Today we are taking a look at Koei Tecmo’s latest release, the 19th-century Japan open-world RPG Rise of the Ronin.
In Rise of the Ronin, players are put in the shoes of the Veiled Blade twins, orphans of war trained as samurai to work as a singular tool of assassination. After failing to take down the United States Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry, the twins become key figures in one of the most important moments in Japanese history.
Previously exclusive to the PS5, Rise of the Ronin has finally landed on PC, which means we also get to take a look at its port. Did Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja finally strike gold with an open-world RPG? Read our full review and find out!
Rise of the Ronin
Developer: Koei Tecmo Games
Publisher: Koei Tecmo Games
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows (Reviewed)
Release Date: March 10, 2025
Players: 1-3
Price: $49.99
Like most of Koei Tecmo’s games, Rise of the Ronin is a pretty entertaining lesson in history, this time pertaining to the final years of the Edo period. The game’s main plot, the story of the Veiled Blade twins, happens simultaneous to a period of political and ideological conflict in Japan that left its population split.
The main character is presented with anti-shogunate and pro-shogunate choices, immersing the player in the conflict from the perspective of an outsider. While the story is genuinely fantastic, it does have some issues when it comes to player choice, as the game takes its time before letting you fully commit to a side, assuming the player is neutral for a good chunk of its events.
Players will have to work with British/American characters even if they are anti-shogunate and vice-versa, for the sake of progressing the story, while also being constantly faced with moments where they can only act out of character for the sake of fleshing out both sides of the conflict, lessening roleplaying and story agency in the process.
Even if it does have its issues when it comes to player choice, the story is one of the game’s strongest components, and the acting really helps sell that. Rise of the Ronin features fantastic performances by its Japanese cast, but unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the game’s English dub, which seems to suffer from some baffling direction choices.
There’s really no competition when the game features standout actors like Takehito Koyasu (DIO, Toji Fushiguro) and Yui Ishikawa (Mikasa Ackerman, Violet Evergarden), in its Japanese cast, while the English cast relegates its lesser-known actors to deliver intentionally awkward performances that feel like a bad impression of the original dialogue.
The player cannot pick and choose, having to either stick to awkward English or perfect Japanese, which is a shame, because not only does it feel weird to hear American characters speak fluent Japanese, but some performances, like John Hopkins as Matthew Perry and Will De Renzy-Martin as Ernest Satow, are great and go unheard because of other intentionally stilted performances.
Rise of the Ronin opts for a souls-like combat system, similar to previous Team Ninja titles like Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and Stranger of Paradise, although much less frenetic in pace. Strikes are now more deliberate, and enemies don’t have incredibly long chains of attacks, although it still requires players to engage with its mechanics.
The game is parry-centric, but blocking is equally as viable, not punishing the player with massive chip damage and in general making Rise of the Ronin a more forgiving experience. That doesn’t mean the game is necessarily easy, but those looking for a more “authentic” Team Ninja experience might want to play it on the harder difficulties.
One interesting addition to the souls-like formula is the duo system, which lets players control multiple characters during fights. This also serves as a “second chance” mechanic, since the player isn’t immediately killed when defeated in battle and can have their health recovered by their partners as long as there are healing items still available.
The game also iterates upon Nioh‘s combat system, giving each weapon different stances that the player can equip and switch between at will. Each stance comes with its own set of special moves, which make combat feel very dynamic as you constantly adapt to face different enemies.
Players have a good amount of freedom over how they approach combat, as Rise of the Ronin features a wide variety of weapons, even allowing for unarmed builds, which is pretty novel to see in a game that primarily focuses on sword fighting.
The stances available vary from more traditional Japanese techinques like Iaido and Shinto Munen to British military training and Chinese Qingping. Some fighting styles from other Koei titles are also included as extras, like the one that gives players Ryu Hayabusa’s moveset, Izuna Drop included.
Rise of the Ronin‘s gameplay loop consists of following main story missions while exploring the large open-world map. Side activities include visiting shrines and landmarks for extra skill points, liberating small settlements from bandits for rewards, and completing side quests for the locals.
