Rise of the Ronin review on PC — A slightly sharper blade

Rise of the Ronin’s premise absolutely hooked me from its announcement. The game puts you in the shoes of a samurai for hire, or a Ronin, during Bakumatsu, the Edo period’s final years. It was a tumultuous time for Japan, and one of my favorites to learn about. Being able to explore that time period, with its mix of traditional Japanese architecture and culture mixing with foreigners’, sounded right up my alley. I’ve been itching to return to this specific time period since the Raidou Kuzunoha games. I played a bit of the game on PS5, but decided to wait for the PC port to really dive in. Well, it’s finally here - was it worth the wait?

Rise of the Ronin doesn’t make the best first impression. Since I recently upgraded my PC, with a 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, I figured I could crank everything up to Ultra and get the best visual experience possible at higher framerates than on PS5. I was right, but not in the opening hours, oddly enough. It’s frequently below 60 fps here, and I for one do not want to play a reaction heavy Souls-like below that target, even if I am on easy. 

Get out into the open world, however, and even in the busy streets of Yokohama I can reach up to 100 fps with Ray Tracing on. Don’t expect to go too far beyond that, however, as the game is capped at 120 no matter what, with cutscenes having a separate cap of 60. The game also doesn’t look that much better at Ultra as opposed to Standard, though it was never a looker to begin with. If you’re wondering, no the game doesn’t run on Steam Deck, it gets around 10 fps on the lowest settings sadly. I would have loved to play this portably, but that just isn’t possible right now. 

Oddly enough, I find the game looks a bit worse overall in Ultra. The extra details are nice, but it causes the image to look kinda blurry in certain situations even with Motion Blur off. In particular, this affects small wooden panels on houses the most. Frame pacing also seems to take a hit, at least according to my untrained eye. I swear I can see some screen tearing and micro stutters, so Ultra may be worth trying out, but it seems like High or Standard are the presets to go with. 

Rise of the Ronin review — A flawed, but highly engrossing adventure

Team Ninja is synonymous with fast-paced and intricate fighting mechanics in gaming, with both the Nioh and Ninja Gaiden series under their belt, so it comes as no surprise that their latest release – an open world take on the anti-shogunate movement during Japan’s Bakumatsu Period with a focus on

GamingTrendRichard Allen

As for the game itself, you can read more Editor Richard Allen’s review of the original PS5 release above, but here’s a quick rundown. At the start of the game, you create two characters who make up the Veiled Edge. Essentially, a pair of Blade Twins who work so well together they form one cohesive unit. After a short intro familiarizing you with the basics of combat and the game’s central conflict of tradition versus progression, you’ll be asked to pick one of the two twins to play the rest of the game as. Since I knew this was coming, I made the other twin look like my sister, or as much as you can in this game’s character creation suite, and, after another short section, you’re plopped into the open world. 

I won’t spoil the story further, but it is interesting if very sloppily told. You’ll meet some interesting historical figures, such as Ryoma Sakamoto, but characters feel puddle deep and mostly exist to move you from one plot point to the next with little fanfare. As such, you really won’t have much of an idea of what’s going on from mission to mission even when you’re suddenly assassinating a politician in the streets. Aside from aesthetics, this wasn’t the exploration of late 1800s Japan I wanted it to be. That’s OK, as the game is still pretty fun.

Arguably, the best part of any Souls-like is the parry. There’s just nothing like waiting for your opponent to strike, then turning their attack back on to them, and that’s what Rise of the Ronin is all about. Pressing the Y button with any weapon equipped (though you have to unlock this for bare fists) will perform a counter spark. This allows you to counter basically any attack, including projectiles, with proper timing. This will often leave them open to attack for a bit, in addition to greatly reducing their stamina. When they’re out of stamina, you can press Y again to perform a devastating attack, usually killing normal enemies outright. It’s very satisfying, so even if the story didn’t grab me the combat certainly did.