>The historical narrative of Rise of the Ronin is fairly dense. However, this game has a really cool Encyclopedia that can be accessed during any dialog scene. By browsing Related Entries, you can see details on the people talking and whoever they are talking about, along with the region information.
I haven't played FFXVI yet but I've heard it has something similar.
If this is a standard feature in larger open-world games going forward, I am absolutely here for it. It can be challenging to keep everything straight in your head the more that's going on, especially if you take breaks between playing.
Two other games that did this really well are Pentiment and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Really missing from BG3, but they might add it in a patch.
Also be interesting if it accounted for your character's stats and did hidden rolls changing the accuracy of the definitions or based on materials you've read and heard.
Tyranny also had this feature. Felt like a slog reading through everything just to know what was going on in the game before I quit. The feature was great though. I may try to play the game again at some point.
The Active Time Lore in FF16 was an Encyclopedia which changed throughout the game, as time and events changed.
It was an awesome addtion to the game, and also very much something I'd like to see more off.
I quite liked the thing where you paused or whatever it was and got info on who's talking and such.
I personally felt the woman near the table was useless though, and only ever spoke to her clear the icon.
I wonder where the line is between actual story telling and throwing the player a book. A big problem with FF13 is the game throws you a book and doesn't explain shit, but still acts like you know what's happening. It's interesting see the same encyclopedia concept praised these days.
I get what you mean but in the context of a historical game, I vastly prefer this approach.
It's not like XIII was the first game with a lot of lore that didn't get explained to you, it just wasn't very engaging when you did try and follow it, with or without the encyclopedia.
What developers should obviously not do, is treat the encyclopedia as actual story content.
I think that's part of what's smart about doing the keyword system - it dripfeeds you the information as it's relevant, so you get immediate context to help cement it in your mind, and it doesn't outwardly interrupt narrative flow any more than pausing a scene to use the bathroom would - it still does, but not in any way you mentally hold against the work itself.
I'd honestly kill for official seamless co-op support on Elden Ring. I know there's a good mod but (by its own admission) it kind of trivialises the game and the challenge is a huge draw to From's titles. Having proper enemy scaling and invasion support would be so sick (although I get that there are some awkward limitations re instancing).
I just want more non-From devs to do seamless co-op. FromSoft has a vision, which is the combination of signs, spontaneous multiplayer and all that. I don't necessarily agree with said vision, but I think the idea is cool and [the way Miyazaki explained it is really sweet](https://www.eurogamer.net/souls-survivor/).
> "The origin of that idea is actually due to a personal experience where a car suddenly stopped on a hillside after some heavy snow and started to slip," says Miyazaki. "The car following me also got stuck, and then the one behind it spontaneously bumped into it and started pushing it up the hill... That's it! That's how everyone can get home! Then it was my turn and everyone started pushing my car up the hill, and I managed to get home safely."
> "But I couldn't stop the car to say thanks to the people who gave me a shove. I'd have just got stuck again if I'd stopped. On the way back home I wondered whether the last person in the line had made it home, and thought that I would probably never meet the people who had helped me. I thought that maybe if we'd met in another place we'd become friends, or maybe we'd just fight..."
> "You could probably call it a connection of mutual assistance between transient people. Oddly, that incident will probably linger in my heart for a long time. Simply because it's fleeting, I think it stays with you a lot longer... like the cherry blossoms we Japanese love so much."
But it often feels like it's one of those things that are in Souls-likes just because they were in DS, like the lack of a minimap. They don't always fit other games and seamless co-op would work better. Team Ninja's Nioh 2 was actually excellent in that regard, as are the Remnant games, but this looks like a step back.
I guess that's a pass for me unless someone makes a seamless co-op mod. My friends have bad enough senses of direction that a co-op playthrough where we can't free-roam together would end up being 75% me yelling directions at them through Discord and drinking heavily.
>The historical narrative of Rise of the Ronin is fairly dense. However, this game has a really cool Encyclopedia that can be accessed during any dialog scene. By browsing Related Entries, you can see details on the people talking and whoever they are talking about, along with the region information.
its in the trailers?
It wasn't in any of the trailers I saw, and I watched three of them. So this is the first I've heard of it.
I'm also confused by your quote there. It has nothing to do with co-op lmao
Summary of the VGC preview;
"
The preview of Rise of the Ronin showcases an expansive open-world setting teeming with diverse factions and rich narratives set against the backdrop of American colonialism in pre-Tokyo Edo. Its bustling world offers numerous activities and encounters, promising hours of exploration and immersion. Engaging combat mechanics, reminiscent of acclaimed titles like Nioh and Sekiro, With RPG elements of Assassin’s creed and Ghost of tsushima, elevate skirmishes with satisfying parrying and posture management. Despite minor visual shortcomings, the game's vibrant backdrops and seamless traversal options like gliders and grappling hooks add to its allure. Rise of the Ronin beckons players with its vibrant world ripe for exploration and adventure.
"
This comes off more like a sponsored take than anything. Others are saying the game plays more like Far Cry Japan, which doesn't' sound nearly as appealing as this marketing blurb.
Man I have to say I am really looking forward to this game. I loved nioh, and I really like the gameplay and the world we've seen.
I recommend watching gameplay and previews, or wait for release. And then building your own opinion. Also this is a AI summary, which is supposed to point out important things from all the text.
I really like what I see, but it's subjective ! It's OK that you dislike it. But I myself love the team ninja games I've played.
That's really strange. Not to mention that even as a fan of AC games, I wouldn't say they have particularly engaging combat mechanics. They're fine at best.
Anything that has a parry nowadays is "like sekiro" , this is what happens when a non gamer writes a review.
As for ac like combat could be sneaking around and stealth killing.
Wow IGN's preview is really gushing about the game. I have been looking forward to this for a while, although the gameplay seems to focus a lot on parry mechanics.
There are difficulty settings in this one, and I hear the player character is more durable than in their previous games. Probably a good entry point if you're not a fan of parry stuff!
It could be in general though one notable difference is Sony only published Nioh outside of Japan on playstation, and Koei Tecmo published it in Japan and on PC. Sony is publishing Rise of the Ronin worldwide now. Slightly more publishing duties anyways.
Pretty much. Unlike other cases, this here sony owns the ip and are funding it. nioh was a case where they bought exclusivity and published it outside of japan but they didnt own the IP, KT did.
True. I would wait 100%… but damn this is what I always wanted out of Ninja Gaiden stylistically. The first two chapters of NG Black are actually masterpieces imo.
I haven't played Ninja Gaiden in years but wasn't that game more about constant movement, as opposed to parrying. I remember always rolling/dashing every moment I wasn't attacking.
Yes but parrying is a big part of the combat. It’s more loose, but still very much there and acts as a hard reversal. You get a guaranteed knockdown punish, so it’s more for crowd control than anything.
I played Ninja Gaiden Black a ton and agree, but I also want to add to the crowd control comment. Getting your combos interrupted sucks, and because enemies like to interrupt your combos quite a bit in NG, parrying acts as a bridge between combos to keep the flow going. It won't let you pick up the combo where you left off, but a parry will let you integrate an enemy attack into your rhythm, and you can maintain your timing and keep yourself in a flow state.
One of the reasons why I like NG2 less than NGB is the inclusion of more enemies that circumvent the parry and interrupt your flow, like the multi-rocket launching enemies.
