Rise of the Ronin<\/em><\/a><\/span> feels like a game that\u2019s already one or two generations old. Developer Team Ninja has called it their \u201cmost ambitious<\/a><\/span>\u201d title to date, but that ambition is overshadowed by lackluster graphics, outdated design concepts, and performance issues that put the game more in line with the PS4 or even the PS3 libraries. Despite these shortcomings, Rise of the Ronin<\/em> is still a commendable release for Team Ninja. It takes everything the studio does best and melds it with ideas from other games to create something that\u2019s intriguing, albeit unoriginal.<\/p>\n Rise of the Ronin<\/em> takes place during the Bakumatsu period, a time in Japan\u2019s history that marked the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the beginning of the country\u2019s opening to international trade. Your character, a nameless ronin whom you customize with some extensive options, finds themself separated from their \u201cBlade Twin\u201d (an unofficial sibling of sorts) and in the middle of a hate triangle between the anti-Shogunate faction, foreign settlers, and the pro-Shogunate forces. There\u2019s plenty of political intrigue here, as the warring camps jockey for power to establish a new Japan during a period of turmoil and upheaval. Anyone familiar with the country\u2019s history can probably surmise how the events of Rise of the Ronin<\/em> play out, but Team Ninja\u2019s interpretation of this pivotal period in 19th-century Japan<\/a><\/span> is compelling all the same.<\/p>\n The driving force behind any story is its characters and writing. Rise of the Ronin<\/em> handles both of these exceptionally. While occasionally heavy-handed with its exposition, both named and nameless characters have impressive depth to them. They\u2019ll remember your previous actions, often hesitating to cooperate with you if you\u2019ve engaged in criminal activity such as cutting down regular townsfolk. They\u2019ll question your motives if they discover you might\u2019ve been working with the opposing faction. Hell, they\u2019ll even let loose on each other, frequently poking fun at their besties and enemies alike. This believable and rich characterization breathes life into historical figures, such as the modernization advocate Ryoma Sakamoto and the reformist intellectual Shoin Yoshida, who could come off as dusty relics in less capable hands.<\/p>\n The bummer, then, is that the story\u2019s delivery is sometimes boring at best and incongruous at worst. Despite a cast of captivating characters who have remarkable rapport thanks to the game\u2019s excellent writing, Rise of the Ronin<\/em>\u2019s narrative is still primarily doled out through people standing around like action figures. Serious shit is going on, but yet, folks loiter during dialogue sequences as if a war wasn\u2019t brewing. It doesn\u2019t even matter what\u2019s happening, either. <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/figure>\n During one cutscene, after I cooked an anti-Shogunate samurai in a sparring match, he faced me with his back straight, arms crossed, and eyes unblinking while coughing up a lung. The animation was completely at odds with what was happening. The same thing occurred a little later. Immediately after an assassination attempt on a pro-Shogunate official, my ally was panting like a dog while still standing up straight, as if we were waiting for coffee. These kinds of mismatches break the immersion during some of the game\u2019s biggest moments, particularly since the narrative\u2019s events are so dark and gritty.<\/p>\n Still, Rise of the Ronin<\/em> had me hooked. I kept wanting to know what would happen next. The drama, the gossip, the occasional comedy, the love, the death, the pain\u2014it\u2019s a little bit of everything in a pot that simmers into a delicious, narratively rich campaign. And it\u2019s bolstered by a captivating world that, while filled with the typical open-world busywork, has plenty of stunning vistas and emergent gameplay encounters that make use of its many varied RPG systems.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to look at Rise of the Ronin<\/em> and immediately compare it to the other PlayStation 5 samurai \u2018em up, Sucker Punch Productions\u2019 Ghost of Tsushima<\/em><\/a><\/span>. While the two games are artistically and thematically alike, Team Ninja\u2019s latest is more of an amalgam of several other games. It\u2019s a little bit Assassin\u2019s Creed<\/em>, a little bit Dark Souls<\/em><\/a><\/span>, a little bit Far Cry<\/em>, and a little bit Ghost of Tsushima<\/em> all wrapped up into one package. It\u2019s not a bad thing. In fact, anyone who enjoys Team Ninja\u2019s previous games will likely fall in love with what Rise of the Ronin<\/em> is attempting to achieve. It proudly wears its influences on its sleeves. At the same time, it takes many of the studio\u2019s best elements, from combat mechanics to environmental design, and combines them into a sort of \u201cGreatest Hits\u201d album. For instance, the studio\u2019s penchant for linear stages is very apparent in Rise of the Ronin,<\/em> despite the game opting for an open-world structure. During certain missions, you\u2019ll be funneled from combat area to combat area \u00e1 la Ninja Gaiden<\/em><\/a><\/span>, the Nioh<\/em> games<\/a><\/span>, or Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty<\/em><\/a><\/span>. There\u2019s some interlocking bits here and there, with paths twisting and folding into each other, but they do lack the intricacy of Team Ninja\u2019s previous games.<\/p>\n But outside of these linear stages, the open world is memorable and vast. The adventure spans three huge cities\u2014Edo (modern-day Tokyo), Kyoto, and Yokohama\u2014each of them peppered with beautiful pagodas, mountainous terrain, and small villages. Some, like the port city of Yokohama, have more advanced technology than others because its seaside access allowed foreigners to dock and trade goods. Each city has its own distinct identity, which is great because most of what you\u2019ll do in them is pretty repetitive, most often a riff on going to some place and murdering some person.<\/p>\nA familiar yet interesting history lesson<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/picture><\/div>\nDark Ghost of the Far Ronin Creed<\/strong><\/h2>\n