Rise of Ronin

Pre-order bonus nonsense aside, what's everyone's thoughts? Gameplay looks cool but also just gave me, once again, the feeling of another Nioh expansion pack with some twists. Many reused animations, same camera, same engine afaik, armor and weapon-sets again (so probably diablo loot...)

I know they're great at what they do, and they've firmly established themselves as THE studio to make loot-action games that mechanically put Souls to shame, but I am a bit tired of it. Really hope they're working on an action-game that's just a lineair game with a regular progression.

I need to see the ebb and flow of fights. That is what made the difference for me between losing interest in Nioh fairly quickly, and a still-ongoing obsession with the Chaos game. Isolated move animations look great but they don't give me a feel for how the game will play.

I love the setting and it looks like you'll have high mobility in contrast to ground-locked Nioh. Can only hope they simplify the loot system, I don't enjoy deleting 300 spam emails at the end of every level, and adding an option to automate that process is just a band-aid.

> deleting spam emails
Gotta say that's the best description I've read in a while on that mechanic hahaha

> the flow
Was surprised to see more team-combat going on, wonder if that's a big part of it.

Lmao at deleting spam emails.
As for the game itself, it just seems like another Nioh clone. I wasn't too impressed with the new trailer tbh

I think it's gonna be mid but I hope I'm wrong because I really want it to be good.

I had few impressions and observations form the trailer, but they raise so many questions.

I've notice that you have a companion at your side and switching between characters is showed at one point. I've wonder how much freedom and possibilities we'll have in this regard. Will it be fully playable character or will it be limited to few abilities tied some mechanics? Also, It would be really great if there was ablity to buffer a move and then switch to a companion, that would create fun combo potential.

Explosive barrels were also in trailer and action of throwing one at the enemies was shown. Hope it will create more crowd control focused gameplay instead of 1-on-1 that was too prelevant in Nioh and Wo-long. Also, using your compaion as a lure would also be interesting tactic.

Overabundance of shown finishers is worrying tho. It probably indicates that there is some kind of posture mechanics in the game. Also that red flash, is it SoB? Is it just used to make grabs more visible? It looked too cinematic for me honestly to be just an ability.

I hope that it's not another parrytrash.

>not another parry trash
Prepare for disappointment. It’s all we get anymore.

> companions
Seems like it might be a scale-up from what we had in WoLong. I will say that game has aged gracefully (as seems to ... be the case with modern Team Ninja) . It really got better with each and every patch and update.  Someone also noticed another player/NPC doing flying-swallow, and abilities do seem to be more mobile. Since this game is on PS5 I'll skip it by default until the Complete Edition hits Xbox.

Very curious how TN will handle open-world antics, will it just be a big hub with marks on the map that mean nothing, or will they surprise us?

> hayabusa dlc
Should note, it only gives early access apparently. So they are acquirable in-game. As a bonus of pain, Ryu has now been used as shovelware in modern games more than he's had his own lol.

> red flash
Probably using Nioh2 or WoLong's "danger" system or w/e it was called, basically you either dodge that move, or do a perfect parry for absolute monsterous posture-damage.

> parrytrash
I just want it to not be THE option. Parry is fine, MGR:R had a parry and was fantastic because it was part of a larger kit of avoidance. Ditch the massive tracking on moves, allow positioning to win out.

>parrytrash
I'm cautious. The trailer didn't show that much instances of parrying (but that might be misleading editing). Coating weapon with fire after deflecting arrow back at the archer seems interesting.

But if it plays like Wo-long, then I'm puting it into dumpster. There is no excuse to put this posture/spirit crap meter mechanics into games. Before Fromsoft made that one rhythm game in 2019, parries were so creative and were organically implemented into gameplay dynamics. Now it feel like they're used as substitute of natural balancing and create this artificial, shallow back and fourth - if you're not sure how to balance enemies and player's moveset, just slap meters and parries everywhere!

>Ryu used as shovelware
He became TN's Sam Fisher hah.

>red flash
"Glowing attack with special counter" seems to be a Team Ninja staple now. As a matter of principle I am against this, it feels fake and game-y, but as long as the specific implementation is sound and combat remains fun I can't complain much.

>Parrytrash

I think you're selling Wo Long pretty short here. There are a lot of moments in that game where parrying isn't the best option, and is a wasted action over jumping, or expending spirit with a martial art that allows you to evade, or block an attack. But yeah, increasing emphasis on positioning is something I definitely wouldn't complain about.