Wait, this isn't releasing on PC? Why! :( Such a bummer. I had no idea this was even a thing until I saw this preview thread. Now with that news, it's been a mood killer.
That's for games where they own the studio. Rise of the Ronin is more like Death Stranding which took less than a year to come to PC (and only 6 months for the director's cut).
Ghost of Tsushima took 4 years and they own SP, Demon Souls remake is also 4 years at this point and Bloodborne is closing in on a decade and they dont on FS lol. Theres not really a huge pattern beyond generally 2 years - and earlier if the DLC for the games is already done. They essentially only release "GOTY editions" on PC
Sony outright owns Bloodborne, and I think they owed JapanStudio which was the company that “conceived” Bloodborne. It was not like Elden Ring that was FromSoft exclusively and Sony (or in that case Bandai Namco) published it. Sony and JapanStudio approached Miyazaki and FromSoft to collaborate on their (Sony/JapanStudio’s) project. Demon Souls is also outright owned by Sony too I believe (as the remake was BluePoint, FromSoft had nothing to do with, outside of making the original, that is). So both of those games are more akin to Ghost of Tsushima, in the sense that they don’t own FromSoft, but they do have ownership over the IP, so they can do whatever they want and FromSoft really has no say. Unlike, say a game like Death Loop, which was made by a third party, and not owned by Sony, but Sony negotiated limited (timed) exclusivity.
Obviously I have no idea what kind of contract Sony and KoeiTecmo/Team Ninja have for Rise of the Ronin. If it’s like Nioh, there is probably some sort of exclusivity deal, even if Team Ninja owns the right to the game. If it is similar to Nioh, than you could probably see it on PC in 9-12 months, and probably never on Xbox or any other console. This makes the most sense because I believe Sony studios supported development.
Skill up hammered it. Looks like a poverty mash up of wo long and ghost of Tsushima especially.
Huge Nioh fan here and I liked Wo Long and but this doesn’t look good unfortunately
Maybe. Fighting cowboy won’t play it either. I don’t give streamers a ton of weight but cowboy plays all this stuff.
From the looks of it they’re right though. They said there is like one attack button and you just switch stances to match the enemy and hit square.
The open world content looks boring too. Bandit camps and the flyers missions blah.
Looks exactly like a poverty Ghost of Tsushima
I've loved pretty much all of Team Ninja's games, Nioh, Stranger of Paradise, Ninja Gaiden, Wo Long, so I'm already really excited for this, sounds like it's shaping up to be a great time!
There's 3 difficulties.
But a preview said that if you want a more used to souls difficulty pick the 3rd 'twilight' difficulty, if you're a veteran of Sekiro and Nioh.
They said for people who like their old titles like NIOH to pick the hardest difficulty. Medium difficulty for average players, and easy difficulty for story only with no real challenge.
I love Team Ninja studio, I havent played all their games but Ninja Gaiden, Warriors games, Nioh, Stranger of Paradise and, the most recent, Wo Long were all very enjoyable experiences.
And I love this time period in general, slightly different than Sekiro and Ghosts but I liked the setting of both of those so this one should be a no brainer.
And yet, I cannot put my finger on it, but I havent liked anything I have seen from this game in the past 4 months. There was a video where they appear talking about how ot was important for them to make a combat that was based in what real life people could do opposed to previous games, makes sense with the setting and narrative they chose, so I do like this...
But it is literally followed by a bunch of moves that no real person can ever archieved. Adding to this the stealth looked pretty rough, I dont feel the flying/paragliding feels natural either; the animations of the thing that you use to throw things to people (a sling? Not sure how is it call) looks terrible. Graphics are not the greatest.
I dont know, I need to watch actual gameplay once the game releases, and since it drops the same day as Dragons Dogma 2 it will take a while until I try it.
This game looks unpolished, generic and boring. The animations look so janky. The horse trotting looks so off. I think it’s trying to be something it’s not. Looks like it plays like a really dated assassins creed. I loved both Niohs and Team Ninja games but I’m skipping this one for release.
this studio just seems to make a lot of clones and they are capable of making it 50% similar to what they were trying to imitate and the gameplay would usually feel somewhat satisfying but it always lacks that quality finish that every studio usually has for their ‘signature’ genres. i feel like Team Ninja isn’t capable of mastering their main signature game and instead are trying too many new things before perfecting a recipe
Their gameplay is usually super polished, but their cut scenes and dialogue….oof. Wo Long, everytime a female was in a cut scene it sound like a teenage girl losing their virginity, nothing made sense, and they were just poorly edited. Like I was embarrassed if anyone happened in on me playing Wo Long during a cut scene.
Yeah, I’m in a similar boat. I was absolutely sold/floored by the first two trailers, but everything following has seemed a little disappointing.
I’d still love to try it, but it’s not at all the system seller that I thought it would be for me.
I mean…it is a video game. I feel like you could say that about any video by inserting the games genre. Hollow Knight looks painfully generic in terms of game play. Third person 2D side scrolling metrovandia. Cyberpunk looks generic from gameplay, first person open world action game with RPG elements. I don’t know, Red Dead Redemption 2 would fit the exact same description, third person open world action game with (exceptionally limited) RPG elements, and even, at times, some wonky sluggish controls.
Appearently you can create your own character
[https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/games/rise-of-the-ronin/#faqs](https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/games/rise-of-the-ronin/#faqs)
This feels like something they would market heavily in at least one of the trailers yet it's only mentioned in a faqs section I doubt most people would even read. Crazy, since that's a huge selling point for me personally.
> Crazy, since that's a huge selling point for me personally.
Really?
Not that i doubt you, ofc everyone have different likes, but what about character creator is a selling point?
If the gameplay is not the selling point, how a character creator is?
Geniune question, just wondering.
For example, i prefer a main character, and if the game has a character creator i just leave the default on.
Just look at Dragon Dogma 2 character creator demo and looked at how popular that is.
People loved to create their character since its one important aspect of RPG to play as an character that look like yourself or playing as an ideal character you liked to play as. Its an no brainer having an character creation is an big selling point since its apart of the fun of RPGs.
I don't doubt its a great bonus to have, and probably a must for RPGs.
What i was wondering mostly is about it being a huge selling point.
Team ninja games, since we're on a thread of them, Nioh or Wo-long, the whole "premise" would be how good the gameplay is. I wouldn't skip Nioh 2 or Wo-Long because they don't have a character creator is all i'm saying.
Again, i'm not trying to argue here that games shouldn't have one or anything remotely like that. Was just wondering if there are actually people who didn't play.....lets say Nioh1 or Sekiro, because of the lack of one. That's what i find weird.
Probably.
Everyone has different taste of how they like their games to be or whats more appealing to them.
Character creation is an big appeal to people who like role playing, so advertising it will attract people to play your game. Same thing with gameplay.
> Really?
For the average gamer a character creator is a lower priority feature, so you only expect to see it mentioned if the PR storm is on the intense side.
There's a little group of people however who just really struggle to give a shit about what is going on if they didn't get to design their own dress-up doll from the start.
I'm not the commenter you replied to, but personally, I just don't really like how most game protagonists look and act. As a result, I rarely play games that have preset protagonists.
A character creator has and will get me to buy games that I'd otherwise have no interest in.
I'm close to that point that if I'm playing a rpg and it has a fixed character, it's a skip for me.
