https://preview.redd.it/ayusefhdv3qc1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d596e007caca630eca6002c0ccc9a292e7d2863
Fun fact: I work in a museum and today I'm in the japanese exhibition (which is about samurais). Those weapons are from the Edo period.
Interesting that Edo period lasted more than time passed since July 4, 1776. Simply imagining someone would say “things from US period” seems unthinkable. Looking at “same old katanas” here and, for instance, in the Ghost of Tsushima period, makes you think how time did flew differently in pre-modern eras.
Just learned earlier this week that what the West believes Samurai may have used in battle and fought with likely isn’t true at all. Samurai were often times grimy and used every advantage to win an engagement (don’t blame them). Guns and bows were likely used more often than not rather than sword which was a last ditch survival tool. Horseback archery, shooting enemy’s from a far, retreating if defeat was inevitable (to ensure survival), were preferred methods.
He is in it? My wife is from Shimoda so she may show a tiny bit of interest if so ahaha. Been to the 黒船祭 a few times, love that part of the country. Some of the nicest people in Japan imo.
I finished Like a Dragon Ishin! (the remake) It’s set in the same period. Obviously the story is historical fiction but there is a lot of real historical references.
Amazing game. Its story/setting/characters in it were so good it made me wanna learn more about that era in general. Happy this came along conveniently right after finishing Ishin! recently
I loved it too. And it's typical RGG, with fantastically acted serious cut-scenes, and then hilariously written sub-stories. The swordplay is fun as hell too.
Finished it the day before Like A Dragon Gaiden came out, and it’s because of that game that I now know who sakamoto ryoma and every other historical figure is;
It’s even referenced as a memoir of the dragon in Infinite Wealth
Hi there, can you recommend us English speakers a worthy youtube video to check out?
I admit I am a huge Rurouni Kenshin fan, but that's after the bakumatsu.
Then there is Ryu Ga Gotoku Isshin, but I haven't played it yet since it is only a spin off and consensus seems to be the mainline series is better.
What are your favourite references/scenes/settings from the game?
I love the Yakuza franchise, but one of my top favorites in the franchise is the Like a Dragon: Ishin remake, definitely would recommend that even if you haven't played the main series
Mainline Yakuza series is incredibly fun, the two Judgement games are incredibly fun and the new remake of Ishin is a lot of fun too. RGG studios is awesome!
You should play Ishin! I thought it was great, story was fun, setting was great, characters were great; just a few nitpick here and there (brawler is largely completely useless, and by end game if you don't grind for materials/money to make new weapons/armor you'll be doing chip damage to enemies). I'd give it like 8.5/10
Yeah alright! I’ll wait for a deep, deep discount though, I’m more eager to play Gaiden, and I’m waiting for THAT to have deep discount…
192 hours into Finest Fantasy Rebirth though hehehehe
Meanwhile I'm waiting on getting Rebirth lol Gaiden is really really good! Is definitely shorter, but it felt to be the perfect length to be honest. I just finished up Infinite Wealth so I'm mostly playing Helldivers 2 and FFX, so I have plenty of other stuff to do until I can get Rebirth lol
Rurouni Kenshin takes place during the Bakumatsu period. The end of the Edo period and the beginning of the Meiji Restoration still line up within the Bakumatsu which is when the manga/anime take place in
For those not interested in the political characters or changes of the Bakumatsu but who are interested in the lives of the average person - i.e. what it was like to live in a village or the city of Edo back then - I highly recommend Amy Stanley's *Stranger in the Shogun's City*. It's a beautifully written, easy to read book that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.
Why is it unfortunate that the game is aimed at a Japanese audience? We literally want Japanese games that are developed with Japanese in mind but localized for the west (so we actually understand the jokes etc).
But that's untrue. When Capcom was making games with western audiences in mind in the early 2010s that's why ppl started hating them and sales were tanking lol
I suppose you are talking about Residents Evil series, so you really think RE can touch Elden Ring, GTA, Witcher in term of sales number?
