There’s little invention or imagination in the open world of Team Ninja’s action-RPG, but its core mechanics set it apart from other games.

It’s the season for samurai when it comes to video games. Medieval Japan is no stranger to video games. From Okami and Onimusha to Tenchu and Total War, the setting has been explored in poetic and powerful ways before. But a few popular games have recently rekindled interest in the sword masters and ninjas. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice established the spirit of modern action games set in Japan’s turbulent past, while Ghost of Tsushima refined the open-world action-adventure genre with a samurai tale.

Team Ninja’s latest action RPG, Rise of the Ronin, released on March 22nd, sits somewhere between these two titles. Set in the late Edo period, the game employs a deep role-playing system and challenging parry-based action combat reminiscent of Sekiro, presenting a vast open-world map littered with checklist activities and distractions. It’s a lot like Ghost of Tsushima, which itself follows the familiar open-world path established by the Assassin’s Creed games. But Rise of the Ronin, a best-of-both-world approach, loses the sanctity of the strong, unforgiving combat language established in Team Ninja’s previous games and fails to bring any new original ideas to the open-world formula.

That’s not to say that Rise of the Ronin doesn’t bring something completely new to the genre. The game’s combat is a good balance of approachability and difficulty, with a variety of melee and ranged weapons and stances to choose from. The companion system encourages you to indulge in side content and bond with your friends. And the accurate period setting gives it a more realistic portrayal of the era compared to other games set in medieval Japan. But despite striking a good, if somewhat shaky, balance between the hard-edged combat and serious systems of old-school games and the ambitious, vast scope of modern open-world titles, Rise of the Ronin can easily get boring.

The story is set in the mid-19th century, during the decline of the Tokugawa Shogunate, a time of great turmoil in Japan, where political and cultural revolutions steered the country in a new direction. Rise of the Ronin begins with the game’s protagonists, the Blade Twins, twin brothers who have grown up and trained together as part of the Veiled Edge resistance movement against the Shogunate. At the start of the game, you can customize the twins’ appearance to your liking and choose their gender, but you will only play as one of the twins, with the other appearing as an ally. An early assassination mission goes wrong, resulting in the loss of your partner.

You then embark on a bloody, decades-long path of revenge that will take you through Yokohama, Edo and Kyoto, navigating the changing political climate of the time. Along the way, you’ll encounter real historical figures who determined the fate of Japan. In Yokohama, the first city you explore in Rise of the Ronin, you’ll befriend Sakamoto Ryoma, a powerful samurai from the end of the Edo period. Join Sakamoto and his friends on a quest against the Shogunate, but you can also choose missions that favor the Shogunate.

The opening of Rise of the Ronin sets you on a path of revenge.

The element of choice remains a key part of Rise of the Ronin’s gameplay. How you approach quests will tilt and shift your loyalties and alter your interactions with people on both sides of the divide. Early in the game, I was faced with the choice of executing a minor antagonist or sparing his life at the end of the mission. I chose the latter, and he ended up becoming a powerful ally, aiding me in future main missions. Rise of the Ronin presents you with several such impactful choices throughout its story, and its narrative structure always feels like a piece of tailoring of its own making.

As you progress, the story branches and your objectives change. What starts as a tale of personal revenge soon becomes an epic tale of political intrigue and national interest across a Japan on the brink of revolution. Your initial adventure in Yokohama and the surrounding area will lead you to Edo (Tokyo’s former name) and Kyoto as you absorb allies and turn the pages of Japanese history. The setting is fascinating, but the meaty story, which spans years and involves dozens of major and minor players, suffers a bit under its weight. Like most RPGs, Rise of the Ronin approaches storytelling with a light touch, lacking the emotional thrust and narrative structure of character-driven action-adventure titles like Ghost of Tsushima.

Yokohama is the first city you’ll explore in Rise of the Ronin.

The main campaign is no cakewalk either. It can take 20+ hours to complete, with at least another 20 for side quests, activities, and exploration. Even if you focus solely on the main quest (and you probably won’t), it’s not that hard to lose track of what’s going on. There are multiple factions, side characters, allies, and enemies, all competing for your loyalty and attention. But over time, they all blend into one mass of exposition-guzzling NPCs, with only a few memorable standout characters. It also doesn’t help that the side quests remain poor throughout the game. The game map is littered with icons promising things to do soon, in true Ubisoft style, but these missions and activities don’t bring anything fresh to the formula.