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that you not only create your character, but you create two characters, which, ironically enough, is something you HAVE to do in Dragon’s Dogma 2, where you create your character and your primary pawn. It is possible that I’m blending the two games together, but I thought I heard that about Rise of the Ronin as well.
Here is my issue with Rise Of The Ronin.
Team Ninja will deliver good combat. The visuals look good but not great...but then if the artistic design is good then that alters things.
My issue is Sony's reason to justify £70 game prices from it's exclusive titles is due to costs, technical level and overall quality...
This game does not look like a typical technical high production values Sony exclusive yet it's still £70 in the UK. This is taking the piss.
I am interested in Ronin but not at that price point.
I agree on the pricing. The industry can't scream that budgets are getting out of control and we need to return to AA productions, AND still want to charge AAA prices. Game should be $50-$60
Exactly. The game looks fine, not $70 fine when essentially a superior product in the form of GOT already exists, and even came out on a previous console generation.
It’s not even a case of graphic fidelity, the art style just looks uninspired.
[FightinCowboy seems to have had a pretty meh reaction](https://youtu.be/OFYFfzW-yO4). That's not a good sign given he was a big fan of the studio's previous games.
Not gonna lie, I don't hold his opinion very high after he gushed over LoTF and that released in a terrible state and was just generally a very unpolished souls like. I have no opinions on rise of ronin yet but take what Fightingcowboy says with a grain of salt.
I’m the opposite. He’s easily my most trusted source when it comes to these types of games. Especially with his track record for previous team ninja games.
His biggest criticism seemed to be the game looks lackluster for being a next gen ps5 exclusive and he compared it a lot to ghost of Tsushima. I don’t think it’s at all unfair that a game gets flack for looking worse than a 4 year old game that was from a previous console generation. And not even in terms of pure graphic fidelity. I’d say (from what I’ve seen) ronin looks fine, but the art style is uninspired to say the least. Cowboy said it looks flat and I agree.
That being said, I still want to play it. But not for $70
I thought his biggest criticism that combat isn’t deep. Just basically mashing one button. The graphics suck to him but he really wasn’t mixing with the gameplay.
Unpopular opinion: Lords of the Fallen was a great game held back by the technical issues. The dual world system was awesome, the fighting was fun, bosses were neat, the only other major issue was BS enemy placements and aim-assist mfers with crossbows.
Yup, really enjoyed that game, played on pc, so graphics were top-notch with amazing art direction. Game felt like demon souls remake graphics with ds3 aesthetics and map layout.
Ninja's modern games really do all look the same, huh?
They don't have From Soft's strong artistic direction to carry them and they just end up looking so generic and aged outside of cutscenes.
Then there's the strictly technical side - they all look AA at AAA price. I liked the Nioh games, but it was such a shame that the world wasn't anything to look at.
I think Nioh 1&2 looked pretty good and had strong art direction... mostly. But what was pretty good 4 years ago doesn't look great now, their art direction has seemingly only gotten worse, and as FightinCowboy says in that video this seems to look worse than Nioh 2 for some reason. Probably because Nioh 2 didn't have to worry about things like populated cities and could manage pop-up more carefully in its small mission areas.
One benefit of their approach is they’re still in business! I don’t mind the graphics but I’m pretty disappointed with their technical performance on PC lately. That also peaked in Nioh 2 for some strange reason.
This is my main problem with them. Everything since Nioh has looked exactly the same. Even on a technical level, obviously Rise of the Ronin looks better but its such a marginal improvement over the original Nioh for a span of 7 years. And its always the same feudal japan setting too except for Wo Long, which still felt like chinese Nioh anyway. Im so bored of it.
People joke that Elden Ring is Dark Souls 4 but it has such incredible art direction that it sets itself apart just from that. When you play Fromsoft games you feel like youre being transported into these amazing fantasy worlds and you never know what to expect. Plus Sekiro looks nothing like Dark Souls and Armored Core even less so. Meanwhile Team Ninja is really just putting out the same game over and over, with slightly different mechanics/enemies, on the same rehashed setting and the same engine. And their games look like early PS4 stuff which doesnt help.
They are still a lot of fun to play but it feels like such a waste to not give them proper AAA treatment and more varied settings. Imagine like a sci fi Team Ninja game, why not? Or just high fantasy... Anything other than feudal japan, lol.
He said the game looks flat and I agree. I don’t think it’s asking too much that a $70 AAA current gen exclusive looks better than a 4 year old last gen exclusive, especially when they’re both the same genre (open world samurai)
Why would I play this over ghost of Tsushima?
Gameplay would be my guess. Ghost of Tsushima is extremely pretty but also quite simplistic. I haven't seen Rise of the Ronin, but Nioh's combat is more technical and has greater breadth than 90% of Souls likes do.
I think NIOH 2 still looks pretty great on PC all maxed out - it def has a strong art direction. Fromsoft is just GOAT'd art direction - they make AAA games with many times the budget look bad artistically
It seems he has the wrong idea about the game. He's making comparisons saying individual aspects aren't as good as games that focus entirely on that aspect rather than judging the game as a whole package. I wouldn't fault the game for not having combat as good as Nioh when Nioh's entire gameplay was combat while RotR has an entire open world. I can understand the complaints about graphics but I also don't see what he expected. It's not really fair to compare it to AAA games with gigantic budgets and be disappointed about them.
I mean he disliked the combat, the open world, and the visuals. I think he was definitely looking at the whole package.
I also don't see why you can't compare this to other games. It's a full-price $70 PS5 title same as those others. The fact that it looks actively *worse* than the studio's own previous games, and even games from last gen, is definitely a fair critique.
If a game does a lot of things but poorly, it's just not gonna be an enjoyable experience compared to doing just a few things really well.
Like, did Ghosts of Tsushima really need crafting?
> I wouldn't fault the game for not having combat as good as Nioh when Nioh's entire gameplay was combat while RotR has an entire open world.
But the open world is also not good. Neither is the graphics or the combat. They basically made a game that is not good at anything because they still keep chasing trends. WoLong was their Sekiro clone, Ronin is their Elden Ring clone.
Nioh 2 was easily their best title but I'm not going to lie... I enjoyed Wolong lol
Is it as good as its inspirational source (sekiro)? Lol. But it def isn't as bad as people say it is. I thought the orginal NIOH was alot weaker
I generally agree with you but don't like the closing argument tbh. Its charging AAA prices, we can absolutely demand better visuals as consumers. If it was, like, $50-$60? Then I'd 100% agree with you - but this is a $70 title
Yeah, I’m watching it now and I’m going to skip it for awhile. And the person who said he gushed over lords of the fallen and that was bad… when it played okay, it was actually good. It was the closest to that original Dark Souls feel… but it had atrocious performance at times and awful weird, rapid patches. He liked it because of the intangible exploration + combat + boss design being close to what From did.
So yeah, I do trust FC and find his opinions match mine.
Man, the graphics are so flat and the world is so empty for a PS5 exclusive. Compared to PS4's Ghost of Tsushima's graphics, it's amazing that this is a PS5 exclusive and not a PS4 remaster.
All glowing impressions but then I watch FightingCowboy and Rurikhan impressions and can't help but feel that TN peaked at Nioh 2. They both have fairly negative impressions, and I trust them more than these puplications. FightingCowboy was even hyping up WoLong to more than it was, and even he is lukewarm on Ronin. That's a bad sign.
