a juggling act of stamina maintenance, kiting, and knowing when to heal but it worked. Taking place in the same area as the tutorial, I had a fleeting memory of a grapple point that would fling me to potential safety… or at least a place to catch my breath. Next, I took in my surroundings and not wanting to risk further trauma, kept running. At one small moment in Rise of the Ronin, I was caught in the accidental genre shift of survival horror. My blind forward momentum meant that each enemy met in this new section was chasing after me. Because I was technically “in combat” I couldn’t activate the checkpoint to make them disappear. Not knowing what was ahead, I had to make a calculated choice to flee.

Sanctuary was my ultimate destination when my pursuers were wiped from existence due to a scene transition and this time around, I got was fighting alongside an ally dispatching a horde of enemies. Not all eyes were on me and my ally was holding their own. With the fight over, hope briefly glimmered in my eye until another boss fight ensued. I felt nervous tears welling up in my vision, petrified of what progress erasure a death would cause.

But with my items refreshed, I won by the skin of my teeth. And because I kept juking the boss around a tree. And probably because I nervously only attacked when I had an opening.

Rise of the Ronin never put me through a similar pickle ever again.

The unyielding cadence of the game’s introduction almost felt like a process to weed out those who wanted “just another open world game” or one meant to express the base extremes of what combat can offer. And honestly, at that moment in time, that specific concoction of Rise of the Ronin was not the version I wanted to play.

Strangely, I felt rattled for the next few hours of play. Elation was mixed with caution. Freedom of choice was curtailed by hesitancy to not have my ass righteously kicked again. My thoughts went to the foundations of open-world games, ones where players completed side quests and earned experience and got better upgrades through time. But would I reach an objective or mission only to be completely trounced?

The dichotomy found in Rise of the Ronin‘s massive structure and its adaptable combat is quite a strange marriage. This is a game built for fans of Assassin’s Creed, Ghost of Tsushima, Nioh, Elden Ring, Red Dead Redemption, or Diablo. I can appreciate the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none” especially when it applies to games that attempt the kitchen sink approach. But there is an admirable quality to those developers who manage to actually pull off numerous systems and still carve out an actual identity.

Rise of the Ronin is blissfully uninterested in the kind of freedom made prominent by Breath of the Wild or the dearth of choice capitalized by Baldur’s Gate III. While many will instinctually mark its open world as trite or dated–and I somewhat agree–there is a brisk quality to its emptiness and ease of use.

Team NINJA’s first stab at a game of this sheer scale strikes me as a kind of Japanese-esque Red Dead Redemption 2. It will undoubtedly strike a chord with those who resonated with Ghost of Tsushima‘s windy fields and poetic leanings. Those like me who inextricably and gleefully consume the dense maps of Ubisoft clearing out icons are going to find a home here. Players attracted to technical combat systems but unobtrusive gear chases will feel like gluttons.

One could pluck any number of pieces out of Rise of the Ronin and find value. It strikes me as a people-pleasing game but not in the derisive way the industry seems to be looking at higher budget, big production titles.

Perhaps this is indicative of my early tumultuous reception towards the game. Before playing it I knew I would like it. But then I wasn’t having a great time. Then I nervously worked to acclimate. And before I knew it, Rise of the Ronin felt like second nature, just as I expected it would.

There’s a distinct crossroads I often hit when reviewing games. At what juncture am I critically dissecting what is occurring on the screen? When do I measure a game to the standards set by its predecessors rather than the medium at large? In a hobby where we manage to interact with dozens of games a year, I mildly sympathize with reviewers who grow weary of the prospect of yet another massive world overflowing with things to do. But I imagine the magical time back in college when I had limited money and in a year’s time bought Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Devil May Cry 4, Final Fantasy XII, and Dragon Quest VII on PlayStation 2. Only two of those games ever saw me roll credits and yes, it’s the obvious ones. I could only imagine having a meaty game like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or Rise of the Ronin and knowing it could potentially sate me for weeks if not months.

Now, players are almost spoiled for choice. Many have to be careful with their money. Reviewers attempt to play numerous “big” games to remain in the zeitgeist of clicks and current opinion. Certainly the dam might eventually break but whose fault is it really?

While it may feel as if I’m shielding Rise of the Ronin from any criticism including my own, that’s not the case. Honestly, I think Rise of the Ronin was one of the few times I became cognizant of those itching concerns while actively playing. Frustration had led to a subpar experience that bled into the first few hours of the game. My relief that the game isn’t actively as difficult as the opening hour meant that its open world felt friendlier than perhaps it should.

