Keiran McEwen
Keiran McEwenBefore the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Boshin war, and the end of Japan’s Edo Period, Rise of the Ronin highlights a fractured Japan. A country mostly of isolation (ignoring the Japanese Empire and the Meiji Reform), the Bakumatsu period sparked a lot of change in Japan as more foreign traders and whalers tried to exploit the region. For the English, this is known for HMS Phaeton having issues in Nagasaki while assaulting Dutch trading, and for the two Americans who pay attention to history because it isn’t taught in schools, this would be the Morrison incident.
Protected from Oniwaban’s blade by a blacksmith of the resistance group Veiled Edge, two kids from the fictional Kurosu Clan become the Blade Twins. The resistance movement basically has a rule that says no member should be without a partner, a twin if you will, and given your protagonist that you spend a lot of time on creating and the other you hit random on were found as children, you become Blade Twins yourselves. Sent on a mission to get a letter from America’s imperialist-age commodore Matthew Perry, and maybe if you get the chance stab him, it all goes a bit sideways from there.
From there, you can take a wild guess how the open-world, fractious Japanese region stab ‘em up goes. Released for the PS5 in 2024, the PC release hopes to expand and maybe improve on several things from the original release by Team Ninja, the developers behind Nioh and Ninja Gaiden. Taking a bit less influence from the former’s Souls-like DNA, Rise of the Ronin is certainly an RPG/JRPG, but one of those that maybe would have been around during the late PS2 era. Given how much “glazing” I give the PS2, it sounds like a compliment.
Doing as I usually do, I opted to play as a woman and do as you should always do when creating a character: start from the hair. That was a rather quick decision given that Hair Preset 20 looks like that of wrestling’s deadliest woman, Maki Itoh, but of course Blade Twins means creating two characters. It’s early on that it happens (so it’s not a spoiler), but the two get separated due to scenes that are about as obvious as the meaning of a brick to the face. From a rather linear prologue, you then get thrust into what is, for most intents and purposes, a Japanese-made Ubisoft game.
There is flower picking, town/region battles, weapons and armor with slightly better numbers, crafting, horseback riding, a list of quests to do per region for completion, and so on. This also includes taking photos in 1858. Rise of the Ronin has all the markings of the typical Ubisoft title, but the writing, or at least how the dialog is delivered in English, comes off very much how I view most JRPG translations: a bit off. I’ve said this before about the Yakuza titles, but the English translations/performances feel out of place not only for the settings but also for the overall feel of the game. Rise of the Ronin is no different.
With a bit of faction warfare and relationships to contend with, there is a bit of history you sort of need to know to get the full story. The Veiled Edge is a small group pushing against the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which had been in power for a couple hundred years by this point. The Veiled Edge was trying to strengthen Japan against, in particular, the British Empire. With the West on the door establishing colonies and starting wars in China, the Shogunate is pushing to cling to power and keep Japan isolationist. Being a bit of historical fiction, we know the outcome; Rise of the Ronin is more about how we get there.
Rise of the Ronin places you as the protagonist in a position of revenge/trying to get back at the Shogunate for attacking your clan, and you go on a Japanese adventure. Taking you to three major cities: Yokohama, Edo (Tokyo), and Kyoto. So that’s the major port city for Western expansion into Japan, the de facto capital and home of the Tokugawa Shogunate government, and the historical home of the emperor of Japan. However, returning to the factions and bonds system, this is where your online co-op happens. Missions can be played alone (like the open-world) or you can be joined by a friend in-game.
I don’t entirely mean an actual person all the time, though that’s what the co-op is for, but rather you’ll sometimes be joined by characters. Sounds simple enough, but there is a reason I’m not calling them NPCs. One of your early bonds is Ryoma Sakamoto, who you take to fight everyone’s favorite Muppet, Gonzo, and whether you’re downed in a fight or simply want to switch up characters, you can play as Ryoma. I don’t want to say this is unique, as most games since GTA V have done the dual (or whatever) protagonist thing, but swapping mid-battle like it was Final Fantasy VII Remake/Rebirth/ (and a third R-word) is somewhat fun.
It means I’m running more into those battles knowing I have what is basically a second life there ready to pick me up when I’m down. The combat itself is a bit of a tricky one, though, not because it is difficult but rather for how it is explained and how “floaty” it feels. The clang of metal blades crossing in Ghost of Tsushima or otherwise isn’t what’s important here, it is about stabbing and flourishes that look cool. Combat is what most of the systems at play feed into, including your tools.
Wingsuits, grappling hooks, and secondary weapons like pistols, bows, long guns, and flame throwers are all on offer to let you tackle things. With character types focused around certain stats to begin with you have Strength, Dexterity, Charm, and everyone’s lowest stat, Intellect. That’s not a comment on everyone’s stupidity; that’s simply because Intellect is largely about bartering, crafting, and the effectiveness of items that you’ve crafted. However, you don’t just get skill points to unlock certain aspects of the four trees.
Your points are split between tree-specific points and skill points themselves, which can be an issue if you’re waiting on tree-specific points for certain skills. Rise of the Ronin doesn’t lock you out, but the conversations where you’ll need the ability to lie or persuade require at least some Charm points. For most skills, it is straightforward with skill points, which is where combat becomes a bit “easier,” so it were. I don’t hate the combat, but I certainly see why you might if you don’t push through the first couple of fights.