While Rise of the Ronin is lacking in terms of story, it is packed with mechanics. From weapon variety, combat stances, and an extensive skill tree to a deep bond system, gear bonuses, and soul-like inspiration, the game is packed with so much that it often feels overwhelming. Much of how the game plays and feels is similar to Sekiro : Shadows Die Twice, but without the crushing difficulty and complexity of the combat. Team Ninja’s games are known for their uncompromisingly tough combat. The company’s Nioh games and more recently Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty were firmly rooted in the Soulsborne ethos with their tough combat and complex level design. Rise of the Ronin opens that door by making combat much more accessible by implementing one-button combos, a forgiving parry window, and a wide variety of weapons and skills for every situation. The open-world design also brings it closer to modern action-adventure titles, allowing you to always turn around and explore in another direction even when you come across a difficult obstacle.

Rise of the Ronin’s open world gives you the freedom to explore beyond the main story.

Let’s jump into the combat. The masochistic difficulty of previous Team Ninja games has been wiped away, but it’s still pretty challenging. There are three sets of multiple stances for each weapon type, all of which are effective against certain enemies. The combat moveset is simple, with a single attack button to launch into combos, but the sheer number of weapon types at your disposal creates confusion. Though the controls are the same, the versatility of the Uchigatana is quite different from the speciality of the spear. The careful, blunt swings of the Odachi are a far cry from the agile swings of the Dual Blades. And the stiff, direct movements of the polearm contrast with the flexible flair of the Oxtail Blade.

Each weapon type has its own animations and set of fighting skills, which work like Weapon Art in Elden Ring, unleashing special attacks by pressing the right bumper and corresponding face buttons on the PS5 DualSense controller. I kept switching between weapons to get a sense of the different styles and break the monotony of the shallow combat mechanics. There are also plenty of ranged weapon options. Revolvers are quick and can stun close-range enemies for a second if you pull the trigger at the right time. Rifles, on the other hand, are more accurate and better for targeting enemies from a distance. Bows are a stealthier option and also allow elemental attacks, adding fire and acid arrows to your quiver.

Rise of the Ronin’s combat is easy, but difficult.

Melee combat itself is predicated on parrying, blocking, or dodging attacks and counterattacking with quick combos to defeat opponents. As in previous Team Ninja titles, all offensive and defensive actions are controlled by Ki, or stamina. Your health bar is accompanied by a Ki meter, which depletes while dodging, blocking, and attacking. Ki regenerates if you’re not performing these actions, but being too zealous will quickly drain your Ki and make you susceptible to heavy damage from attacks. The same goes for enemies: normal attacks, martial arts moves, and well-timed parries (called counter sparks in the game) chip away at your opponent’s Ki, eventually enabling critical hits that may one-hit kill weaker foes.

Despite ticking most of the boxes for a modern action RPG, Rise of the Ronin’s combat never feels as tight or powerful as Sekiro’s. The counterspark deflection, triggered with the Triangle button, feels out of sync with other actions, making the timing difficult to get right. The parry window isn’t narrow, but the action itself is accompanied by an exaggerated animation that feels out of place for a maneuver that requires dexterity. Inventory management in the heat of battle is also tedious. Switching between two equipped melee weapons, a third ranged weapon, and quick items for healing and status effects is never smooth, and it often feels like you’re drowning in menus and UI every time you want to tinker with your loadout. The custom loadout slots are helpful, but a more intuitive weapon swapping system would have improved the experience.

Stealth is extremely useful for clearing out enemy lines.

Combat in Rise of the Ronin may not be as responsive as you’d like, but it’s always fun. Trying out different weapons keeps it fresh, and fighting multiple enemies at the same time is also challenging, especially if you keep switching stances to fight different types of enemies. Clearing out enemy camps (which you do often in the game) always requires a thoughtful approach. I thought of them as reminiscent of camps and bases in the Far Cry games, where you’re given the freedom to clear out however you want. You can charge in and attack enemies head-on, or carefully rush through them and silently take down unaware guards one by one. Combat isn’t always fluid, but it does look smooth. Each weapon’s fighting skills often come with elaborate animations that add a touch of glamour to the combat. A skill tree spanning strength, dexterity, intelligence, and charisma traits adds meaningful abilities to your bag of tricks, bringing a bit more depth to the relatively shallow combat experience.

In the main missions, you will also be accompanied by two companions. You can choose your companions from among the characters you have met and bonded with over time. The level of your bond with your companions will determine their effectiveness on the battlefield. Companions are especially useful in difficult boss battles; they attract enemy attacks and give you an opportunity to attack. At any time during the main mission, you can also control your companion characters. Most companions are handled with great care, with well-developed personalities and clearly defined traits. Showing a personal favor to a companion will deepen your bond and they will reveal more to you. All companions are deeply tied to the overall story, and your choices may determine their fate. As a result, over time, you will come to care about them and their objectives.