>Wo-long
I'm honestly tired of games where bar on the screen dictates the pace of the battle. It feels more like most of interesting options are in-spite of spirit meter, not because of it. It limits the natural economy of movement that action games already have through balance.

I fully get that burned out feeling, I had the same. Will say that WoLong, in typical TN fashion, does play a lot around it. The 'posture' bar of your enemies can be used in a few cool ways (you can permanently make it smaller, or go for a strong attack) and using your own posture for special moves is pretty sick too - as always they manage to turn it into something interactive and deeper than just "empty meter to do thing".

Doesn't take away that the entire game would've been better imo if a lot of the fat was trimmed out.

Team Ninja discusses crafting its first open world where you shouldn't kill everything in sight

https://www.altchar.com/game-news/team-ninja-say-rise-of-the-ronin-will-have-multiple-difficulty-options-aoRSV4s6lE6i

The game will have 3 difficutly options.

>open world where you shouldn't kill everything in sight
Read the article. Sounds like another run of the mill open world Soulshit. Disappointing but not surprising.

Soulslike by a company:
Soulslike by Team Ninja: 

Jokes aside, I have confidence it will be a great game to buy the GOTY-edition from with all the DLC and patches, that at the very least.

Birdman wrote:>open world where you shouldn't kill everything in sight
Read the article. Sounds like another run of the mill open world Soulshit. Disappointing but not surprising.

I'm still confident that the combat will be a step above the average open world / Souls games.

Same, Team Ninja still knows their stuff. I'm very curious how this will end up going. Do hope it gets an Xbox release down the line though.

3 minutes of gameplay footage. Mixed vibes. Some of this looks really cool, some of it looks pretty crap. Definitely more of an open-world thing rather than pure action.

Yawn. More parryshit.

> Parryshit:
> Parryshit, Team Ninja:

Jokes aside, it's PS5-exclusive so I won't even get to play it. It does looks like a continuied trend of Team Ninja grabbing a popular game and making it into an actually interesting game.

Copy-pasting my response from elsewhere.

I'm side-eyeing their handling of stances here. The presence of bonus fighting styles (Nioh-ryu, Aisu Kage-ryu, and... Hayabusa-ryu, ha ha), in the preorder bonuses, makes me think that it might be a customizable loadout, which is cool. But I hope it's not quite as straightforward as "Use X stance on X enemy". But the narration and the blue and red arrows pointing up and down respectively next to the stances in the UI give me that impression...

>But I hope it's not quite as straightforward as "Use X stance on X enemy"

It's looking like that'll be exactly what it is. I don't remember exactly what the dev said in that last trailer but the way he worded it made me go "oh it's that shitty stance system from Ghost of Tsushima that's rock paper scissors".

To be fair: it is Team Ninja. A lot of their systems made us go "oh so it's just that, lame" before their games hit. Yet both Nioh and Wo Long all had potential, especially after a few patches/expansions. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt still, though I do wish they'd just go ahead and make a straight up action game for once (or a DoA title).

>I do wish they'd just go ahead and make a straight up action game for once (or a DoA title)
https://www.ign.com/articles/team-ninja-responds-to-dead-or-alive-and-ninja-gaiden-reboot-reports
Yeah no NG nor DoA in the works. Fuck me.

>Yet both Nioh and Wo Long all had potential
Wasn't CHAOS also good (or even great)?

Can't talk about that one (yet) since I haven't played it, but heard great things.

> no new NG or DoA
Good news hah.
Not looking particularly forward to it. I prefer they stay dead rather than they compromise their identity, which will inevitably happen. It's better for them to pursue new projects, because they won't make them like they used to. TN just changed too drastically since NG3:RE.

>Chaos
Got to finally find time to play it.

can't wait to play Rise of the Teenage Tomb Roninwalker. i don't know who the fuck is rising anymore, get a new title.

that's all i have to add here, i haven't played any of these Team Ninja games yet and i won't be playing this one because it's PSQuintuple exclusive.

ps exclusives eventually end up being on pc for the next 2 or 3 years anyway, so dw you will get your hands on rise of the ronin someday

Reviews are out: https://opencritic.com/game/16053/rise-of-the-ronin

So far the game has the weakest reception out of Team Ninja last 4 games.

I don't know about you, but I always thought that what Team Ninja games really needed were an Ubisoft open world and trailing missions.

