‘Rise Of The Ronin’ review: lose your head for this slick samurai slasher

 A vast open world filled with intense sword clashes

Japan is in disarray in Rise Of The Ronin. The most recent title from Nioh 2 creator Team Ninja is a historical open-world role-playing game (RPG) set during Bakumatsu, a turbulent 19th-century period when American gunboats forced Japan to abandon its isolationist policies. Japan's military government, the shogunate, was compelled to open its nation to foreign forces after being vastly outgunned. In the meantime, samurai all around the land used widespread violence and assassinations as a form of protest against their perceived powerlessness.

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These actual occurrences are ripe for manipulation, even if they helped build the modern Land of the Rising Sun. After failing to assassinate American Commodore Matthew Perry (not that one), your samurai partner, known as a Blade Twin, vanishes, and you are left to wander as a ronin—a samurai without a master—away from your clan. With a multi-layered, branching plot, you can decide whether to side with renowned revolutionary Ryōma Sakamoto and his outcast samurai, remain impartial while looking for your lost Blade Twin, or keep things as they are.

It's all somewhat daunting at first. You'll find it difficult to keep up with Rise of the Ronin's dizzying array of names and historical events while still attempting to grasp the nuances of swordplay. The game's enormous open environment, which appears more daunting than it is, doesn't help with this either.

You'll be shocked to learn how many things stick after a few hours because there is so much thrown at you. The setting is simple; there are plenty of extra side missions and bandit camps to explore, but not too many to make the games lose their uniqueness. A lone farmer in an optional mission pleads with you for assistance, telling you that robbers had stolen the money he had stashed away to keep his daughter out of the prostitution business. After finding the burglars and flooding their underground refuge with blood, you return the loot to the farmer and discover it was all a money-making hoax. It seems like a lighthearted jab at role-playing game enthusiasts who will kill everything just because a character with a mission marker above their heads told them to, but we took the money and fled away, so the joke was really on him.

In other places, Rise Of The Ronin transforms the Bakumatsu events into a dramatic film. This extremely graphic account explains why many of the real-life characters shown here didn't make it to the age of thirty. A reconstruction of the Sakurada Gate Incident, in which a prominent shogunate minister was killed by a group of rebel samurai, is one of the game's best scenes. This version has been turned into an intense boss battle, and even as you struggle to survive, you'll want to take a moment to appreciate the stunning white snow and the way blood splatters.

 

Rise of the Ronin's combat is no joke. Similar to the extremely difficult samurai fantasy games Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor from the previous year, a poise bar incentivizes you to avoid rolling aside and instead parry and deflect blades directly in your direction. Battles are harsh because to the restricted healing potential, but once you accept this purposeful weightiness and quit reflexively pressing buttons, every encounter turns into an exquisite experience. You must alter your sword fighting technique during each battle depending on the weapon your opponent is using. In some missions, you can also effortlessly swap between playing as your teammates and pressing opponents from all angles.

There's no better feeling than deflecting six really quick blows, only to lose your composure and deliver a bloody beheading. There is a clear sense of progression to swordsmanship; in fact, some of the most difficult boss fights in the game may be won with a single shot, but there are also instances where you can decapitate enemy after enemy without suffering even a minor cut. Frequently, you'll find yourself in a state of unwavering concentration where you can perfectly dodge blows and land your own, only coming to attention—and remembering to breathe—when your opponent's body touches the ground.

There is a power fantasy that permeates the story. Pro-shogunate, anti-shogunate, and neutral main missions are separated, and the decisions you make will determine who survives and perishes before the credits roll. A clever rewind feature allows you to go back to earlier missions and make different decisions if a shock death leaves you feeling uneasy. However, we decided against doing so in order to maintain immersion in our fight against the west. During the Bakumatsu period, moral ambiguity predominated and actions were rarely good or wrong. Because of this, Rise Of The Ronin is delightfully chaotic, and you're never quite sure if the decisions you're making will be best for Japan in the long run.

But there are several problems with Rise Of The Ronin. The plot can occasionally be too ambitious for its own good, and it can be challenging to keep track of every turn and important character. In other places, you're urged to move vertically using a glider and grappling hook, but there aren't many possibilities in the game to accomplish this and the tools aren't very good because there isn't much to grapple with in terms of scenery. Finally, some stunning vistas are marred by twitchy textures, and the graphics are a little old.

At first, these issues were quite startling, and Rise Of The Ronin didn't really impress us. But we discovered that we were falling for it more and more with each bout. Even now, the mere thought of swords clattering gives us the urge to rush back in for another rush of excitement. Bakumatsu was known for its turmoil and bloodshed, and Team Ninja has tapped on that to create an engaging ronin romp.

Rise Of The Ronin will be available for PS5 on March 22.