Rise of the Ronin – Every time the name is mentioned Team Ninja, writers often think of the “cool” image of director and leader Tomonobu Itagaki, who contributed to the revival of the legendary game series Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox system in the early 21st century, when Playstation 2 was still sitting on the “throne” of the console gaming industry and no one knew about other products from Microsoft and their mysterious X box.

Ninja Gaiden At that time, not only was it loved by many people with modern hack and slash gameplay with a fast tempo, breaking “happy, eyed” and difficult “brain-wrenching”, but the main character, the fake ring guy Ryu Hayabusa also participated in other famous brands of Team Ninja after that such as Dead Or Alive and quickly became one of the most memorable icons of all time for Tecmo (the parent company of Team Ninja, the predecessor of Koei Tecmo later).

But things have changed since the airline FromSoftware Launch of the game Dark Souls in 2011, the turning point reshaped almost the entire trend of slash role-playing game development, marking the birth of the “Souls-like” game style (games with gameplay such as Dark Souls – NV) whose influence lasts to this day.

When the “gymnasium” movement to make the game “Souls” began to blossom, Team Ninja did not stand aside from the game when launching new franchises such as Nioh, Stranger of Paradise or Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty This style is imbued, but most still do not bring as much success as expected.

Perhaps that’s why they hatched an extremely ambitious project called Rise of the Ronin, For the first time, using open-world design, removing the usual spiritual and mythological elements to focus on character development, and the script recreates historical events.

It is even more interesting that this game launched on the same day as Dragon Dogma 2, another action product from rival game company “many debts” Capcom. (Capcom used to… sue Koei Tecmo for copyright infringement and win in 2014 – NV)

Let’MarkGame find out Team Ninja and Rise of the Ronin How will show in this tough competition through the following article

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Free and liberal gameplay!

Unlike the context of war, desolate chaos, dyed with smoke and fire in the game with the theme of samurai warriors – Ghost Of Tsushima, launched in 2020, Rise of the Ronin recreates a more prosperous, modern, but equally disturbing Japan at the end of the Edo period, a period when the shogunate was forced to open up to trade with Western countries under pressure from the U.S. Navy, when they brought warships (later known in history books as “Black Ships”) close to Yokohama harbor.

The concession to many unjust demands of the foreign side, the reluctance to end the policy of seclusion maintained for a long time caused the imperial court under the shogun (Shōgun) Tokugawa to face a wave of backlash, the political situation became chaotic and many underground rebel organizations were born throughout the country.

Throughout the game, the player’s unknown “Ronin” – or “wanderer” (a samurai who no longer has a master) will encounter real legends in history such as Commodore Matthew Perry, romantic guest Sakamoto Ryōma, revolutionary Yoshida Shōin, choosing to associate or confront them to lead the plot in many different directions.

Interestingly, the game does not “lock” the player into a specific faction (Faction), you can completely go to work as a henchman for the shogunate and then turn to join the campaign of the army. Desert Island soon after, so alternately without worrying about being cut off the sequence of missions (like most other world RPGs – NV), this also inadvertently leads to a lot of “bad crying, bad laughing” situations such as this character is both a friend who has turned into an enemy or the other guy has just fought a “life and death” battle to protect the ideal The next day turned to ask the writer to go to work… The cup of wine was like nothing had ever happened “between us.”

These characters, also known as companions, play an essential role in the gameplay when they can join them.Quests, enhance (buff) status stats, give items, teach players new stances or even … Dating them (romance) also, in a nutshell, the level of interaction with NPCs in the game is similar to the Social Link soul mate system of the game series Persona,

All of the above forms of interaction are conducted at a common gathering called Longhouse (a Hub-like area in FromSoftware’s “souls” games), where players can freely display, redecorate each piece of furniture or change costumes for the extremely diverse and beautiful Ronin character.

There are also times in the plot that force the player to make choices that directly affect the relationship and the fate of the characters, but Rise of the Ronin Another feature that must be said to be “unprecedented” is… Go back in time to any events that took place before, to change their outcome if desired.

To avoid further spoilers, the writer roughly describes this feature as like choosing to replay a game chapter, while the changes in it will form a new timeline, like the “multiverse” in Marvel superhero movies.

For example, in one mission, the writer chooses to finish off the leader of a gang of pirates to “loot” the genuine weapon in his hand, but thanks to the aforementioned “space time” feature, through the new Timeline line, he gets … resurrected again, so “victorious” to become a Companion, join the path of eliminating the player’s violence!

The open world of Rise of the Ronin Also bringing a sense of “sandbox” freedom, players can temporarily put aside the main story line to wander… “Destroying the village” or on the contrary, helping the villagers through random situations along the way, and if you “touch” the sword, there are dozens of other mini-games for you to freely play around such as hunting pets, testing flying skills, Archery competitions, nature photography until shaking… Sic Under.

Rise of the Ronin Another feature that must be said to be “unprecedented” is… Go back in time to any events that took place before, to change their outcome if desired

Beautiful “new jar”!

If you have ever played through Team Ninja’s action games before, you will feel “at home”, as soon as you step in Rise of the Rōnin.

