Samurai, action, and open world: this is Rise of the Ronin

Rise of the Ronin well, it rhymed more with cleaning icons on a map and a task list of an Assassin's Creed than with the purest exploration that I don't know what we could see in the ring. Well, now I can categorically affirm that this is exactly what Rise of the Ronin does. What it does is replace combat with one based on animations and is a little more demanding. Even on normal difficulty, especially due to its support in parrying, but the way we interact with the open world goes along those lines. If you want, we'll give you practical examples in practically all of the districts into which the three major maps of Rise of the Ronin are divided. We'll have, and I mention, lost cats, treasure chests, enemy camps to free that have the name of "public order," monuments that must be visited, and photographs of specific places. Additionally, in some of them, we can find challenges in gliding, shooting, or shooting with Horseback archery Of course, there are more things like quick-fire fights, pop-up missions, side quests, or character missions, because Rise of the Running is a festival of systems, you know, in the style of Nio and company, but the basic structure is this and will remain so for the entire game.

Duration and optional content

As I say, this hasn't been a problem at all for me. I enjoyed the 46 hours dedicated to Rise of the Running, which I spent finishing the story and completing the maps. I'll say that when I voice-acted this video. It's true that I still have some side missions, some character missions, and that the game is also open at the end of the game for us to do something else, but I think it's necessary to do this exercise in transparency so that you, who haven't tried it yet, can understand the somewhat uninnovative gameplay structure.

The structure, especially if we're talking about the main content, is divided into specific missions that mostly end with, let's say, minimal dungeons similar to what we saw in Nio. Perhaps it's the assault on an embassy, ​​the search for a certain document in a temple, or trying to rescue someone from prison, but these are relatively short phases that are always crowned with a battle with a big final boss. In fact, here, a difference is also drawn from the previous ones, like the Team Ninja. Because here, you'll always be encouraged to use companions in the missions. They will always be assigned by default to the mission preparation screen, depending on how reasonable it is to have them. During the historical events narrated, that said, we can do each and every one of the missions completely solo, if that's what we want.

The combat itself in Rise of the Running remains a demanding title, and I want to make this very clear: it's still demanding in its gameplay. Although the experience is tremendously modular, I'm referring to things like, from the beginning, you have a difficulty selector, which depends on whether or not you use companions in missions or ending with equipment or improving specific combat styles. However, there are concessions that I think are also reasonable in an attempt to reach a wider audience. One of them is the simplification of the character improvement system. Now, both statistics and skill unlocking use the same experience points, which can also be obtained in many ways, and not all of them can be lost when your character dies. However, things from other Team Ninja games remain, such as the stances of each weapon, which are changed on the fly and can grant an advantage or disadvantage against certain types of enemies, or the Use of ranged weapons such as shuriken rifles and even the Versa-wide.

Conclusion

Seeing how the generation is going, it may not be the first game, nor the last, to be released on the current generation of consoles, and it could perfectly have been the previous one because, beyond the usual accelerated loading times of the PlayStation 5 and its wonderful SSD or how large the map can be, Rise of the Running is a game with a formula already known to everyone. Is this a bad thing? Well, here I'm leaning towards the No necessarily because, to be honest, I felt at home and I enjoyed my hours in the Japan of Bakumatsu, but it's reasonable to ask for a little more on a technical level from a Team Ninja that has stepped out of its comfort zone, but not too far. Rise of the Ronin is still a tremendously enjoyable game.