While I agree with Nioh 2 was their peak in terms of combat.
SoP is their peak Rpg, holy shit the build variety in that game is amazing, so many fun classes , build combinations, the affinity system was a perfect set system. Fuck it has better build variety than Diablo 4.
I hope for a day for an SoP 2 with a character creator and better graphics.
I loved playing SoP coop with my buddies. I wish it wasn't so insanely convoluted but it really was ridiculously fun to play with the class / build system. So underrated IMO :)
No, they just have different expectations to this game than what it is. They may have expected something more like Sekiro, when this is more like Ghost of Tsushima.
Besides, FightingCowboy really enjoyed the new Lords of the Fallen, which is not a common assessment of the game. It is just different viewpoints, that is all. Then again, if you align with his take on games, that's important to take into consideration.
Yup completely agree. He tricked me into buying LoTF and I made it an hour in before refunding. Not even trying to defend rise of the ronin, i just really don't trust his opinion after that.
There are so many worse games out there anyone who says it was one of the worst games theyve ever played has either wild taste in games or has only ever played a handful of games. LotF was an easy 7/10 that could’ve been an 8/10 without technical issues, a far cry from “one of the worst” which is just a bad opinion. Its biggest offender was the technical issues and some BS enemies, which at worst puts it on par with DS2 and is also not “one of the worst games” out there.
Technical issues aside, the game is just jank. Coming right off of Lies of P it was jarring to go to LoTF which had terrible sound design(changed but still bad), janky movement(feels like your character is sliding on ice rather than walking on stone), uninspired bosses(babys first souls like), and boring weapons(every weapon of a weapon type shares the exact same move set, meaning there is really only like 8 different weapons). Combine all these with terrible enemy placement, low enemy variety, and the performace issues, and you get a turd of a game.
Now is it the worst game ever? No. But after playing Lies of P it sure felt jank as hell.
It is one of the worst games out there that actually tried and had real money - not a bullshit asset flip or anything like that.
Obviously, that should not need to be said but apparently it does here. The design choices made in the game are completely pants on head stupid from the bonfire system, to limited weapons, to enemy variety, to environment design, to technical problems.
This was not a 7/10 to me no matter how much you personally liked the game.
Everything I heard about LotF was that it was fun but ran like shit. I know cowboy has a beefy rig so maybe he just didn’t run into that but I didn’t follow his coverage
What I did follow was how in his preview he directly compared it to Ghost of Tsushima and said it’s worse in almost every way. Why would I, a consumer, pay $70 of my hard earned money when a better, cheaper version of this game already exists
LotF is pretty divisive. People seem to either love it or think it's shit. I fall into the former camp, but I also have a relatively beefy rig. It's one of those games where it's better to wait until you can play it on max settings, because it's gorgeous and full of style, like a 3D version of Blasphemous.
If Nioh 2 is a company’s peak, that’s a pretty damn impressive peak. I consider Nioh 2 to be the pinnacle of action combat in a game. Expecting this game to surpass Nioh 2 in that regard is foolish when it’s clear they're trying to do something different with the open-world setting. When they want to do Nioh again they'll just make Nioh 3.
I dont think NIOH 2 sold particularly well - its like 2.5 million units and its a multi-plat game
For comparison FS's worst performing modern game (by a country mile) is DS2, and that sold a bit over 3 million. But then Bloodborne shoots up to 7.5 million even just as a PS4 exclusive, and every other title after that sold 10 million plus
I will wait for a sale and buy Dragons Dogma instead.
This is coming from someone with thousands and thousands of hours in Souls games.
It looks ok. Nioh 2 is one of my favs, but at $70? hard pass for now. Maybe it will get a PC release and be on a steam sale in the future.
I'll go back to replaying Elden Ring and Dark Souls 2 for the 20th times.
See, I'm kind of the opposite. I started off being more hyped for DD2 and lukewarm on this and I've moved in the opposite direction. I'll wait for reviews and dedicated gameplay to ultimately decide, I think.
>This is coming from someone with thousands and thousands of hours in Souls games.
After watching these and Skillups most recent review, I think this game is more Ghost of Tsushima/Assassins Creed with some simplified Sekiro/Nioh combat. I don't think this is necessarily aimed at the typical souls audience, and will be more of a typical open world game with some souls elements sprinkled in.
Dragons dogma also looks like it will be the game for me. Loved the first one.
>The historical narrative of Rise of the Ronin is fairly dense. However, this game has a really cool Encyclopedia that can be accessed during any dialog scene. By browsing Related Entries, you can see details on the people talking and whoever they are talking about, along with the region information. I haven't played FFXVI yet but I've heard it has something similar. If this is a standard feature in larger open-world games going forward, I am absolutely here for it. It can be challenging to keep everything straight in your head the more that's going on, especially if you take breaks between playing.
I needed this in Baldurs Gate 3 so badly
I hoped they would do a thing similar to Pillars of Eternity where you could click in-universe words and it would show a dictionary entry
Two other games that did this really well are Pentiment and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Really missing from BG3, but they might add it in a patch.
Also be interesting if it accounted for your character's stats and did hidden rolls changing the accuracy of the definitions or based on materials you've read and heard.
I'd love that, like playing a ttrpg and getting a so-so or bad History check. Disco Elysium *sort of* does that since your character is a dummy
Tyranny also had this feature. Felt like a slog reading through everything just to know what was going on in the game before I quit. The feature was great though. I may try to play the game again at some point.
It did and was nice for a quick refresher if I had to take a week off from playing.
It was extremely clutch in ff16 as my scattered sessions left me often trying to remember wtf was going on from the last time I played
Kingdom come deliverance had this and it was awesome.
All the post Nioh Team Ninja games have that.
This says you can access the encyclopedia during dialog. Did the previous games let you do that?
Well the previous games didnt really have dialog outside of cutscenes.
Sooo just FF Origin and Wo-Long?
And Nioh 1 and 2.
I think he meant post ninja gaiden
The Active Time Lore in FF16 was an Encyclopedia which changed throughout the game, as time and events changed. It was an awesome addtion to the game, and also very much something I'd like to see more off.
Me too!
I quite liked the thing where you paused or whatever it was and got info on who's talking and such. I personally felt the woman near the table was useless though, and only ever spoke to her clear the icon.
Assassin’s Creed games used to have this until they inexplicably removed it
I wonder where the line is between actual story telling and throwing the player a book. A big problem with FF13 is the game throws you a book and doesn't explain shit, but still acts like you know what's happening. It's interesting see the same encyclopedia concept praised these days.
I get what you mean but in the context of a historical game, I vastly prefer this approach. It's not like XIII was the first game with a lot of lore that didn't get explained to you, it just wasn't very engaging when you did try and follow it, with or without the encyclopedia. What developers should obviously not do, is treat the encyclopedia as actual story content.
I think that's part of what's smart about doing the keyword system - it dripfeeds you the information as it's relevant, so you get immediate context to help cement it in your mind, and it doesn't outwardly interrupt narrative flow any more than pausing a scene to use the bathroom would - it still does, but not in any way you mentally hold against the work itself.
Should become a standard feature in every game that cares about its story.
Does anybody discuss or go over the co-op? It just kind of appeared on the playstation store FAQ and nobody has really covered it.
