Rise Of The Ronin | Hype Check
With Team Ninja’s Rise Of The Ronin now only a few days away, we wanted to touch base with some of our team to see how they’re feeling about the game. We’ve seen a range of media up to this point, from gameplay showcases and trailers, we’ve seen the press releases, and heard the talk, but how are we feeling? That’s where we’re bringing Hype Check into the mix; to get a gauge on what the prospective players are thinking. So here’s how we’re feeling about Rise Of The Ronin.
Paul James
While I have long respected what Team Ninja has been going for with its range of Souls-likes in recent years, I was always a bit stand-off-ish due to the difficulty of the titles, but I’m beginning to change my tone a bit with them lately because they’re doing what FromSoftware wont… catering to a wider audience with difficulty levels. Just like their work on Stranger Of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, Rise Of The Ronin will have difficulty levels and that makes me interested. The game looks great, but now I can actually play it so my tone about it has changed substantially. I learned about these difficulty levels as I was writing this, and so I’ve gone from a 2/10 to an 8/10 quite suddenly. Good call Team Ninja!
Tim Henderson
I think I recently went on record on a PixelCast as saying that the first half of this year is going to be amazing for games mostly thanks to Japan. I stand by this, although I do find it cute that – with even Like a Dragon dedicating a good amount of time to other exotic shores – this is the only one that really embraces its homeland where the setting is concerned.
It’s Team Ninja, though – a developer loved by many that I have seldom clicked with. Nioh very clearly had me until the uneven difficulty became too much, but this one looks like it might be my jam. They at least have the look of the landscape down, even if it isn’t the most ‘next gen’ from a technical perspective. I expect I’ll either bounce off again, or be obsessively playing this until November.
Matt Hewson
I like Team Ninja’s old stuff, aka Ninja Gaiden. That was my jam. As a result, I am always interested in what they are doing and while I bounced off Nioh 1&2 thanks to the souls influence, I certainly appreciated the way they went about combat in these games. To hear that Rise of the Ronin has difficulty settings is a blessing though and I can see myself diving in thanks to that. I feel I am just a step to slow for a traditional souls game and I found that in games with some slight adjustments (Steel Rising did this really well), I could actually have a blast. So colour me very interested, just not day-one interested
Jason Hawkins
I love soulslikes, that’s no secret. I never played Sekiro but this seems pretty reminiscent from what I’ve seen. I’m actually super psyched for this one to the stage that I’ve been avoiding all pre-release content for it so I can just enjoy it without much preconception. There’s been a good trend with soulslikes in the last year that aren’t FromSoft but also are pretty damn good. Loved Nioh, so I’m here for this.
*Editorial Note* Jason’s comments were made before receiving a review code and writing his preview/review content
Stephen Del Prado
Rise of the Ronin see’s Team Ninja once again putting their own unique spin on the FromSoft formula, combining a period setting with open-world sensibilities. Based on what we’ve seen, Team Ninja are also not as opposed to more flexibility around difficulty which is a breath of fresh air in what seems to be a never-ending race for FromSoft to cater to their most hardcore of fans when it comes to boss design and multi-phase slogs. The only question will be how well it can do in a three month window before Elden Ring launches its massive Shadow of the Erdtree DLC? I’m absolutely keen to check this one out and hope it manages to get Team Ninja some more acclaim for their work in the space.
How are you feeling about the rapidly impending launch of Rise Of The Ronin? Let us know on our various social channels!
Time Until Launch (March 22, 2024)
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