Team Ninja’s 2024 action RPG,Rise of the Ronin, is another historical-themed Samurai adventure featuring figures of history, weapons of the time, and exploring the setting of Edo-period Japan. The game builds on the elements of their previous title, Wo-Long: Fallen Dynasty, which also builds on Nioh 2.
Both Rise of the Ronin and Nioh 2 are fairly similar feeling games to the point that Rise of the Ronin can be interpreted as a distant, detached sequel to Nioh due to how it follows historical events, weapon selection, and creating your own character in the adventure.
10Plot - Rise Of The Ronin
The main plot of Rise of Ronin follows and focuses heavily on the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the rise of the Meiji Restoration, the point in Japanese history when the borders of the isolated nation were forced to open by the appearance of Matthew Perry and the arrival of Black Ships.
There is a lot of intrigue and suspense during this period because, after over 200 years of overall peace, conflict of interests began to break apart the Shogun’s power and Japan’s quickening modernization gives you a major glimpse into the final years of the samurai class. This is the end of an enduring way of life, and you’ll get invested in seeing samurai and ronin struggling to survive as the Land of the Rising Sun changes forever.
9Graphics - Tie
Team Ninja games look roughly similar to one another. Character models have similarities in graphical appearance since the studio is using the same graphics engine first utilized in Ninja Gaiden 3. This one was then used in Dead or Alive 5 and carried on with a few refinements in Nioh and Wo-long respectively.
As a result, Team Ninja has kept an enduring aesthetic that has lasted throughout all their games, leaving graphical looks being something that is always expected to be good in all their games.
8Enemy Types - Nioh 2
Nioh 2 is filled with a unique menagerie of creatures and fiends known as Yokai. From the ravenous Yomi to skeleton warriors, the three-eyed Owl Tatarimokke, and the bladed kamaitaichi. Yokai aren’t just tough enemies that appear in areas mixed with samurai warriors, but they are often the main boss or sub-boss encounters you face as well.
The Yokai of Nioh 2 are the key for intense combat. They can all be defeated with unique tactics, but you need to think: they require strategies and have different rules when facing them compared to humans. For example, they can recover ki and don’t stagger easily. They also have different weaknesses, which are mostly characterized as large concentrations of Amrita in their horns or other body parts.
7Setting - Tie
Both Rise of the Ronin and Nioh 2 cover dramatic periods in Japan’s long tumultuous history. Nioh 2 centers around the Muromachi period, popularly known as the Sengoku period. It was a time of bloodshed, conspiracy, political turmoil, and feudal unrest where samurai clans fought one another to gain superiority and territory. The conflict escalated until the Three Unifiers, Nobunaga Oda, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, and Ieyasu Tokugawa began to unify the nation.
Rise of the Ronin is during the onset of the Meiji Restoration,the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Culminating in the Boshin War and the end of the Samurai class as the main power of Japan. It was the final period of Japan’s feudalism. There is a lot of historical context to explore and the references to each of these two dramatic periods in history can be explored through text, encyclopedias, and character interactions.
6Character Customization - Nioh 2
Nioh 2 was the first of Team Ninja’s action RPGs to introduce cosmetic customization in character creation. From hair to facial features and scars/tattoos, it had dozens of customization options that gave your character a unique blueprint that played a prevalent part in the entire story.
Its RPG elements also let you create a build around a specific playstyle you are hoping to level up. Want to be an Onmyo Mage? There are builds, special gear, and weapons for that. What about the ultimate Ninja with a plethora of ninjutsu? Building up dexterity and finding good weapons and gear are key.
5Gameplay - Nioh 2
Nioh 2 takes the gameplay structure and functions of its predecessor and adds new weapons, playstyles, and the abilities of the Yokai you defeat through soul cores. So many small elements and added details that also build up your stats and increase the number of things you may do give Nioh the gameplay edge.
Hundreds of hours can be played perfecting your Yokai-hunting samurai, and with the increasing difficulty that you may choose, there are bigger opportunities to be even stronger in any build you make. Rise of the Ronin is similar enough with the gameplay, UI, and build structures, but it doesn’t reach Nioh 2’s depths.
4World Travel - Rise Of The Ronin
One of the big differences that set Rise of Ronin apart from Team Ninja’s other projects is that you play in an open-world sandbox, as opposed to a large linear map full of shortcuts and checkpoints that end with a boss fight. you may traverse the regions of Edo either on horseback or on your large paraglider and uncover all kinds of treasures and optional objectives.
The accessibility and traversal featured in Rise of the Ronin share a lot of common elements with Ghost of Tsushima, an open-world samurai game developed by Sucker Punch.
3Weapon Diversity - Nioh 2
Nioh 2 has a dozen unique weapons to unlock and discover. From the classic katana, tonfas, kusari-gamas, spears, hatchets, and the functionally diverse switch-glaive. Each of these weapons offers a different way to tackle enemies. They can be strengthened based on your chosen builds and abilities, and you may pick and choose certain skills to be applied to your moveset.
Because of the more fantastical elements in Nioh, weapons can be all manner of designs and appearances. Although many of them are based on real-life weapons and relics in museums, their overall appearance and effects can be as diverse as possible. On the other hand, Rise of Ronin is more restricted to historical accuracy except for the most “legendary” of weapons.
2Combat Styles - Rise Of The Ronin
To compensate for the lack of weapon diversity, Rise of the Ronin offersa large multitude of different combat stylesthat can be unlocked throughout the adventure. For example,there are over eight different fighting styles for katanasand many of them offer their own movesets and attack strengths from Hayabusa, which is based on Ninja Gaiden, to other historical schools of swordplay like the Shinto Munen-ryu.
Combat styles can be used to experiment with unique movesets and weapon attacks, adding a large level of diversity in combat that Nioh 2 doesn’t offer. In Nioh 2 there are only three stances, each offering different advantages and drawbacks. As a nod to the older game, the Nioh-ryu style is also added to Rise of the Ronin, and it utilizes the three-stance styles from the Nioh 2 for Katanas.
1Conclusion - Nioh 2
Nioh 2 and Rise of Ronin are equally great presentations of two different periods in Japanese History. They both let you play and simulate your own experience as a samurai. They both showcase the history of these two important events and how they shaped the nation today.
Whatever was lacking in Nioh 2 found its way into Rise of the Ronin, and the stuff that isn’t prevalent in Rise of the Ronin can be played in Nioh 2. Both games offer a lot of great action, and the combat is the highlight for each of them. While Rise of the Ronin continues Team Ninja’s evolving trend in action RPGs and is a worthy successor to the studios' formula, Nioh 2 is our winner because of some aspects that are still better.