Truthfully, Rise of the Ronin‘s concept as an open-world game is lacking in several ways. It lacks the artistic flair of Ghost of Tsushima. There’s a limited pool of random events that feel unique, unlike Red Dead Redemption 2. And there’s simply not a lot of moment-to-moment chaos one might expect from something like a Far Cry. For Team NINJA, an open world is more of a scenic opportunity to move from place to place, checking off boxes and engaging in small tussles to boost power levels in between main missions.

Over the course of Rise of the Ronin, players will pet cats, take photographs, open treasure, kill bandits, and engage in a handful of skill challenges. These same tasks are found in the various regions of the map and doing them all rewards 100 percent completion for that area, skill points, and various items. Can it be ignored? Sort of. But similar to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, doing these activities can feed into a player’s increasing power.

Rise of the Ronin‘s leveling system is somewhat more dynamic than a Nioh or Dark Souls. Instead of a skill point being applied to a core stat, players have Strength, Dexterity, Charisma, and Intelligence to choose from. Each of these trees have a number of skills attached to them. For Strength, players can improve raw damage or max health, increase the power of special moves, and so on. Dexterity primarily dictates bow and arrow usage, grappling hook moves, and air attacks. Charisma is used to buff ally healing, lower shop prices, and even tame animals. Intelligence unlocks multiple crafting opportunities, buffs elemental damage, and buffs healing. Across all these stats are options to unlock special dialog options, crafted items, additional healing capacity, and more. Plus, investing more points in a tree raises base attributes like higher resistances, luck, and damage.

The twist is that players earn traditional skill points in addition to specific points that can only be spent in a designated tree. Want more charisma points to unlock a specialized skill? Go find a bunch of cats in the open world and net a few. Then you can increase your relationship with a local geisha who loves cats and allows you access to purchase unique goods with a special currency, like tomes that reward charisma points.

Team NINJA works to funnel all player activity towards a net goal of character enrichment. Growth feels relatively natural, especially on the game’s normal difficulty. Those who want to make things blisteringly hard could simply not cash in points. Personally, I enjoy the cycle of grinding out open world activities to feel more powerful, it’s a satisfying loop. Like the Nioh games, players can also expect a ludicrous amount of customization when it comes to equipment. Two weapons, four pieces of armor, and accessory slots can all be equipped with items that have random stat rolls. Whether it’s doing more damage at nighttime or having a better chance at retrieving arrows from a headshot, equipment in Rise of the Ronin will have a stat that caters to a very specific thing. There are rarities in the form of color, with the best ones usually having a bonus “gear set” attribute that gains more benefits when more pieces are equipped.

A large portion of Rise of the Ronin saw me casually interact with the equipment system. Usually I focused on items that had the highest attack and defense, only ignoring those numbers if the bonuses were worthwhile. But it is important to emphasize that some of these systems merely aren’t as crucial in the “easier” or more casual portions of the game, or on lower difficulties. While Rise of the Ronin‘s difficulty doesn’t naturally adapt to a player’s performance, the difficulty level can be adjusted at any time. Additionally, options exist later in the game to make missions more challenging for better rewards–think Nioh‘s Twilight Missions.

Herein lies on of the successes of Team NINJA’s approach to a freer, less restrictive world design. Sekiro didn’t have a difficulty slider but Rise of the Ronin does. It may feel like a compromise but I feel like it’s a way to make the game enjoyable for your specific needs and wants.

When the game grows deadlier, relying on its many systems and deep combat becomes crucial.

Players are likely going to attempt to fall deeply into a skill tree or two to maximize their capability. Forgoing a Strength build and focusing on Intelligence can allow a player to coat an arrow in poison, spread that affliction to a small group, and take down weakened enemies. A player going deep into Dexterity can throw shurikens with greater speed and pull of better shots with pistols. Its one of Rise of the Ronin‘s strengths that most encounters can be tackled in a number of different ways with the wide variety of available options.

Hand-to-hand combat is equally complex, which should be no surprise given Team NINJA’s legacy. In Rise of the Ronin, the basics have been dialed down a bit as there is only one primary attack button rather than high, mid, and low attacks. Players can hold down square to deliver a charged attack or push forward and square for a kind of thrust attack. These initial moves are applied to almost a dozen weapon types that all have stylish attack animations.

As players engage with weapons, complete missions, or grow relationships with characters, they can raise their weapon proficiency. Doing so unlocks unique skills called Martial Arts that can do great damage to health and stamina. More interesting, however, is that each weapon can have a number of different combat styles to select from. On a basic level, enemies are stronger or weaker against certain combat styles, which is indicated by a blue arrow pointing up or a red arrow pointing down, respectively. Locking on to an enemy will show where the current combat style rests.