Companions Don’t Just Pose on the Battlefield

While you have companions in the form of friendly NPCs when completing main missions and actual players online in co-op mode, you’re alone when exploring the open world. To move around the world more quickly, you’re given a horse, a grappling hook, and a glider. The horse companion is perfect for the rolling countryside, while the hook and glider are useful when traversing dense cities. With two tools at your disposal, your character becomes more agile, and while you’d imagine you could easily parkour across rooftops a la the Assassin’s Creed series, the Blade Twin is surprisingly stiff. You can climb rooftops with the help of ladders, carefully placed boxes, and dangling ropes, and you can jump from rooftop to rooftop for some distances, traveling on foot never feels smooth.

The open-world elements of Rise of the Ronin are pretty much what you’d expect from the genre: a never-ending and ever-growing checklist of things to do and errands to run. When you defeat an enemy camp in an area, icons representing side activities appear on the map for that area. You can find and pet stray cats, ask your companions for favors, do NPC quests, take photos, find landmarks, shoot targets, or find “random” encounters. These get boring quickly, and the limited variety of quests means there’s little incentive to dive into the side content. Scaling up to an open-world design doesn’t really add much meaning to Rise of the Ronin, other than the freedom to waste time trying to finish the main story. Whereas Team Ninja’s previous games benefited from a linear level design that felt tense, this latest game loses tension by switching to an open-world approach. And unlike Elden Ring, it fails to justify the switch by digging up the carcasses of every open-world trick.

The bonds you forge in Rise of the Ronin shape the story.

Visually, Rise of the Ronin is also not a standout. If the game had stuck to a Nioh-style linear design, I wouldn’t have minded as much, but an open world needs great vistas and breathtaking scenery. It needs lush environments and a striking visual style. Rise of the Ronin looks boring, flat, and gray compared to modern open world games. The game’s environments are not diverse or vibrant, and the textures lack detail. Even the character models look poor compared to other games. The game looks good in certain moments, and the lack of graphical finesse can be ignored for the most part, but the bar has been set high by games like Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Forbidden West. It’s unfair to expect a Team Ninja game to approach that standard, but Rise of the Ronin could have chosen a bolder visual style to make up for its shortcomings in visual fidelity.

Meanwhile, performance on the PS5 leaves little to be desired. The game offers a Performance mode at 60fps, a Graphics mode at 30fps, and a Ray Tracing mode at 30fps that enables ray tracing lighting. I stuck with Performance mode, as the graphical gains in the other modes weren’t enough to justify the drop in frame rate. The frame rate drops as expected in crowded sections and densely populated cities, but overall it’s stable. However, Rise of the Ronin, a PS5 exclusive, excels at taking full advantage of the DualSense controller’s capabilities, with responsive vibration and adaptive trigger feedback to in-game actions.

Rise of the Ronin looks good, but it lacks the polish of modern open-world games.

Rise of the Ronin is clearly Team Ninja’s most ambitious work to date. Known for its tense, linear, and challenging Souls-like experiences, the studio is aiming wider this time around, hoping to attract a wider audience more receptive to open-world games. It makes sense that a studio whose previous games were well-received by a niche audience would make their next project more accessible, and Team Ninja’s latest title largely succeeds in blending the specific essence of its games with the general familiarity of the open-world formula.

The problem, though, is that the formula has become stale over the past few years. And games that don’t add a unique twist to the genre tend to get lost in a pile of similar titles. FromSoftware also pushed the scale of its games with Elden Ring. But rather than adapting from an existing open-world blueprint, the studio chose to challenge established tropes at every step. That’s not the case with Rise of the Ronin. Its open world has little invention or imagination, but its core mechanics and compelling story are what set it apart from the rest.

The companion system adds meaningful decisions and choices, and seeks to add depth to each character in the game. The variety of weapons and tools at your disposal keeps combat fresh and engaging, while the game’s evocative settings and colorful cast of characters keep the story constantly evolving. Rise of the Ronin is clearly punching above its weight class, and you can feel your knees wobbly, but it’s worth praising it for never succumbing to the strain.

Pros:

• Challenging Combat
• Engaging story and setting
• Likeable characters
• Diverse weapons and tools
• Companion System

Cons:

• Uninspired open-world design
• Lack of visual sophistication
• Repetitive side activities
• Troublesome inventory management

Rating (out of 10): 7

• Rise of the Ronin was released exclusively for PS5 on March 22nd.
• The price of the PS5 standard edition on the PlayStation Store will start at Rs 4,999.

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