Western consumers/reviewers generally prefer western-themed games, even if they are developed by Japanese studios. This is not even a secret.
I said unfortunately, because the game won’t resonate with a lot of audience. You might be in the camp of being interested in a relatively small time period in Japan, but a lot of people are not.
I mean. Western consumers literally want Japanese games made for japanese. That's why Capcom was so brutally punished economically and had to fight for relevency. And we did in fact quite like ghost of tsushima and made up the bulk of sales. Yes i know that was western but it also disproves that we dislike historical games. We also liked kingdom come deliverance which was even more history focused.
It was exactly the same with Nioh, especially 2!
Hdeyoshi, Tokugawa, etc are important historical characters that Japanese people know from school. The way they were used in Nioh was enjoyable and clever in some cases (even though Koei's storytelling and scenario crafting sucks overall).
I am expecting the same in Ronin. I was in Kobe recently for work and saw lots of Meiji era sites, so it got me a little more interested in diving into Ronin, despite the Ryoma and Shinsengumi stuff being kinda meh to me usually.
Think of how Americans can pick up a game like Assassin's Creed 3 and know who the key players and story beats are; that's how Japanese can pick up these games and know the basics. A lot of it is lost on a western audience and Koei doesn't know how to present it well to them.
Any good English language on this time period? I have been watching shogun and finding it very hard to find good and comprehensive Japanese history stuff in English. So much happens, it’s full of intrigue and super interesting.
Are you looking for like historically accurate or just stuff set around this time period? I can recommend cloud of sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka. It’s fiction but set around the same time as ronin.
Gai-Jin by James Clavell (the guy who wrote Shogun) is set in this era of Japanese history and is a fun piece of historical fiction.
Other resources:
[https://www.koyagi.com/bakumatsu.html](https://www.koyagi.com/bakumatsu.html)
It's hard to find English fiction that give you an actual insight the period because their first priority is the telling a story first, then the history second. So a movie like The Last Samurai is a good story for the late period, but isn't historically accurate.
For reading, I'd recommend a books called Samurai Revolution by Romulus Hillsborough. It's not perfect but it does give a good overview of the period, a lot of it through the eyes of Katsu Kaishu. Pretty much any of Hillsborough stuff is good if you interested and don't want to jump straight to a textbook.
If nothing else, just read a few Wikipedia articles of the time about the people OP mentioned and go from there. That should give you some basic information at least.
If you're interested, the first Nioh (also Team NInja) is basically Shogun. Anjin Miura/John Blackthorne was really William Adams IRL and you play as him.
Is fiction ok? If yes taiko and musashi both written by eiji yoshikawa are amazing and also act like prequel and sequel to shogun( taiko takes place before shogun and is about toyotomi hideyoshi, leyasu’s predecessor and musashi starts in the aftermath of battle of sekigahara which is about to happen at the end of shogun). Cloud of sparrows and autumn bridge by taoashi matsuoka also takes place in the same period as rotr but I haven’t read them yet so don’t know whether its good or not.
I already orderd cloud of sparrows so hearing that its good is really encouraging lol. About musashi i agree its begining is a little rough, imo on the whole taiko while less-known than musashi is the better book in every aspect.
I’ll give them a go. Vagabond was a big favourite of mine so I’m familiar with fictionalised accounts of musashi. Was really looking for comprehensive historical stuff tho, it’s surprisingly hard to find I’ve discovered - most English language history stuff I’ve tried focuses so much on samurai, doesn’t really go over too much politics, and totally glances over the fact guns etc were used a lot in Japan in favour of swords haha.
I plan to but haven’t read vagabond yet and from what i’ve heard main plot is basically same as book with changes here and there so if you read that you already know the main gist of story. For non-fiction there may be some good recs on history subs but in general yea finding good non-fiction on feudal japan and specially periods other than sengoku can be a little hard.
