A lot of people on social media love to hate on gaming media as a whole. So much of my twitter feed is taken up with complaints about gaming journalists, reviewers, media, etc.
I am not one of those people. I view game reviewers as a valuable resource that have often saved me from bad financial decisions. While I might vehemently disagree with a single game reviewer, the aggregator sites like OpenCritic and MetaCritic seem to generally get to a number that I view as fair at the very least.
Rise of the Ronin currently sits at a 76 on OpenCritic. That isn’t a “bad” score. There are plenty of video games rated around there that I think are fun, with last year’s Dead Island 2 being a great example.
But as I scroll through OpenCritic, there are almost no games rated that low that I found myself absolutely in love with. Rise of the Ronin might be the first. Of course, it’s not perfect, but this is an excellent video game that should at least be in the low 80s in my opinion. This is a fantastic soulslike game, and it just so happens to be the most accessible one I have ever played as well.
Easy to Pick Up, Difficult To Master
Watching the clips of this game before release, my dream for it was samurai combat with more depth and difficulty than Ghost of Tsushima, but also a bit more accessibility than Sekiro. I’d say Rise of the Ronin easily accomplishes both of these tasks.
The game throws A LOT of different elements at you pretty quickly. There are the basic elements you would expect, like a parry and dodge. You also have multiple weapons you can switch between. You have different styles within those weapons that you can unlock. You have a ranged weapon. You have a grappling hook that you can use in combat. You can switch between allies in spots as well. The game also has a rock-paper-scissors element with its combat styles, which essentially makes you switch the way you fight each enemy to maximize the amount of damage you are doing.
I’ve seen a few criticisms of this in reviews, with people upset that the game forces you into certain styles against each enemy. I have personally enjoyed this because it has forced me to play the game in different ways, which is helping me get more out of the combat. Without this mechanic, I probably would just be sticking with the opening combat style, as learning a new one with no incentive wouldn’t be worth the effort to me. So, I’ve enjoyed how this has forced me out of the box and into exploring more of the depth of this combat.
It can be tricky to manage, though. I’m something like ten hours into the game, and I’m still not great at switching my styles and weapons. I only just recently started to get a bit better at using the grappling hook in certain spots. But the basics are more than enough to get through plenty of the early fights. I have focused mostly on parrying and the occasional ranged attack, and I have had a lot of fun with just those elements alone. As I’ve started to get better and better with the basics, I have found myself slowly implementing more elements of the combat into my play style. This is textbook easy to pick up, difficult to master gameplay.
And it all just feels great to play as well. I am on FPS mode, so action is super crisp at 60 FPS. Parries feel incredibly satisfying, and the execution animations are sublime. The sound design is great, too.
As a bonus, the game also has stealth elements, which are pretty unforgiving in a good way from what I have played early on. You also have a gilder, which you can use to kickstart combat with an airborne assassination if you find some high ground.
It’s not all perfect. There is a bit of jank in spots. Tight areas can lead to an awkward camera, and some of the platforming is a bit rough, but overall, it hits almost all of the right notes for me. This game lets you solve problems in so many ways, and it is a blast when you start to put it all together.
A Breezy Open World
Many of the reviews of the game focus on the open world, and tag it for not being interesting enough and for having pretty standard design overall.
While I’m not going to claim that Rise of the Ronin has some highly compelling open world, I would describe it as breezy and as not in your way in the slightest. The game’s open world does a great job of letting you get in and out of some brief combat encounters, with small bits of exploration as well. It’s a nice way to break up the action, and perhaps most importantly, it is a key part of why this game is so accessible.
The main missions in the game are no joke. Any random enemy can kill you if you get lazy, and almost every boss I have come across is a real challenge. Because of the open world nature of the game, nothing feels insurmountable. I am determined to not lower the difficulty of this game at all, so if I’m starting to feel overwhelmed by missions, I just start exploring and knocking out side activities and quests to get stronger.
And the beauty of this is that the game doesn’t waste your time with any of its activities. They are all legitimately rewarding in different ways. Rise of the Ronin has a fantastic skill tree full of interesting and powerful upgrades that help ease combat along. All of the side activities let you purchase more skill books, which also contribute to that skill tree. There is also an inventor who lets you upgrade various contraptions you have as you find certain items in the open world. I just unlocked a fire pipe, which is essentially a flamethrower, and I’m having a blast with it. The inventor can also upgrade the aforementioned glider to make that even more fun to use.
The open world is also pretty enjoyable to navigate. It’s not overwhelmingly big, and it isn’t absolutely packed with icons like some games in this genre. It also smartly doles out those icons in a very rationed way. When you first get into an area, you might have a few icons. Once you do those, it will give you more. I found this a lot more appealing than games that just dump 50 icons on you at once.
And in the end, this stuff is all optional. If you don’t enjoy the open world and mostly want to do the missions, you are more than free to do so. But personally, I think this open world is very worth checking out, as it does mix things up nicely, and the rewards are so worthwhile.
Loot and Graphics
There are two other main complaints with the game that I have seen that I’ll quickly tackle.
Firstly, loot. I have been shocked by how many reviewers have called this out as a big negative to this game. You get loot constantly in this game, and admittedly, it would be very annoying if you went into the equipment menu every single time you got a new piece of loot. If you did this, you would be in the menus every 5-10 minutes.
I quickly realized this… and just stopped doing that. I only open up my equipment menus every 30 minutes or so, or if I’m about to come across something tough. Most of the loot you get will not be better than what you are currently wearing, but if you wait a bit before checking, there are usually a few things that end up being worth equipping. I thought these criticisms were bizarre, as this is a very easy thing to not be bothered with.
The last big complaint I’ve seen is on the graphics, and anyone with eyes can see they are not incredible. While I haven’t encountered tons of glitches, there is also the occasional pop in, and there are a few janky animations, especially with horse riding. There is no denying that this is unfortunate. I would have loved to have Ghost of Tshushima levels of production values with the harder difficulty and deeper mechanics that are in this game. Many times, when I open up photo mode because I seem to have a cool shot, it ends up not looking nearly as nice as I’d hoped.
But in the end, I view this as a minor complaint. The game’s performance excels where it matters, with frame rates and combat animations in particular, and that is the true guts of the game.
And that kind of encapsulates a lot of my thoughts on Rise of the Ronin. There are plenty of nitpicks I have on things around the edges, but it excels at everything that it needs to. Most of the complaints about the game can be easily overcome by not trying to 100% the map and by not checking every piece of loot that you pick up immediately. Do these small things, and I think most people will find that this is a game that masterfully splits the difference between Ghost of Tsushima and Sekiro. Do not let slightly lower review scores scare you off.
Big Nerd Gaming 
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