Samurais were trained soldiers who were trained with bows and swords and their skills were unique. Since 1185, the administration of Japan by samurais began and it was a start to a turbulent period in which many wars and bloodshed occurred. the shoguns were hereditary military leaders who actually controlled the country, although legally the emperor had a higher position, but in fact the shoguns had more power.
From 1603 to 1868, the power was in the hands of the Tokugawa shogunate, and the Tokugawa period was the most peaceful period since the beginning of the samurai era, domestically and economically, and the samurai saw a lot of progress during that period.
Finally, in 1868, after the Boshin War and the Meiji Revolution, power was taken from the shoguns and returned to the emperors, and the era of the samurai ended at the same time as the Tokugawa period.
The history of Japan and the samurai have always been popular among people over the years, and many books, movies and series have been made about the samurai, which are very good and appreciated by viewers and readers, and have made the samurai very popular. The interest and demand of people for samurai content has made it successful.
So, the video game industry has also moved towards the production of games related to the samurai era, and many games with the presence of samurai have been produced, which have been successful, and there have been many discussions among fans about which one is better.
Although the number of samurai games is very large, the number of games that focus on the real history of the samurai and show it accurately and well are very few, and my hope for the story of the rise of the ronin and the display of Japanese history in this game is very high. Has this game been able to show the history of Japan as expected and at the same time the gameplay and other parts of the game be enjoyable? In the following, you will get the answer to this question.
STORY
The story begins with the Shogun learning about the plan of the rebellion and the production of weapons for the rebellion in the depths of the Korosu mountains. Upon hearing the news, the Shogun orders the killing of all the people in the village and the massacre begins. Meanwhile, a boy and a girl about 4-5 years old are escaping from Shogun’s forces who are rescued by a woman who is a veiled edge, she takes them to veiled edge village and trains them for years and turns them into veiled edge samurais.
The veiled edge samurais have a blade twin that always fight alongside each other and are powerful together, at the end of the prologue and in 1853 your character is separated from his/her blade twin and you have to choose which one to continue playing as. After that you go to Yokohama in 1858 to start the search for your blade twin and on the way you meet Ryoma Sakamoto who is an influential and important figure in Japanese history, after getting to know him more you get involved in Japanese political issues. You will join Ryoma and get to know more about the historical figures and history of Japan.
Your choices during the game are very influential in the story process and it may not go according to the real history, but with the right choices, you can advance the story of the game like the events that really happened in history.
You can choose between anti-shogunate and pro-shogunate missions and have different quests according to your choice and advance the story in different ways.
In this game, you will witness that people sacrifice themselves for the people and the future of their country and their beliefs, you will see the revolution from many angles, which may sometimes be painful and sometimes joyful, you will see the long and many years of resistance of the people of a country In the face of oppression, you will see that they believe in the future, you will see that people fight against American and British colonialism and go to war with their rulers to expel the colonialists. Undoubtedly this game has one of the best narratives of revolution, colonialism and Japanese history.
Finally, the game ends in 1868 and gives you an experience between 20 and 22 hours, which I think is quite a suitable time for the main story of a game, there are three chapters in the game, and every chapter has a new location.
The story of searching for your blade twin is mixed with the historical story of the game, and some of the real and historical stories are a little far from reality due to the addition of the blade twin story, and I think that this process of mixing the two stories could have been done a little better.
Each character has their own way of thinking and their own solutions to solve problems, there are too many characters in the game that you dont get to know well during the main story but they play imprtant role in the story and that makes them easily forgettable and causing confusion in the main story.
BONDS
Your relationship with each character or people in each region has its own bond, and by doing tasks related to that character or region, your bond level with that region or person will increase, and you can do more side quests related to that character or more activities related to that area will appear on your map.
If your bonds become stronger with some characters, the romance feature will be unlocked with that character.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is very diverse, smooth and fun.
