Summary
Rise of the Roninmarks the first attempt of developer Team Ninja at the open-world formula, adding plenty of exploration to their mastered combat formula. The resulting game gives off plenty of Assassin’s Creed vibes, particularly with it taking place at an important time in human history.
Even though the game has a historically accurate setting, there are still a few things that leave us scratching our heads. While we can’t argue that the Edo period in Japanese history happened roughly as the game depicts, certain areas of the plot can’t be justified in the same way.
6No One Reacting To Your Glider
It Isn’t Exactly Subtle
Adding a glider to a video game improves it almost tenfold, particularly in ones that rely heavily on exploration. While you can get a horse in Rise of the Ronin, the glider is a much better transportation tool, since it allows you to reach places you normally can’t while also letting you move faster (as long as you have space to maneuver).
You even get the glider early on, so you can fly around to your heart’s content, even if it fits poorly with the rest of the setting. Characters rarely react to your gliding antics, and honestly, any law enforcement that sees a civilian with such a contraption should try to stop them immediately.
5People Surviving Deadly Duels
It’s Just A Flesh Wound
A scenario that often happens in games is a deadly duel that ends with no one too badly injured. As long as it doesn’t happen often, players can look past this and assume that, while swords did indeed clash, each combatant only slashed each other’s shoulders, and that was that.
The problem in Rise of the Ronin is that these scenes happen more often than we can count, and the fights look even deadlier than most combat encounters. You’ll be tasked with delivering a message, proceed to stab your target repeatedly in the chest, and then give them a letter as if it was just a friendly joust.
Basically, you have to ignore everything that happens in-game, since in Rise of the Ronin, the only wounds that count are the ones inflicted during cutscenes. Except for the player, of course; that game over screen will hunt you down relentlessly.
4Everyone Talks The Same Language
Strange In A Story About Foreign Forces
Rise of the Ronin deals with the end of the Edo period in Japan, with its ideology of isolation being threatened by foreign countries like the U.S., England, and France. As such, you’d expect the language barrier to be a bigger issue, but you’d be mistaken.
If you change the language to English, you’ll notice that all characters have accents according to their nationality, but they all still speak the same language.
Apparently, everyone took a crash course in Japanese, since all foreign characters speak the language fluently. Even whenhistorical U.S. characters like Matthew Perryare talking to themselves, they do so in Japanese.
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The problem is, the story deals with groups that are against foreigners entering Japan, so joining forces with them is, well, awkward when you don’t look Japanese at all. On top of all that, there is a scene at the very beginning of the game where you see your character as a child, a very Japanese child at that, so changing your ethnicity at that point seems even weirder.
2The Demon Claw Existing
This Is Supposed To Be Real World History
With the whole story of Rise of the Ronin dealing with events that happened in real life, the story is a far more down-to-earth tale than previous titles of the developer, like Niho, for example. Of course, many aspects of the story are more melodramatic than how they happened in real world history, but it is all for the sake of telling a compelling story.
That said, the prosthetic arm your Blade Twin has for the majority of the game sticks out significantly, even more than the glider you can find early in the game. Prosthetics at that level are unheard of even today, so such a significant technological leap makes it feel like it’ll be important for the plot, butno one really questions that factfor long.
1Getting Rid Of Your Blade Twin’s Bloodlust With A Small Talk
Killing Her Makes More Sense
The one meaningful choice you have in the game is at the end, where you need to decide if you eitherkill or spare your Blade Twin.Joining their side is never an option, or at least not one you’re able to take, so it is up to you how you want to stop your Blade Twin from her path of bloodshed.
If you let them live, a small conversation ensues where the protagonist tells their Blade Twin that killing is bad, and also wrong, and that they should think of the children. This makes the Blade Twin reconsider their whole life, and promises to leave Japan and never get involved with the Shogunate again.