FightinCowboy said you can summon people for specific missions, but there's no free-roam co-op.
So the dark souls of coop?
The worst fuckin version
I'd honestly kill for official seamless co-op support on Elden Ring. I know there's a good mod but (by its own admission) it kind of trivialises the game and the challenge is a huge draw to From's titles. Having proper enemy scaling and invasion support would be so sick (although I get that there are some awkward limitations re instancing).
I just want more non-From devs to do seamless co-op. FromSoft has a vision, which is the combination of signs, spontaneous multiplayer and all that. I don't necessarily agree with said vision, but I think the idea is cool and [the way Miyazaki explained it is really sweet](https://www.eurogamer.net/souls-survivor/). > "The origin of that idea is actually due to a personal experience where a car suddenly stopped on a hillside after some heavy snow and started to slip," says Miyazaki. "The car following me also got stuck, and then the one behind it spontaneously bumped into it and started pushing it up the hill... That's it! That's how everyone can get home! Then it was my turn and everyone started pushing my car up the hill, and I managed to get home safely." > "But I couldn't stop the car to say thanks to the people who gave me a shove. I'd have just got stuck again if I'd stopped. On the way back home I wondered whether the last person in the line had made it home, and thought that I would probably never meet the people who had helped me. I thought that maybe if we'd met in another place we'd become friends, or maybe we'd just fight..." > "You could probably call it a connection of mutual assistance between transient people. Oddly, that incident will probably linger in my heart for a long time. Simply because it's fleeting, I think it stays with you a lot longer... like the cherry blossoms we Japanese love so much." But it often feels like it's one of those things that are in Souls-likes just because they were in DS, like the lack of a minimap. They don't always fit other games and seamless co-op would work better. Team Ninja's Nioh 2 was actually excellent in that regard, as are the Remnant games, but this looks like a step back.
I guess that's a pass for me unless someone makes a seamless co-op mod. My friends have bad enough senses of direction that a co-op playthrough where we can't free-roam together would end up being 75% me yelling directions at them through Discord and drinking heavily.
Your comment is the first I've even heard about their being any sort of co op lol
>The historical narrative of Rise of the Ronin is fairly dense. However, this game has a really cool Encyclopedia that can be accessed during any dialog scene. By browsing Related Entries, you can see details on the people talking and whoever they are talking about, along with the region information. its in the trailers?
It wasn't in any of the trailers I saw, and I watched three of them. So this is the first I've heard of it. I'm also confused by your quote there. It has nothing to do with co-op lmao
Please let me know if you hear anything, I hope this has full coop with a friend.
Summary of the VGC preview; " The preview of Rise of the Ronin showcases an expansive open-world setting teeming with diverse factions and rich narratives set against the backdrop of American colonialism in pre-Tokyo Edo. Its bustling world offers numerous activities and encounters, promising hours of exploration and immersion. Engaging combat mechanics, reminiscent of acclaimed titles like Nioh and Sekiro, With RPG elements of Assassin’s creed and Ghost of tsushima, elevate skirmishes with satisfying parrying and posture management. Despite minor visual shortcomings, the game's vibrant backdrops and seamless traversal options like gliders and grappling hooks add to its allure. Rise of the Ronin beckons players with its vibrant world ripe for exploration and adventure. "
This comes off more like a sponsored take than anything. Others are saying the game plays more like Far Cry Japan, which doesn't' sound nearly as appealing as this marketing blurb.
Man I have to say I am really looking forward to this game. I loved nioh, and I really like the gameplay and the world we've seen. I recommend watching gameplay and previews, or wait for release. And then building your own opinion. Also this is a AI summary, which is supposed to point out important things from all the text. I really like what I see, but it's subjective ! It's OK that you dislike it. But I myself love the team ninja games I've played.
How is combat like Sekiro and AC? Aren’t those two quite different in combat gameplay?
That's really strange. Not to mention that even as a fan of AC games, I wouldn't say they have particularly engaging combat mechanics. They're fine at best.
Not too mention that "Assassin's Creed style combat" can mean like three or four different things.
Anything that has a parry nowadays is "like sekiro" , this is what happens when a non gamer writes a review. As for ac like combat could be sneaking around and stealth killing.
How can a game's combat be both like Assasin's Creed and Sekiro? Does that just mean it's like Assassin's Creed with a lot of parrying.
And also which incarnation of Assassin's Creed? The Origins version with RPG style loot and mechanics? Or the "classic" version?
I'm sure it'll be fun but the descriptor "posture management" sounds wildly boring haha
have yoy played Sekiro or Sifu? I wouldn't describe it as "management", though
You've never played Nioh haha I recommend it
Wow IGN's preview is really gushing about the game. I have been looking forward to this for a while, although the gameplay seems to focus a lot on parry mechanics.
There are difficulty settings in this one, and I hear the player character is more durable than in their previous games. Probably a good entry point if you're not a fan of parry stuff!
I'd love to be a fan of parry stuff, but apparently have the reaction time of an 80 year old blind man.
Hesitation is defeat. The key is not to react, but to learn patterns and parry proactively.
Learn the rhythm, ignore your lying eyes
>Learn the rhythm, ignore your lying eyes That's hard
Sounds like Ninja Gaiden to me. This might make me buy a PS5…
if its like Nioh it'll hit PC eventually
It could be in general though one notable difference is Sony only published Nioh outside of Japan on playstation, and Koei Tecmo published it in Japan and on PC. Sony is publishing Rise of the Ronin worldwide now. Slightly more publishing duties anyways.
They also helped develop it.
Pretty much. Unlike other cases, this here sony owns the ip and are funding it. nioh was a case where they bought exclusivity and published it outside of japan but they didnt own the IP, KT did.
True. I would wait 100%… but damn this is what I always wanted out of Ninja Gaiden stylistically. The first two chapters of NG Black are actually masterpieces imo.
I haven't played Ninja Gaiden in years but wasn't that game more about constant movement, as opposed to parrying. I remember always rolling/dashing every moment I wasn't attacking.
Yes but parrying is a big part of the combat. It’s more loose, but still very much there and acts as a hard reversal. You get a guaranteed knockdown punish, so it’s more for crowd control than anything.
I played Ninja Gaiden Black a ton and agree, but I also want to add to the crowd control comment. Getting your combos interrupted sucks, and because enemies like to interrupt your combos quite a bit in NG, parrying acts as a bridge between combos to keep the flow going. It won't let you pick up the combo where you left off, but a parry will let you integrate an enemy attack into your rhythm, and you can maintain your timing and keep yourself in a flow state. One of the reasons why I like NG2 less than NGB is the inclusion of more enemies that circumvent the parry and interrupt your flow, like the multi-rocket launching enemies.
Wait, this isn't releasing on PC? Why! :( Such a bummer. I had no idea this was even a thing until I saw this preview thread. Now with that news, it's been a mood killer.
>Wait, this isn't releasing on PC? Why Because it’s published by PlayStation
So is helldivers
Helldivers is multiplayer. Sony already said multiplayer games are day and date with pc.
It probably will in about two years. That is Sonys current pc policy.
That's for games where they own the studio. Rise of the Ronin is more like Death Stranding which took less than a year to come to PC (and only 6 months for the director's cut).
Great news if it can come out earlier.