Unfolding combat even more, players have the ability to switch weapons or styles immediately after an attack, triggering special moves that do more damage. Weapons also get bloodier the more they are used, filling up a Blood Gauge that can be emptied after a combo to restore a small amount of stamina. As in other Team NINJA games, stamina is referred to as Ki in Rise of the Ronin and running out of it can often feel like a death sentence.

Few enemies will relinquish their life with a flurry of constant attacks. Most block or merely return attacks in kind. Taking damage can even reduce Ki and when it’s depleted, players will be unable to move for a few crucial seconds. One goal of combat in Rise of the Ronin is to know when to combine Martial Arts and Ki-draining moves to reduce an enemy’s Ki meter, setting them up for a critical attack. With enough effort, players can reduce the total pool of Ki an enemy has, whether it be a boss or a minor grunt, meaning they can perform less special moves rapidly.

The most crucial tool in Rise of the Ronin is the Counterspark ability, triggered with a press of the triangle button. Unlike a block which absorbs nearly every attack but drains Ki, Countersparks should be seen as a parry. Hitting the button right before an enemy’s attack lands will negate the damage of that attack and shave off Ki. But most enemies in the game have a variety of combo attacks and players can Counterspark the first hit and still be struck by every subsequent strike.

Want to know why I failed so horribly at the first hour of this game? Like any title with a parry mechanic, I was absolute garbage at it. Countersparking too early slashes an enemy for minor damage but won’t stop them from attacking. Doing it too late may rattle you enough that you can’t land the timing for other Countersparks. Virtually every enemy in the game also has an unblockable attack indicated by a red aura that requires more precise timing for a Counterspark or an outright dodge. Getting hit by one of these attacks usually means taking a significant amount of physical and Ki damage.

At some point, about 15 or 20 hours into Rise of the Ronin I had gained a bit of confidence and was happy to Counterspark more and more enemies. I got tired of cheesing miniboss-like fugitives by hopping up on a roof and shooting them with a rifle. Or waiting to Counterspark their arrows they would shoot back. And yeah, this is a game where you can deflect projectiles and doing that to a flaming arrow means igniting your blade momentarily. That growing confidence meant accepting more and more damage knowing that I could survive most fights with the amount of items I had. Soon enough I was making more attempts to Counterspark bosses and succeeding.

There is a part of me that laments Rise of the Ronin being tied to an historical setting because every enemy is going to be a human. Whether it’s American soldier Matthew Perry, an 8-foot lumberjack wielding dual axes, or a monstrous dude with a club, everyone is made of flesh and blood. Absolutely it’s satisfying watching a head or arm explode off a body in a shower of blood. And I commend Team NINJA for being able to invent so many wacky people wielding weapons with their own unique move sets. But keep in mind those limitations.

Accepting my improvement, I decided to dial up the base difficulty of the game. And yeah, those thorns poked a lot deeper. But what it caused me to do was appreciate the comfort I had acclimated to and how it further deepened my understanding of the game’s numerous systems. I had ignored using crafting to improve my gear, feeling like it was far too expensive to justify knowing that I was constantly being flooded with new gear. Yet I realized I had grown proficient in a handful of weapons and that sheer damage wasn’t crucial. Instead I focused on the gear set bonuses that decreased damage I took, raised maximum health, and improved the Ki damage my Countersparks did.

Death in Rise of the Ronin is not as punishing as you may expect. Mainly, players lose karma, a secondary currency that can be turned in at checkpoints to earn a skill point. However, that karma can be returned if you kill or get a critical hit on the enemy that killed you, Sound familiar?

That fuller appreciation and devotion to Rise of the Ronin‘s mechanics allowed me to savor the scraps I got into, knowing that I could burn through antidotes and paralysis whetstones because I had enough materials to craft new ones. I would get hit by the third or fourth attack in a combo because it was harder to see the telegraph but would nail it the next time.

And it was there in my first 30 hours of Rise of the Ronin where I had completed almost every region that I had reached a kind of harmony. I couldn’t ignore some of the protracted horse rides between objectives or points of interest on the map but loved that I could fast travel within seconds. Those parts of the game that felt boring felt a bit more serene and calm. Ultimately I was doing basic, unremarkable tasks but I was enjoying it wholly. There was a bit of silliness involved in flying around Japan and some frustration trying to nail random platforming or trying to navigate past a tall fence.

And then my crew asked me if I wanted to go to Edo.

Edo, or Tokyo as we now know it, is the second map of Rise of the Ronin. Just when I had gotten comfortable, when I assumed there might be more to the picture. And while Edo, like Yokohama, the first area, contains many similar activities, Rise of the Ronin produces enough new surprises to procure more engagement from the player, including ways to replay previous missions and collect more rewards.

