This review contains spoilers
Ryse: Son of Rome is like a square block of marble. It looks clean, it feels nice, but no one's sculpted it. There's dents and attempts to create something out of the marble to no avail.
It's a bit of a slog to get through at first. You deal with boring military roman things, your family dies, then you go back to boring roman military blabber. The Roman army aspect focuses on Boudica and her army of barbarians that brought down the Roman empire. They could've done something interesting with it, but instead gave us cookie cutter dialogue and drama.
There's also a revenge plot about your family being murdered that's rarely touched on...and when it is, it feels like the story is trying hard to move past it in order to get back to that juicy military/barbarian drama.
At the halfway point, things get weird. Out of nowhere the story turns mystical, you put on a really scary looking Halloween costume and scream vengeance for your family, then participate in a really fun gladiator tournament.
I thought the game would finally get better from here, but guess what happens after this really fun, unique level? Yeah that's right, more roman military b.s. dealing with the invading barbarians!
Then the game ends with what boils down to a hallway of QuickTime sequences. I wouldn't even call it that, since even if you press the wrong button for the "QuickTime events" you still pass it. There's no stakes or danger to these QuickTime events since time practically freezes to make sure you don't miss it.
Then the game just kinda ends. You spend maybe 85% of the game dealing with the barbarian drama, and the other 15% dealing with the far more interesting revenge plot. It really baffles me how they went all out for one level, then just kinda put in the bare minimum on the rest of the game...
Didn't try the multiplayer. Most likely won't ever try it since it's just killing more enemies with the repetitive combat, but with a friend!!
Speaking of combat, it involved 4 buttons: sword hit, shield hit, doge, parry. There's also ranged spears but they're actually a huge pain in the ass to aim and use. For a game that came out in 2013, they couldn't get third person aiming right?
What the enemies lack in diversity, make up for by testing your knowledge of the four button combat system...which you probably mastered by the end of the first level. There's a slo-mo ability too for some reason.
The game looks gorgeous, and the executions are fun (but not so fun after the 100th time). Besides one standout level, that's all there is to this game. It's a small, beautiful looking block of marble. It would've been great if the devs did something magical with that beautiful looking foundation. It's worth $5 if you enjoy roman military culture and badass looking executions (that get old FAST), but other than that, I would spend the 8 hours it takes to beat on a better game.
It's a bit of a slog to get through at first. You deal with boring military roman things, your family dies, then you go back to boring roman military blabber. The Roman army aspect focuses on Boudica and her army of barbarians that brought down the Roman empire. They could've done something interesting with it, but instead gave us cookie cutter dialogue and drama.
There's also a revenge plot about your family being murdered that's rarely touched on...and when it is, it feels like the story is trying hard to move past it in order to get back to that juicy military/barbarian drama.
At the halfway point, things get weird. Out of nowhere the story turns mystical, you put on a really scary looking Halloween costume and scream vengeance for your family, then participate in a really fun gladiator tournament.
I thought the game would finally get better from here, but guess what happens after this really fun, unique level? Yeah that's right, more roman military b.s. dealing with the invading barbarians!
Then the game ends with what boils down to a hallway of QuickTime sequences. I wouldn't even call it that, since even if you press the wrong button for the "QuickTime events" you still pass it. There's no stakes or danger to these QuickTime events since time practically freezes to make sure you don't miss it.
Then the game just kinda ends. You spend maybe 85% of the game dealing with the barbarian drama, and the other 15% dealing with the far more interesting revenge plot. It really baffles me how they went all out for one level, then just kinda put in the bare minimum on the rest of the game...
Didn't try the multiplayer. Most likely won't ever try it since it's just killing more enemies with the repetitive combat, but with a friend!!
Speaking of combat, it involved 4 buttons: sword hit, shield hit, doge, parry. There's also ranged spears but they're actually a huge pain in the ass to aim and use. For a game that came out in 2013, they couldn't get third person aiming right?
What the enemies lack in diversity, make up for by testing your knowledge of the four button combat system...which you probably mastered by the end of the first level. There's a slo-mo ability too for some reason.
The game looks gorgeous, and the executions are fun (but not so fun after the 100th time). Besides one standout level, that's all there is to this game. It's a small, beautiful looking block of marble. It would've been great if the devs did something magical with that beautiful looking foundation. It's worth $5 if you enjoy roman military culture and badass looking executions (that get old FAST), but other than that, I would spend the 8 hours it takes to beat on a better game.