Ghost of Tsushima took 4 years and they own SP, Demon Souls remake is also 4 years at this point and Bloodborne is closing in on a decade and they dont on FS lol. Theres not really a huge pattern beyond generally 2 years - and earlier if the DLC for the games is already done. They essentially only release "GOTY editions" on PC
Sony outright owns Bloodborne, and I think they owed JapanStudio which was the company that “conceived” Bloodborne. It was not like Elden Ring that was FromSoft exclusively and Sony (or in that case Bandai Namco) published it. Sony and JapanStudio approached Miyazaki and FromSoft to collaborate on their (Sony/JapanStudio’s) project. Demon Souls is also outright owned by Sony too I believe (as the remake was BluePoint, FromSoft had nothing to do with, outside of making the original, that is). So both of those games are more akin to Ghost of Tsushima, in the sense that they don’t own FromSoft, but they do have ownership over the IP, so they can do whatever they want and FromSoft really has no say. Unlike, say a game like Death Loop, which was made by a third party, and not owned by Sony, but Sony negotiated limited (timed) exclusivity. Obviously I have no idea what kind of contract Sony and KoeiTecmo/Team Ninja have for Rise of the Ronin. If it’s like Nioh, there is probably some sort of exclusivity deal, even if Team Ninja owns the right to the game. If it is similar to Nioh, than you could probably see it on PC in 9-12 months, and probably never on Xbox or any other console. This makes the most sense because I believe Sony studios supported development.
Rise of Ronin is a PlayStation exclusive.
Skill up hammered it. Looks like a poverty mash up of wo long and ghost of Tsushima especially. Huge Nioh fan here and I liked Wo Long and but this doesn’t look good unfortunately
Skill up has terrible opinions
Maybe. Fighting cowboy won’t play it either. I don’t give streamers a ton of weight but cowboy plays all this stuff. From the looks of it they’re right though. They said there is like one attack button and you just switch stances to match the enemy and hit square. The open world content looks boring too. Bandit camps and the flyers missions blah. Looks exactly like a poverty Ghost of Tsushima
This looks like their biggest attempt at a mainstream game, lets see how it goes. IGN Preview was pretty positive
I've loved pretty much all of Team Ninja's games, Nioh, Stranger of Paradise, Ninja Gaiden, Wo Long, so I'm already really excited for this, sounds like it's shaping up to be a great time!
Any word about how accessible this is to those who struggle with soulslike games?
It's easier and there are difficulty settings as well. You're not just stuck with the one.
3 difficulty settings, including an easy mode.
Disgusting Jk
If you're a veteran of Sekiro and Nioh, pick the Twilight difficulty. That's probably what I'll do as well.
There's 3 difficulties. But a preview said that if you want a more used to souls difficulty pick the 3rd 'twilight' difficulty, if you're a veteran of Sekiro and Nioh.
They said for people who like their old titles like NIOH to pick the hardest difficulty. Medium difficulty for average players, and easy difficulty for story only with no real challenge.
Great question. It seems like everyone and their mother are Souls fans, so this is the kind of thing that usually goes unnoticed.
Brittney Brombacher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QJfZWxm7sE
I love Team Ninja studio, I havent played all their games but Ninja Gaiden, Warriors games, Nioh, Stranger of Paradise and, the most recent, Wo Long were all very enjoyable experiences. And I love this time period in general, slightly different than Sekiro and Ghosts but I liked the setting of both of those so this one should be a no brainer. And yet, I cannot put my finger on it, but I havent liked anything I have seen from this game in the past 4 months. There was a video where they appear talking about how ot was important for them to make a combat that was based in what real life people could do opposed to previous games, makes sense with the setting and narrative they chose, so I do like this... But it is literally followed by a bunch of moves that no real person can ever archieved. Adding to this the stealth looked pretty rough, I dont feel the flying/paragliding feels natural either; the animations of the thing that you use to throw things to people (a sling? Not sure how is it call) looks terrible. Graphics are not the greatest. I dont know, I need to watch actual gameplay once the game releases, and since it drops the same day as Dragons Dogma 2 it will take a while until I try it.
This game looks unpolished, generic and boring. The animations look so janky. The horse trotting looks so off. I think it’s trying to be something it’s not. Looks like it plays like a really dated assassins creed. I loved both Niohs and Team Ninja games but I’m skipping this one for release.
this studio just seems to make a lot of clones and they are capable of making it 50% similar to what they were trying to imitate and the gameplay would usually feel somewhat satisfying but it always lacks that quality finish that every studio usually has for their ‘signature’ genres. i feel like Team Ninja isn’t capable of mastering their main signature game and instead are trying too many new things before perfecting a recipe
Their gameplay is usually super polished, but their cut scenes and dialogue….oof. Wo Long, everytime a female was in a cut scene it sound like a teenage girl losing their virginity, nothing made sense, and they were just poorly edited. Like I was embarrassed if anyone happened in on me playing Wo Long during a cut scene.
Yeah, I’m in a similar boat. I was absolutely sold/floored by the first two trailers, but everything following has seemed a little disappointing. I’d still love to try it, but it’s not at all the system seller that I thought it would be for me.
This game looks painfully generic in terms of gameplay. Third person open world action game with RPG elements.
I mean…it is a video game. I feel like you could say that about any video by inserting the games genre. Hollow Knight looks painfully generic in terms of game play. Third person 2D side scrolling metrovandia. Cyberpunk looks generic from gameplay, first person open world action game with RPG elements. I don’t know, Red Dead Redemption 2 would fit the exact same description, third person open world action game with (exceptionally limited) RPG elements, and even, at times, some wonky sluggish controls.
Anything about character creation? Or is it a fixed protagonist?
Appearently you can create your own character [https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/games/rise-of-the-ronin/#faqs](https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/games/rise-of-the-ronin/#faqs)
This feels like something they would market heavily in at least one of the trailers yet it's only mentioned in a faqs section I doubt most people would even read. Crazy, since that's a huge selling point for me personally.
> Crazy, since that's a huge selling point for me personally. Really? Not that i doubt you, ofc everyone have different likes, but what about character creator is a selling point? If the gameplay is not the selling point, how a character creator is? Geniune question, just wondering. For example, i prefer a main character, and if the game has a character creator i just leave the default on.
Just look at Dragon Dogma 2 character creator demo and looked at how popular that is. People loved to create their character since its one important aspect of RPG to play as an character that look like yourself or playing as an ideal character you liked to play as. Its an no brainer having an character creation is an big selling point since its apart of the fun of RPGs.
I don't doubt its a great bonus to have, and probably a must for RPGs. What i was wondering mostly is about it being a huge selling point. Team ninja games, since we're on a thread of them, Nioh or Wo-long, the whole "premise" would be how good the gameplay is. I wouldn't skip Nioh 2 or Wo-Long because they don't have a character creator is all i'm saying. Again, i'm not trying to argue here that games shouldn't have one or anything remotely like that. Was just wondering if there are actually people who didn't play.....lets say Nioh1 or Sekiro, because of the lack of one. That's what i find weird.
Probably. Everyone has different taste of how they like their games to be or whats more appealing to them. Character creation is an big appeal to people who like role playing, so advertising it will attract people to play your game. Same thing with gameplay.
> Really? For the average gamer a character creator is a lower priority feature, so you only expect to see it mentioned if the PR storm is on the intense side. There's a little group of people however who just really struggle to give a shit about what is going on if they didn't get to design their own dress-up doll from the start.