The focus of the combat mechanics is still the standard alignment to press the counterattack (Parry), regulating the Ki energy bar not to be depleted, and pressing a button to partially return the Ki after each hit beat (it is exactly the Ki Pulse that is “calved” to the word Nioh that – NV) but the difference is that the player is also equipped with a type of anchor hook (Grappling Hook) to pull the opponent or object close and then toss, wrestle, throw away just like … Spider-Man in Spider man so.

The number of weapons is also very diverse, such as traditional Japanese swords, Odachi sword schools to Yan Moon Dao, Niu Wei swords from mainland China or even curved blade swords (Saber) of Westerners, each type also has many fighting styles (Combat Style) and unique attacks.

For example, if you love the Katana sword, players will be able to choose from 9 different fighting stances, including very “cool” ones such as the “draw the sword to win” Tianxiang Long Shao of Rurouni Kenshin’s character in the manga series of the same name, the Shinobi ring that both slashes and launches Shuriken darts, while the Polearm blade has the enemy’s lock, spinning many aerial circles of the legendary Ryu Hayabusa himself in Ninja Gaiden.

And yet, players can also flexibly switch to long-range weapons (sub-weapons) right in melee with items such as bows and arrows, rifles, shotguns, can both fire bullets to stun the enemy, and use to assassinate or cause “debuffs” (bad status).

Equipment (Gears) in Rise of the Ronin is not only classified by rarity, but also divided by “set” (set), but if equipped enough items in the “set” will enhance the internal stats (passive) to help the selection of equipment more meaningful, instead of just like “collecting bottle ticks” and bringing them back to sell or decay like some of the company’s predecessor games.

Most impressively, each of these items has the ability to “transform appearances” (like the Transmog system in Diablo) causing the writer to “consume” hours just to mix fashion items on his character Ronin in the most “unique and strange” way possible, such as Western European costumes go with… medieval armour, for example.

On the other hand, it can be said that the difficulty is too high in many previous titles of Team Ninja like a “double-edged sword” when it both creates an irresistible attraction, but is also the main factor that makes it difficult for the masses to access.

The writer still remembers the feeling of “boiling blood” when witnessing the first boss in the Wo Long – Zhang Liang, suddenly “turn on” the killing gear as soon as he drains all his health bars or goes back to his days as a “new mat”, just stepped into the game Nioh 2 came across a demon named Gozuki only to be struck by it… “Pound” for “flying colors” in just one note.

But those “miserable, bitter” experiences are a thing of the past when Rise of the Ronin Not only allows players to change difficulty levels anytime, anywhere, but also brings many improvements to help everything in the game “breathe” much easier.

For example, “dropping” loses experience points when the character … “green” and having to return to the nearest checkpoint, a common element in most Souls-like games that make most gamers “shake their heads” in boredom, has now been reduced by the game company to a minimum.

Specifically, there is only one type of point called Karma, which is gradually accumulated every time an enemy is destroyed is “dropped” when the player is defeated, while traditional experience points received from quest rewards or other forms remain intact.

Those “miserable, bitter” experiences are a thing of the past when Rise of the Ronin Not only allows players to change the difficulty level anytime, anywhere, but also brings many improvements to help everything in the game “breathe” much easier

Next, thanks to at least one to two Companions controlled by the machine’s AI or other players (in the form of Co-op multiplayer), accompanied in most missions designed in the form of linear “find your way, kill bosses” that your character Ronin almost never has to worry about no people… “carry”.

Basically, whenever we encounter “difficult” opponents, we just scatter their attention, reduce the damage load by switching back and forth between characters to disturb, most of them “turn off” all.

However, it does not mean that Rise of the Ronin losing the challenge, on the contrary, even at the average difficulty, but at the end of Chapter 1, the writer and the “disciples” Companion still have to “eat” onions from a special boss, easily “plowing” the whole squad with just one of his terrifying combos, not to mention you can also increase the difficulty much higher if you choose “Solo”, Single-handedly fighting from the beginning of the above levels.

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Outdated look!

Perhaps ideation and development Rise of the Ronin rekindled throughout Since 2015, with the original goal for the PS4 system, Team Ninja only managed to refine the game graphics aspect to a so-called “visible” level at the time of launch, but could not fully explore the power of the PS5 machine, even far behind if compared to Ghost Of Tsushima also due to the main Sony released since 2020.

The proof is that at the beginning of the game, there is also a segment where the main character steps out into a meadow field with the same reeds Ghost Of Tsushima But instead of being overwhelmed by the beautiful natural scenery like a picture, here the writer only has the impression to exclaim: “Why my screen… Too much noise and blur!

This is a graphical error called “visual artifact”, often seen in games with a high density of plant environment details such as Horizon Forbidden West, significantly reduces the effectiveness of the anti-aliasing mechanism.

But if only that matters, it is not worth mentioning as much as the lighting effects or the detail of the object surface of the Rise of the Ronin of utmost quality… “Convex”, if the character is placed in narrow spaces like indoors, it is also called okay, but when stepping out into the outside world, there are areas that look so rudimentary that they are like games… the PS3 era.

Already, the performance of the game is not really stable even in performance priority mode (Prioritize FPS), sometimes “hiccups” when the character moves in big cities, and the movement of NPCs is stiff, the expression looks very “fake”, obviously not possible commensurate with the quality of the rest of the game’s aspects.

Game graphics were at a so-called “visible” level at the time of launch, but could not fully exploit the power of the PS5