I’ve yet to touch on Rise of the Ronin‘s story because I found it to be one of the more captivating elements of the game, savoring it as a final course. In essence, Rise of the Ronin is a game about bonds. Mechanically and narratively, Team NINJA emphasizes how important its characters are in the game.

Players start the game as one half of a pair of orphans, a Blade Twin for the Veiled Edge. After suffering a loss, the player’s samurai becomes embroiled in a Japanese cultural upheaval. Taking place across 1850s and 1860s Japan, Rise of the Ronin sees a Japan that had been isolated from most of the world dealing with Western culture digging its heels in. The scenic fields and shores of Yokohama give way to an ocean-side town. Homes are built in the style of American colonial structures, black ships linger in the distance.

As a ronin–a samurai with no master or family–players begin to forge new relationships not only with the world but its characters. There is literally a “Bond” tab in the game’s menu showing the player’s bond with the world’s districts and the dozens of characters met. Mechanically, players can speak to these characters to learn more about them, offering a response they like or providing them with a gift will raise the affinity of that character. Raising the bond level of any character grants a variety of rewards that can be seen in the menu.

It may not be the most eloquent way to get a point across but it again shows the amount of content to be found in Rise of the Ronin. More importantly, is that the game makes most of these characters worthy of getting to know. Geishas, an inventor, the sister of an executed freedom fighter, a slovenly thief, and even a wealthy English businessman can be bonded with.

Rise of the Ronin‘s overarching story is deeply rooted in a transformative time in Japan’s history. The contrast of cultures not only in the narrative but in Japanese and Western game design can be felt throughout. American culture seeps into Yokohama, a busy, bustling town is in stark contrast to the sweeping fields of nothing in the Japanese countryside. But we also see the effects of a cholera outbreak decimating smaller villages and the wrestling of power as the shogunate attempts to maintain control over a society that is evolving.

Players truly feel like they are outsiders looking in. Personal missions for bonded characters provide key world- and character-building moments. And I don’t think many will expect how politically charged Rise of the Ronin strives to be. By the time Edo is traveled to, around a dozen characters can be bonded with, all providing a small slice of narrative that builds towards the greater whole.

Despite these aspirations, Team NINJA paced a lot of the crucial decision making far apart. Early in the game, players have the option to kill or spare a boss. Killing him takes him out of the game. Saving him makes him an ally that joins in missions and can be bonded with. The game also presents a sliding scale of pro- or anti-shogunate and that missions will be slightly different based on the choices made. While admirable, choice-based missions in Rise of the Ronin are not plentiful in the first half, to the point where players may forget they exist, especially when given the option to revisit those moments in the game.

In one instance, I had to choose who to deliver a letter to. Regardless of which faction I sided with, it played out with the same cutscene minus some different narration. One faction thanks you for giving them the letter and indicates it’s real, the other reveals it to be a fake, making the decision almost meaningless either way.

Structurally, Rise of the Ronin is open-ended when it comes to side content and exploration. Only in main story missions and a few bond ones will players have the opportunity to bring in allies, whether AI partners or online friends. One method to reduce the game’s difficulty is to bring in one or both. When playing solo, players can switch between their created character or one of the bonded allies brought along. These compatriots have unique skills and equipment that can’t be changed. When the player character goes down, control will shift to an ally with revives dictated by how many medicinal pills the player has left. Anyone wishing to play with friends should celebrate the ease of inviting or joining another’s game, making those punishing encounters a little less harsh. As a fun touch, other players’ custom characters can be seen wandering the map or may be rescued at an enemy base and when rescued will fight alongside you.

Team NINJA has created a densely packed game, one that contains enough systems that it would feel overly bloated to speak about all of them. Do I mention the Cat Concierge missions where you send out cats for an hour to collect gear? Or the horseback archery training? Or the visual customization? It may not all be fresh and refined and unique. Rise of the Ronin isn’t even one of the better looking games I’ve seen in awhile but it is stable and crisp, never once lagging for me. A great voice cast. An intriguing side narrative about forces working in the shadows to maintain a status quo. Delightful period-appropriate music. Dull horse rides to collect a distant chest. It’s all here and your enjoyment is entirely upon how you feel you may embrace all these varying puzzle pieces.

Rise of the Ronin is not merely an amalgamation of open-world tropes with punishing combat. While its side activities may be unremarkable and its serene world more barren than alive, each system feeds into itself. This is done in service to further expand upon Team NINJA’s character-driven combat fantasy, one supplemented by a narrative housed in cultural and political intrigue during one of Japan’s most turbulent periods. Whether looking for a casual, open-world jaunt or a ferocious action-adventure, Rise of the Ronin is steeped in choice.