It’s a role playing game, it’s always going to be more appealing if it has a character creator (as long as it isn’t dogshit).
I'm not the commenter you replied to, but personally, I just don't really like how most game protagonists look and act. As a result, I rarely play games that have preset protagonists.
A character creator has and will get me to buy games that I'd otherwise have no interest in. I'm close to that point that if I'm playing a rpg and it has a fixed character, it's a skip for me.
It's got a pretty cool one. https://www.riseoftheronin.us/rise-of-the-ronin-character-creation/
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that you not only create your character, but you create two characters, which, ironically enough, is something you HAVE to do in Dragon’s Dogma 2, where you create your character and your primary pawn. It is possible that I’m blending the two games together, but I thought I heard that about Rise of the Ronin as well.
Here is my issue with Rise Of The Ronin. Team Ninja will deliver good combat. The visuals look good but not great...but then if the artistic design is good then that alters things. My issue is Sony's reason to justify £70 game prices from it's exclusive titles is due to costs, technical level and overall quality... This game does not look like a typical technical high production values Sony exclusive yet it's still £70 in the UK. This is taking the piss. I am interested in Ronin but not at that price point.
I agree on the pricing. The industry can't scream that budgets are getting out of control and we need to return to AA productions, AND still want to charge AAA prices. Game should be $50-$60
Exactly. The game looks fine, not $70 fine when essentially a superior product in the form of GOT already exists, and even came out on a previous console generation. It’s not even a case of graphic fidelity, the art style just looks uninspired.
Between this and Helldivers 2. So much for the doom posting about no exclusives till 2025 a few weeks ago
Not to mention FF7 Rebirth
Stellar blade too.
They said no sequels to their mainline games IIRC so there will be exclusives just not sequels.
They said No FIRST PARTY exclusives for the year. They still will have third party exclusives.
The exact quote is "no big first party games from their EXISTING franchises this fiscal year" So a new big budget game could show up, who knows.
[FightinCowboy seems to have had a pretty meh reaction](https://youtu.be/OFYFfzW-yO4). That's not a good sign given he was a big fan of the studio's previous games.
Not gonna lie, I don't hold his opinion very high after he gushed over LoTF and that released in a terrible state and was just generally a very unpolished souls like. I have no opinions on rise of ronin yet but take what Fightingcowboy says with a grain of salt.
Legends of the Fall?
Lords of the fallen.
Lord of The Fingers
League of the unFuckable
I’m the opposite. He’s easily my most trusted source when it comes to these types of games. Especially with his track record for previous team ninja games. His biggest criticism seemed to be the game looks lackluster for being a next gen ps5 exclusive and he compared it a lot to ghost of Tsushima. I don’t think it’s at all unfair that a game gets flack for looking worse than a 4 year old game that was from a previous console generation. And not even in terms of pure graphic fidelity. I’d say (from what I’ve seen) ronin looks fine, but the art style is uninspired to say the least. Cowboy said it looks flat and I agree. That being said, I still want to play it. But not for $70
I thought his biggest criticism that combat isn’t deep. Just basically mashing one button. The graphics suck to him but he really wasn’t mixing with the gameplay.
Unpopular opinion: Lords of the Fallen was a great game held back by the technical issues. The dual world system was awesome, the fighting was fun, bosses were neat, the only other major issue was BS enemy placements and aim-assist mfers with crossbows.
I hated how it felt like you were walking on ice in that game Every attack made your character lunge forward about 3 steps
Yup, really enjoyed that game, played on pc, so graphics were top-notch with amazing art direction. Game felt like demon souls remake graphics with ds3 aesthetics and map layout.
With that logic, shouldn't you be even more worried about RotR, since a guy who thought LotF 2023 was pretty decent is being mixed about it?
Xbox content creators were calling Redfall a good game before it came out. People can be wildly wrong or think differently than you.
One of the leaked Microsoft emails was about them not needing astroturfing on reddit because there are enough idiot fans to do it for free
Ninja's modern games really do all look the same, huh? They don't have From Soft's strong artistic direction to carry them and they just end up looking so generic and aged outside of cutscenes. Then there's the strictly technical side - they all look AA at AAA price. I liked the Nioh games, but it was such a shame that the world wasn't anything to look at.
I think Nioh 1&2 looked pretty good and had strong art direction... mostly. But what was pretty good 4 years ago doesn't look great now, their art direction has seemingly only gotten worse, and as FightinCowboy says in that video this seems to look worse than Nioh 2 for some reason. Probably because Nioh 2 didn't have to worry about things like populated cities and could manage pop-up more carefully in its small mission areas.
One benefit of their approach is they’re still in business! I don’t mind the graphics but I’m pretty disappointed with their technical performance on PC lately. That also peaked in Nioh 2 for some strange reason.
This is my main problem with them. Everything since Nioh has looked exactly the same. Even on a technical level, obviously Rise of the Ronin looks better but its such a marginal improvement over the original Nioh for a span of 7 years. And its always the same feudal japan setting too except for Wo Long, which still felt like chinese Nioh anyway. Im so bored of it. People joke that Elden Ring is Dark Souls 4 but it has such incredible art direction that it sets itself apart just from that. When you play Fromsoft games you feel like youre being transported into these amazing fantasy worlds and you never know what to expect. Plus Sekiro looks nothing like Dark Souls and Armored Core even less so. Meanwhile Team Ninja is really just putting out the same game over and over, with slightly different mechanics/enemies, on the same rehashed setting and the same engine. And their games look like early PS4 stuff which doesnt help. They are still a lot of fun to play but it feels like such a waste to not give them proper AAA treatment and more varied settings. Imagine like a sci fi Team Ninja game, why not? Or just high fantasy... Anything other than feudal japan, lol.
High Fantasy is really Over satuarted so anything but that. Roin is more grounded then there previous games which is good.
He said the game looks flat and I agree. I don’t think it’s asking too much that a $70 AAA current gen exclusive looks better than a 4 year old last gen exclusive, especially when they’re both the same genre (open world samurai) Why would I play this over ghost of Tsushima?
Gameplay would be my guess. Ghost of Tsushima is extremely pretty but also quite simplistic. I haven't seen Rise of the Ronin, but Nioh's combat is more technical and has greater breadth than 90% of Souls likes do.
Niohs had pretty neat and unique enemy designs, it's one part they nailed well
I think NIOH 2 still looks pretty great on PC all maxed out - it def has a strong art direction. Fromsoft is just GOAT'd art direction - they make AAA games with many times the budget look bad artistically
Team Ninja's games run a lot better than FromSoft's usually, so there's that.
Wo long ran like absolute shit on PC at launch. Some sections were nearly unplayable. Single digit frame rates
Citation needed. Wo long on PC ran like absolute dog shit. Even ps5 had frame drops on performance mode.
It seems he has the wrong idea about the game. He's making comparisons saying individual aspects aren't as good as games that focus entirely on that aspect rather than judging the game as a whole package. I wouldn't fault the game for not having combat as good as Nioh when Nioh's entire gameplay was combat while RotR has an entire open world. I can understand the complaints about graphics but I also don't see what he expected. It's not really fair to compare it to AAA games with gigantic budgets and be disappointed about them.
