Rise of the Ronin is the newest game by Team Ninja and their first project set in an open world and with a bigger story. Unfortunately it does feel like Team Ninja tried to get everything right - combat, open world, story - but in the end all parts are just decent.
The open world
While the game does look nice overall, especially the cities which are fun to go through, the art style does get bland rather fast in the wide spaces. While the mobility with horse and glider is great, the world offers very little adventure and suprise. All activities are check list based (collect this, defeat X amount of enemies there) and way too many of them exist. It feels like a never ending check list to finish that just gets boring really fast unfortunately.
The story
Here it depends a lot on your interest. If you are interested in the story of the 19th century Japan, the game automatically is much more relevant for you, as it does show that era pretty well and offers a nice view of the events (while clearly fictional aswell)
The characters are unfortunately rather bland, due to the basic voice acting and writing, but there is a lot of interesting conflict here that could have been presented much better.
The comabt
As for all of Team Ninjas games the combat is the shining star. This one is heavily based on the counterspark, a parry mechanic. You basically dance with your enemies, waiting for them to attack > counter > drop your attackes on them. There are multiple combat styles that work like rock/paper/scissor and you pick the one that fits best.
That said: The combat is still better than 90% of action games - but the weakest by Team Ninja so far. For the Team Ninja fans a comparison:
Weapons dont feel that different as they dont have unique weapon skill trees (Nioh) or special abilities (Wo Long). You have a Ki Pulse, but it is just R1 after your attacks, without timing required for a better outcome. You have no stances as the fighting styles are just rock/paper/scissor. The parry counterspark is also an attack, so if you miss, you get insanely punished. While in Nioh you can dodge/parry/block and everything is valid, here only parrying is the proper method in almost all scenarios. Your big devil trigger (living weapon/Yokai form) is just a mode where you have endless stamina and do a bit more damage. There is no build variety cause the stats do not exist as before + the skill tree is irrelevant cause you get enough points to level everything anyway. While there are still set bonuses on armor, they feel way less relevant to actually make a good build. So instead most of the time you just pick "bigger number item" and move on.
So as a big Team Ninja fan, I am extremely disappointed. I do not think this is the right way for the studio and they should focus on the clutch, amazing combat they used to deliver before. I really hope we will see a Nioh 3 next that is not so simplified and streamlined.
The open world
While the game does look nice overall, especially the cities which are fun to go through, the art style does get bland rather fast in the wide spaces. While the mobility with horse and glider is great, the world offers very little adventure and suprise. All activities are check list based (collect this, defeat X amount of enemies there) and way too many of them exist. It feels like a never ending check list to finish that just gets boring really fast unfortunately.
The story
Here it depends a lot on your interest. If you are interested in the story of the 19th century Japan, the game automatically is much more relevant for you, as it does show that era pretty well and offers a nice view of the events (while clearly fictional aswell)
The characters are unfortunately rather bland, due to the basic voice acting and writing, but there is a lot of interesting conflict here that could have been presented much better.
The comabt
As for all of Team Ninjas games the combat is the shining star. This one is heavily based on the counterspark, a parry mechanic. You basically dance with your enemies, waiting for them to attack > counter > drop your attackes on them. There are multiple combat styles that work like rock/paper/scissor and you pick the one that fits best.
That said: The combat is still better than 90% of action games - but the weakest by Team Ninja so far. For the Team Ninja fans a comparison:
Weapons dont feel that different as they dont have unique weapon skill trees (Nioh) or special abilities (Wo Long). You have a Ki Pulse, but it is just R1 after your attacks, without timing required for a better outcome. You have no stances as the fighting styles are just rock/paper/scissor. The parry counterspark is also an attack, so if you miss, you get insanely punished. While in Nioh you can dodge/parry/block and everything is valid, here only parrying is the proper method in almost all scenarios. Your big devil trigger (living weapon/Yokai form) is just a mode where you have endless stamina and do a bit more damage. There is no build variety cause the stats do not exist as before + the skill tree is irrelevant cause you get enough points to level everything anyway. While there are still set bonuses on armor, they feel way less relevant to actually make a good build. So instead most of the time you just pick "bigger number item" and move on.
So as a big Team Ninja fan, I am extremely disappointed. I do not think this is the right way for the studio and they should focus on the clutch, amazing combat they used to deliver before. I really hope we will see a Nioh 3 next that is not so simplified and streamlined.