It’s a very Ubisoft-esque open world formula, but in Rise of the Ronin‘s case its held together by a tight combat system and an engaging setting. Even if some of the side content has its problems, which we’ll discuss more later, the majority of it is engaging and fun to do.
Moving through the open world is painless for the most part, as the player gets quite a few mobility tools to make exploration more engaging. Players can ride on horseback, zip around with a grappling hook, and even fly with a makeshift glider. Both the open world and major cities are also built with verticality in mind to support that added mobility.
Rise of the Ronin‘s side activities don’t entirely rely on exploration, as the game puts a lot of emphasis on variety. Players can gamble, take on gliding challenges, compete in horseback archery, romance story characters, and more.
One of the most engaging ones is the dojo, where the player fights against bonded characters in sparring matches. Figuring out these characters’ complex movesets and trying to do each fight perfectly is incredibly fun and genuinely makes you better at parrying too, creating an engaging practice mode.
Each activity has different rankings with rewards attached to them, incentivizing players to get better at different aspects of the game. Some of these activities provide significant enhancements to your character, while others are there for the sake of competing in an online leaderboard.
While most of the side activities are fun, it’s quite clear that the game has a lack of focus when it comes to its open world. Even if Team Ninja put in as much effort as possible to make sure every system ties back into the game and its combat, it’s still a checklist of random things at the end of the day.
At some point while you go around the world and pet a hundred cats or snap fifty pictures of historical monuments, it registers that you are simply going somewhere, pressing a button, and leaving to do the same thing again somewhere else.
The game definitely has compelling side content, like the bond character requests, fugitive boss fights, and a plethora of side quests, but it insists on adding bloat in equal measure. It feels weird to complain about a game having too much content, but Rise of the Ronin could have half of its open-world activities cut down, and it would still be a lot.
The game also flirts with an RPG gear system, although it doesn’t really amount to much in the end. Players can go through most of the game without worrying about stats or unique effects just fine.
Just looking at how many variations of the same effect exist, like Attack+, Attack+ (At Night), and Attack+ (Every Monday whose date ends with an odd number), is enough to deter anyone from trying to engage with it on a serious level, especially when these bonuses are usually something like a 1% increase. This is a bad habit that unfortunately plagues a lot of Team Ninja’s games.
Equipping whatever has the highest level by default will already be more than enough to deal with most of what the game throws at you, so there’s no need to break out the spreadsheets and try to optimize your build by farming for affixes like you’re playing Diablo.
Rise of the Ronin is also included in Koei Tecmo’s newfound care towards PC ports. The game has all of the bells and whistles you would expect a PC title to have, including ultrawide support, DLSS, FSR, and Frame Generation, as well as 8K resolution and support for up to 120 FPS.
My time with the game was very smooth on high with the balanced DLSS preset turned on, giving a stable 60 frames per second throughout my entire playthrough. Ultra seems to require a more performance-focused preset, and even though it is not required for a stable 60, it benefits from frame generation if your card is able to perform it.
One surprising inclusion was a very cohesive mouse and keyboard control layout, including an extensive list of things that can be remapped to up to two different keys. Koei seems to have realized how big of a fanbase they have on PC, and it’s nice that they are finally putting more effort into their ports; there really isn’t much that’s missing here.
Rise of the Ronin is, of course, a dramatized version of the historical events it presents, but it happens to be one of Koei Tecmo’s most “grounded” versions of Japan so far, feeling like a more refined, modern take on something like Acquire’s Way of the Samurai series.
The game is genuinely entertaining from beginning to end, doing a great job at fleshing out its characters while also featuring memorable boss fights and surprising story twists here and there, offering players a bleak look into the turmoil Japan was facing at the time.
The open world and RPG aspects are not perfect by any means, but those are minor issues on an otherwise very engaging and competent experience that is acted out masterfully. If you are interested in Japanese history or simply want more of Team Ninja’s brutally satisfying combats, go grab Rise of the Ronin.