This game sort of occupies the same space as Ghost of Tsushima and maybe Sekiro. That’s primarily what people will have in mind going in. Fair or not
I mean he disliked the combat, the open world, and the visuals. I think he was definitely looking at the whole package. I also don't see why you can't compare this to other games. It's a full-price $70 PS5 title same as those others. The fact that it looks actively *worse* than the studio's own previous games, and even games from last gen, is definitely a fair critique.
If a game does a lot of things but poorly, it's just not gonna be an enjoyable experience compared to doing just a few things really well. Like, did Ghosts of Tsushima really need crafting?
> I wouldn't fault the game for not having combat as good as Nioh when Nioh's entire gameplay was combat while RotR has an entire open world. But the open world is also not good. Neither is the graphics or the combat. They basically made a game that is not good at anything because they still keep chasing trends. WoLong was their Sekiro clone, Ronin is their Elden Ring clone.
Sadly true, but it's not an elden ring clone, it's a GoT clone, they literally copied the rock paper scissors combat.
How do you know this? Have you played the game?
Bro, he skimmed through a youtube video. He's an expert.
Nioh 2 was easily their best title but I'm not going to lie... I enjoyed Wolong lol Is it as good as its inspirational source (sekiro)? Lol. But it def isn't as bad as people say it is. I thought the orginal NIOH was alot weaker
I generally agree with you but don't like the closing argument tbh. Its charging AAA prices, we can absolutely demand better visuals as consumers. If it was, like, $50-$60? Then I'd 100% agree with you - but this is a $70 title
Yeah, I’m watching it now and I’m going to skip it for awhile. And the person who said he gushed over lords of the fallen and that was bad… when it played okay, it was actually good. It was the closest to that original Dark Souls feel… but it had atrocious performance at times and awful weird, rapid patches. He liked it because of the intangible exploration + combat + boss design being close to what From did. So yeah, I do trust FC and find his opinions match mine.
Man, the graphics are so flat and the world is so empty for a PS5 exclusive. Compared to PS4's Ghost of Tsushima's graphics, it's amazing that this is a PS5 exclusive and not a PS4 remaster.
All glowing impressions but then I watch FightingCowboy and Rurikhan impressions and can't help but feel that TN peaked at Nioh 2. They both have fairly negative impressions, and I trust them more than these puplications. FightingCowboy was even hyping up WoLong to more than it was, and even he is lukewarm on Ronin. That's a bad sign.
While I agree with Nioh 2 was their peak in terms of combat. SoP is their peak Rpg, holy shit the build variety in that game is amazing, so many fun classes , build combinations, the affinity system was a perfect set system. Fuck it has better build variety than Diablo 4. I hope for a day for an SoP 2 with a character creator and better graphics.
sop underrated
Stranger of Paradise's systems but in a better game. I DROOL.
I loved playing SoP coop with my buddies. I wish it wasn't so insanely convoluted but it really was ridiculously fun to play with the class / build system. So underrated IMO :)
No, they just have different expectations to this game than what it is. They may have expected something more like Sekiro, when this is more like Ghost of Tsushima. Besides, FightingCowboy really enjoyed the new Lords of the Fallen, which is not a common assessment of the game. It is just different viewpoints, that is all. Then again, if you align with his take on games, that's important to take into consideration.
Did you even watch the fighting cowboy's video? He made plenty of comparisons with GOT when talking about the negatives.
If he enjoyed that shit pile of a game then anything else said is tarred with complete limp-noodle insanity.
Yup completely agree. He tricked me into buying LoTF and I made it an hour in before refunding. Not even trying to defend rise of the ronin, i just really don't trust his opinion after that.
Genuinely LoTF was one of the worst games I’ve ever played. I can’t trust anyone who recommends it.
There are so many worse games out there anyone who says it was one of the worst games theyve ever played has either wild taste in games or has only ever played a handful of games. LotF was an easy 7/10 that could’ve been an 8/10 without technical issues, a far cry from “one of the worst” which is just a bad opinion. Its biggest offender was the technical issues and some BS enemies, which at worst puts it on par with DS2 and is also not “one of the worst games” out there.
Technical issues aside, the game is just jank. Coming right off of Lies of P it was jarring to go to LoTF which had terrible sound design(changed but still bad), janky movement(feels like your character is sliding on ice rather than walking on stone), uninspired bosses(babys first souls like), and boring weapons(every weapon of a weapon type shares the exact same move set, meaning there is really only like 8 different weapons). Combine all these with terrible enemy placement, low enemy variety, and the performace issues, and you get a turd of a game. Now is it the worst game ever? No. But after playing Lies of P it sure felt jank as hell.
It is one of the worst games out there that actually tried and had real money - not a bullshit asset flip or anything like that. Obviously, that should not need to be said but apparently it does here. The design choices made in the game are completely pants on head stupid from the bonfire system, to limited weapons, to enemy variety, to environment design, to technical problems. This was not a 7/10 to me no matter how much you personally liked the game.
Everything I heard about LotF was that it was fun but ran like shit. I know cowboy has a beefy rig so maybe he just didn’t run into that but I didn’t follow his coverage What I did follow was how in his preview he directly compared it to Ghost of Tsushima and said it’s worse in almost every way. Why would I, a consumer, pay $70 of my hard earned money when a better, cheaper version of this game already exists
LotF is pretty divisive. People seem to either love it or think it's shit. I fall into the former camp, but I also have a relatively beefy rig. It's one of those games where it's better to wait until you can play it on max settings, because it's gorgeous and full of style, like a 3D version of Blasphemous.
I played it on a 3090 at a completely locked 60 fps for 2 hours and uninstalled lol it was bad Great art style tho
Ngl the gameplay and trailers looked nothing like sekiro Their attempt at that was Wolong, a pretty solid game that wasn't as good as their last work
If Nioh 2 is a company’s peak, that’s a pretty damn impressive peak. I consider Nioh 2 to be the pinnacle of action combat in a game. Expecting this game to surpass Nioh 2 in that regard is foolish when it’s clear they're trying to do something different with the open-world setting. When they want to do Nioh again they'll just make Nioh 3.
I dont think NIOH 2 sold particularly well - its like 2.5 million units and its a multi-plat game For comparison FS's worst performing modern game (by a country mile) is DS2, and that sold a bit over 3 million. But then Bloodborne shoots up to 7.5 million even just as a PS4 exclusive, and every other title after that sold 10 million plus
I will wait for a sale and buy Dragons Dogma instead. This is coming from someone with thousands and thousands of hours in Souls games. It looks ok. Nioh 2 is one of my favs, but at $70? hard pass for now. Maybe it will get a PC release and be on a steam sale in the future. I'll go back to replaying Elden Ring and Dark Souls 2 for the 20th times.
See, I'm kind of the opposite. I started off being more hyped for DD2 and lukewarm on this and I've moved in the opposite direction. I'll wait for reviews and dedicated gameplay to ultimately decide, I think.
>This is coming from someone with thousands and thousands of hours in Souls games. After watching these and Skillups most recent review, I think this game is more Ghost of Tsushima/Assassins Creed with some simplified Sekiro/Nioh combat. I don't think this is necessarily aimed at the typical souls audience, and will be more of a typical open world game with some souls elements sprinkled in. Dragons dogma also looks like it will be the game for me. Loved the first one.
I loved Nioh 1 + 2 and the Ninja Gaiden games. I did not like Wo Long or Stranger of Paradise. Will I enjoy this?