>but I always thought that what Team Ninja games really needed were an Ubisoft open world and trailing missions.

brutal

who here has a PS5 and is gonna take one for the team?

The reception isn’t worse than CHAOS right? Funny since that one is the best to me.

>TN games need Ubisoft shit and trailing missions
Pairs wonderfully with the endless loot.

>take one for the team
I was thinking about it but I ended up ordering Dragon’s Dogma 2 at the last minute. We’ll see if I have a change of heart.

I will probably get around to it, but launching on the same day as our lord and savior Dragon's Dogma 2 is very unfortunate timing.

Infinity_Divide wrote:The reception isn’t worse than CHAOS right? Funny since that one is the best to me.

Completely forgot about that game, CHAOS has worse reception than Ronin, both games are still rated in the 7-ish vs other recent Team Ninja games which rated 8-ish across the board.

The open world looks shitty but the core combat looks really good. Katana has 8 combat styles each with different movesets, special attacks etc.

You get 10 weapons in total, can equip 2 with 3 stances (styles) plus you have a grappling hook with R2 which you can reel in enemies with and L2 for handguns.

Apparently, enemy variety is very diverse and they are pretty aggressive, forcing you to learn their moveset.

I'm playing in an hour, thoughts incoming.

Game seems mid.

Played around 3 hours. Very impressed with the combat system, enemy design and the level of aggressiveness shown from enemies even on normal. I was getting my arse kicked in the prologue tutorial lmao by these ninja dudes.

Anyways moveset and mechanics:
S=square, T= Triangle.
So far I've discovered:
SSS, standard 3 hit combo
SSS>S
SS hold S, T
SS hold S, S

T=heavy attack or counter when clashed (can be used as a combo finisher or to cancel out of any combo or attack)

R1+T stinger type move (dash forward thrust attack)
R1+ hold T charged stinger
R1+ Hold T then TT= 2 extra stabs
R1+S = 360 attack
R1+ hold S= 360 attack followed by 2 extra spin attacks


Jump S= helm breaker
Hold S = charged attack (after SS charged S will evade strike backwards)
Forward + S = advancing attack (quick stab to close distance)
R2 = grapple hook, can be used to throw enemies, pull them in etc

L2 = projectiles (shuriken, pistol etc) You can use shuriken inside combos so for eg. SS>L2 (spins forward and throws shuriken) then SST. That's just an example combo but you can do more with say a special attack or charged attack.

You can technically make your own combo by combining advancing attack, hold attacks heavy attack and projectiles. Interweave them with your standard combo.

Parrying is VERY satisfying. Abit like.MGR and DMC where it's a clash parry system so if you miss, you have a chance of causing damage because it's also an attack. Best part? You can deflect projectiles like shurikens thrown at you or bullets shot at you, these will deflect back to the enemy and hurt them.

This is just from the first couple of hours with the katana and 1 stance lol the skill ceiling will increase when you nlock all the 10 weapons and combat styles for each weapon as the styles have different movesets + special attacks and you can equip 3 styles for each weapon. Each style has 4 different special attacks, So I'm guessing you can have 24 special attacks, 6 combos, 6 charged attacks, 6 heavy attacks etc.

I'll play some more tomorrow.

Probably won't play this due to the system its on, but I am curious > how does it handle combat in terms of size? Is it lock-on based again? Or more soft-lock?

Royta/Raeng wrote:Probably won't play this due to the system its on, but I am curious > how does it handle combat in terms of size? Is it lock-on based again? Or more soft-lock?

I'd say it gravitates more towards lock on but there are some settings in the menu "auto lock" and there's like 5 settings which I haven't tinkered with yet. Seems like you can change the way lock on works.

There are lots of mobs though, fights usually include like 3+ enemies and the camera isn't stuck right behind your character like Nioh and Wo Long. I have some Ryu Hayabusa combat style footage so I'll send link

Link to some combat footage with the Ninja Gaiden moveset. Warning: not for the squeamish, it's gorey AF lol

https://youtu.be/fmDrZLQiaQI?si=gnVmLdPThO4ZGgx4

How's the loot-stuff btw? Is it a big stat-check game like Nioh and WoLong were or is it more subdued this time around?

Game looks fun!

Royta/Raeng wrote:How's the loot-stuff btw? Is it a big stat-check game like Nioh and WoLong were or is it more subdued this time around?

Game looks fun!

Not sure tbh, I just choose the weapon with highest level/stats and fight with those lol

Not overly impressed with the game, but it's pretty fun.