There are a total of 9 primary weapons in the game, each of which has its own unique way of fighting, power and speed, each of these weapons has a large number of combat styles, some of which can be acquired during the story and some by doing side quests. each of these combat styles increases and decreases your strength against a type of enemy, and you must choose the appropriate style according to your enemy to make the fight easier, each combat style has several martial arts, by holding the R1 button and pressing one of the X, square and triangle buttons, you can use the martial art you want.
You can guard by holding L1 and avoid getting hit until your ki or stamina runs out, each enemy reduces a different amount of your ki according to the intensity of the strike and the type of weapon.
With square, you can hit enemies with normal attack, the triangle button is counterspark or parry, which you should press in the short time before the enemy’s weapon reach you to reduce a significant amount of enemy’s ki, of course, only one counterspark for Destroying all of the enemy’s ki is not enough and you have to do this several times to succeed in exhausting the enemy and when he is exhausted and a red circle is placed on the enemy, you can hit the enemy with a powerful attack by pressing triangle. It will either kill him/her completely or reduce a large part of his/her health.
In addition to primary weapons, there are also sub weapons that are more useful for long range attacks and increase the variety of gameplay significantly.
You can equipe two primary-weapons and two sub-weapons in your loadout at the same time and by holding R1 and using d-pads, choose from the weapons that you have already added to the loadout.
You have a grappling rope from the beginning of the game with which you can grab the enemies and pull them towards you or climb the marked places.
Indoor fights can sometimes be annoying because of the camera and you have to bring enemies outside to fight them.
In most battles, you have one or two people with you, and by holding L1 and pressing the d-pads, you can change the character under your control and play as any of the two or three people who are with you in that fight.
In addition to weapons variety, there are items that can increase the power of your weapon or give it the power of fire, poison, etc., some of these items are also used for healing, with healing items, you can not only increase your health but you can Revive your injured companions in the fight.
In the skill tree, there are four types of skills: strength, dexterity, charm and intellect, each of these has a number of skills related to fighting or conversations that you can unlock and upgrade using the points you get during the game. You can increase the number of your healing items and more.
Parkour in the game is not very entertaining and is just jumping and climbing some buildings or climbing with grappling rope.
The glide in the game is very enjoyable and you can jump and fly from high places, but I did not use this feature much in the game.
The stealth part of the game is very easy and unchallenging due to the bad AI of the enemies and it is one of the weak points of the gameplay. I assassinated an enemy in front of another enemy looking at us just few meters away and he didnt even noticed it.
There are three difficulty levels in the game, the difficulty level of dusk or normal is challenging, but by repeating the fight several times and learning the boss moves, you can win and complete the mission, if you feel that a part is too hard and you cannot get through it it You can easily set the difficulty level to dawn or easy and you will easily get through it.
LEVEL DESIGN
The level design of the game can become repetitive and is a bit annoying, but thanks to the fun gameplay, this problem is not too annoying.
VISUALS
Visually it’s a very average PS4 game, but it’s not bad by any means.
The atmosphere of old Japan is well represented and gives the player a historical feeling.
The very beautiful art style of rise of the ronin is very enjoyable and it has worked very well both in showing the beauty and showing the war and the ugliness.
There are three graphics modes in the game that you can choose, performance mode which gives you 60FPS with low resolution, RT mode which is low resolution and unstable 60FPS in the unlocked frame rate mode, and the parts that have RT in RT mode are very little, which makes this mode completely unnecessary, graphic mode has the highest resolution and if unlocked frame rate is turned on, the frame rate is more than 30 but unstable, my choice was to prioritize graphics with unlocked frame rate, but if you want to Enjoy the high frame rate and the resolution is not important to you, performance mode is the best choice.
CONCLUSION
Rise of the Ronin is an epic and wonderful story from the end of the samurai era, which shows the historical events of Japan and the unity of the Japanese people against oppression and colonialism. There are too many important characters that you dont get to know well and this makes them easily forgettable, this is the biggest problem of the story.
Its super fun and smooth gameplay is never repetitive, although the level design could be better.
Visually, it is an average ps4 game.