Using a PS5 DualSense (for context), the button mapping shouldn’t be too confusing, but sometimes it feels overwhelming in those first couple of hours. Square to strike, hold Square to hit a bit harder, L1 to block, and Triangle to parry/”Counterspark,” with several more specific things like R1 and Square or Triangle doing more specific attacks. If you’ve got a high-level weapon, you can also select stances, similar to Ghost of Tsushima, with R1 and the right stick. It all sounds simple because, ultimately, that’s what it is; you just need to slightly rewire your brain for those controls.
Where I think the combat system sort of stumbles is when it comes to parrying, when it comes to reading enemy attacks, being able to balance multiple foes, and the timing and distance of those incoming attacks. Some attacks are prompted by a red particle effect, which is easier to parry than normal attacks. Those come in without the parade, without the song and dance to announce when to parry, which sounds fine enough, but if you thought Dark Souls had unreadable attacks, Rise of the Ronin might prove rather difficult.
Parrying isn’t the only way to get in-roads during combat. There is a bit of stealth and the ability simply to dodge, returning with quick slashes, but there is a large portion of Rise of the Ronin focused around it. Certainly not as severe as Sekiro, but it’s closer to that than Batman: Arkham Asylum’s one-button combat. What probably doesn’t help that system is that it is a different button to blocking, and it does require a good bit of skill and timing to get down. Sadly that makes it frustrating to get a handle on.
After a couple of hours, after some side stuff clearing out bandits and getting used to it, I don’t want to hate the system, but I’m not saying this is where all games should go either. I think Rise of the Ronin is a messy mix of several games. The easiest comparison is to call it a Japanese Ubisoft version of Monster Hunter, minus the monsters of course. The faction warfare and bonds feel a bit like Yakuza games for some reason. The combat is a touch floaty and focused on parrying without it being the sole focus, and generally, the story aims for something quite grand.
A couple of hours in and you’ll be given the branching narrative focus, either be pro-Shogunate, anti-Shogunate, or neutral. There isn’t much to the system in terms of the grand story being told over several years; that’s just not how history works. Some might try to rewrite it in textbooks and fantasy/sci-fi shows, but you’re just part of the history here; you don’t necessarily make it. Despite that, Rise of the Ronin makes its story, though not particularly refreshing or exciting, and action fun.
Though that’s hardly why you’re here. The port report is rather difficult to talk about in great detail, not because there isn’t something to say, but rather because of the importance of the Day-1 patch to performance. It is, however, typically known that Ninja Gaiden and Nioh titles from KOEI TECMO and Team Ninja are troubled at launch, and we’ve been asked not to say too much about the pre-launch (pre-Day-1 patch) performance. The pre-release performance isn’t entirely representative, so to quote a German politician, “I don’t like it, but I’ll have to go along with it.”
Since the Day-1 patch, I’ve had reasonable performance. I want to say the majority of the time, I stick to 60 FPS with most settings on high to medium (or “standard”). That said, using some of the more fun movement mechanics, such as the grappling hook and wingsuit, feels somewhat artificially slowed to keep the frame rate high, something that seems supported by the fact that riding a galloping horse through a city can get a few dropped frames. Though that’s hardly the “big issue” with Rise of the Ronin. I’ll get to one that seems to be personal in a minute, but first, we need to talk about textures.
Of course, playing on my PC’s main NVMe SSD, a 40-series RTX, 32GB of RAM, and an i-7, I’m playing on a system that is equal to or better than the recommended specs. Yet on a few occasions, rocks and otherwise failed to load their proper textures. I’ve spent a good while testing multiple settings to see if that fixed it. It doesn’t entirely. Sometimes in cities, it would be doors, in the wilderness it is rocks, and in caves I’ve seen the most significant drops of frame rate joined by some slow-loading textures. This is “immersion breaking” but not entirely uncommon in gaming.
The main issue I’ve had was crashing and something else a bit more “critical,” though with the crashing, I can’t really figure out what entirely caused those issues. Two, I understood for being pre-patch, but then it became more significant after the patch, either in the middle of loading or in the middle of gameplay. However, the more critical thing was entirely post-patch and required a full PC restart: A black box covering up a quarter of my main screen. A graphics card reset with shortcuts doesn’t help and it has only happened with Rise of the Ronin.
I don’t want this bit about the performance to take away from the fact that Rise of the Ronin is a fun yet messy open world set in a period that many in the West don’t typically talk about. For all its flaws, there is a combat system that is tricky but fun and rewarding if you can nail it down, and a story that, while it isn’t breaking new ground, does what it needs to in order to be enjoyable enough. There is plenty to say that is good about Rise of the Ronin despite its flaws, but its flaws in performance and even some minor gameplay elements that feel like busy work can sometimes overcast its bright points.
Ultimately, Rise of the Ronin is a messy open world that wants to be many things, from banners resetting thugs like Dark Souls, a mission structure I’d say similar to my only (confusing) experience of Monster Hunter World, a bond/faction system that reminds me of Yakuza, and so on. All the while it feels like a Ubisoft title that isn’t trying to spread itself too thin. The combat is fun eventually, the movement isn’t terribly sluggish or overly floaty, and overall, there is quite a bit of fun to be had. Its biggest faults are a story you might get bored of and performance at launch that might be difficult to say is great.
A PC review copy of Rise of the Ronin was provided by KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. for this review.
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59 Rise of the Ronin
$49.99
Pros
- Solid combat, though takes a while to enjoy.
- Fun traversal/combat tools.
- A fine/functional photo mode.
Cons
- Troubled performance at launch.
- A couple of crashes and other notable technical issues.
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