Styles are cool because each one is an entirely different moveset, changing to a different style has as much impact as changing to a different weapon. So there's a pretty substantial selection of abilities to toy with.

The parry mechanic is my favorite part of the game, it's a special attack called Counterspark that parries by clashing with enemy attacks. This attack changes significantly depending on your weapon/style, and has utility besides just parrying. In the starter style it does heavy guard damage to blocking enemies. Some styles get followup attacks after a parry, one of the katana styles does a sort of teleport with it. I've been using a dual sword style where the Counterspark is a multihit and each hit can parry individually.

>loot
I dunno how relevant the stats are, but it is a similar deal to Nioh where you get loads of trash and you just equip the biggest number and sell/dismantle the rest.

Rorc wrote:Not overly impressed with the game, but it's pretty fun.

Styles are cool because each one is an entirely different moveset, changing to a different style has as much impact as changing to a different weapon. So there's a pretty substantial selection of abilities to toy with.

The parry mechanic is my favorite part of the game, it's a special attack called Counterspark that parries by clashing with enemy attacks. This attack changes significantly depending on your weapon/style, and has utility besides just parrying. In the starter style it does heavy guard damage to blocking enemies. Some styles get followup attacks after a parry, one of the katana styles does a sort of teleport with it. I've been using a dual sword style where the Counterspark is a multihit and each hit can parry individually.

>loot
I dunno how relevant the stats are, but it is a similar deal to Nioh where you get loads of trash and you just equip the biggest number and sell/dismantle the rest.

>Combat Style system

Yeah, this is where the game excels as each style is relatively different from one another with varied combos, special attacks, counterparks (heavy attacks) and charged moves. The katana itself has 12 combat styles, which is fucking crazy tbh lol

>Parrying

Usually I'm hesitant when it comes to parrying but this games nails it because it's not tied to the block button ala Sekiro. Like you said, it's actually an attack so you can parry with clashing swords, similar to DMC and MGR.

One of the Shinobi styles, Asiu Kage style has a 3 hit combo with counterspark attack so if you miss a parry, you can follow up with some extra hits. Probably my favourite style atm. Best thing about counterspark attack is that it pretty much cancels anything, I use it to cancel out of combos, dashing, charged attacks etc.

The stamina system is dog shit though, they really should not have included it here. Probably the worst implementation of stamina, especially in the beginning of the game when your ki recovery is low.

Overall, I'm still enjoying it. Around 30 hours in now and still having fun exploring the open world, finding random fugitives, bandit camps and Ronin to fight. Not done much of the story.

Ranged options and status effects?

So is this a case of "game with actually good combat gets ignored by normies while mediocre shit gets praised"? The sheer number of combat options seems insane.

The open world and stealth elements are pretty average, which surely hurts the game's reception. The combat is definitely good,  but in a way that no doubt confuses a lot of normies.

>status effects
Poison, paralysis, and flame. If a character has 2 of these at the same time, they get a special extra debuff, kinda like Nioh.

You apply status by buffing your melee weapon with whetstone consumables, these buffs also apply to shurikens. You can craft poison or fire arrows, and there's a flamethrower weapon.

>ranged options
Rifle and Bow work like Nioh. Stealth is much more supported, so the bow being quiet is more useful.

Fire Pipe is a flamethrower, good mid-range damage dealer.

Earthenware balls are thrown bombs. Firebombs or flash bombs, or empty balls to make noise.

Handgun can't be manually aimed. It's a parry tool that deals good damage.

Shurikens can't be manually aimed. Low damage but fast, great for crowd control in melee. Can unlock a 360 throw, and charged shot that hits multiple times.

Bayonet melee weapon is a bayonet attached to a rifle, so you can shoot with it. Can't be manually aimed.

The grappling hook can grab and throw environmental objects at enemies. If you have the skill unlocked, you can grab and throw posture-broken enemies.

Also, parrying ranged attacks deals posture damage to the attacker, and an upgrade makes it reflect the projectile back.

I have no idea what to make of this game. So many neat little details and options but every fight still feels like "I really should just wait for the unblockable attack so I can press the Simon Says button".

Maybe I'm behind the curve on this or something, but I've noticed that so many action games now force you into this in a few ways, but the biggest one is that enemies just get armor when they go to do basically anything. Normal enemies seem to just tank my attacks while their moves are starting up...isn't that the opposite of how it's supposed to be? Counter hits? Am I going crazy?