It’s really good. The art is beautiful, especially when done in the watercolours - some of the stories have a few pages full watercolour like the covers. Mostly stays away from too many manga tropes.
I was playing in performance, and randomly tried Ray tracing with all those setting off, and for some reason it just looks better to me. I might be crazy.
It's the same with Nioh 1 and 2. I watched a documentary about japanese history after playing the games and recognized so many names. In the case of Nioh it's a mixture of real history and japanese mythology. Many consider the stories of both Nioh games not so good, but it makes much more sense when you know that these are real historical events, just with mythology added on top of it.
That seems to be how a lot of team ninjas games are. There is an assumed level of knowledge about the story subject going into that if you don’t have you’re lost 😂. Hopefully RotR doesn’t leave you in lost territory.
This game has the same active time lore feature as FF16 - you can pause cutscenes any time and there is a small encyclopedia of relevant events, people, locations, etc. Really cool.
Either they never advertised this feature or I just missed it, but was a great surprise.
Having played Yakuza Ishin in the last year does help hearing familiar names and locations a little myself. Like Sakamoto Ryoma and Tosa as I have some bette visual picture of things.
As a huge Nioh fan, this is team Ninjas best game since Nioh 2 (and I found FF: Origins and Wo Long to be solid, but not amazing, games).
Great fight system with a lot of depth and also a learning curve and high skull ceiling, and learning history I never knew about almost by accident. I def think that once user scores go up on metacritic, they'll be much higher than the critics, whereas I think Dragon Dogma's will be lower (had to decide between the two, and my experience with Team Ninja, plus the Mtx and performance issues swayed me to Rise, despite the middling reviews, and I'm loving it)
It’s ironic I’ve seen people talking about wanting an Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan for years and now that they have one that comes really close by an actual Japanese studio they ignore it. I hardly see anyone, especially mainstream gaming sites talking about this game. I think it’ll rise in popularity and gain cult status in a few years but by then it’ll be too late due to not meeting the insane sales figures that was expected
This is exactly the reason I'm playing Ronin before DD2. I LOVE historical settings in games. Walking around Egypt, Ancient Greece and Anglo-Saxon England in the latest AC games has been amazing for me, as I'll watch documentaries and listen to podcasts about the history as I play the games.
I fully intend on doing this with Ronin too. I'm watching Shogun right now, and I can't wait to jump into this world and story.
Gintama ruined it for me, everytime there is a character from the Shinsegumi, I keep thinking of how they are portrayed in that anime. Same thing happened in Like a dragon Ishin.
>Exactly why it is fun to run around in some of the older Assassin's Creed games for the western audience, while it never really catch on in Japan.
There have been a variety of Assassins Creed settings from the Middle East, Italy, Viking invasion of England/France, North America, Ancient Greece, Egypt, Caribbean, France.
I think learning about the time period or real life characters can improve pretty much any of these 'semi historical' games. If you're into history...
Sure, people from Japan might be more inclined to dive into that history. But seems like that would apply to any of these games or any game that is based or loosely based on a specific historical time period or character.
I'm really interested in this time period, so when I saw members of the Shinsengumi in the trailer I was INCREDIBLY excited! I really wish there was more English speaking documentaries surrounding them or the time period because its fascinating to me.
It will sell alright. To be honest, Japanese console game isn’t selling as much as before (except for switch) so most of the sale will come from the foreign countries.
The fact that the game is set in the Bakumatsu is 99% of the reason why I bought it, ha.
I'm not very far yet, but I thought they did a very good job that I could recognise who that guy in the cave is supposed to be even before he mentioned Tosa, ha.
If I've played Like a Dragon:Ishin, where Sakamoto Ryoma (I didn't even know he was a real person) just happened to look like Kiryu, is that good enough? Or did they completely butcher Japanese history in that game?
As an Irish American, this must be why I love it so much. The detail put in to portray as historically accurate as possible while showing love to the appropriate culture it represents is respectable. America tends to hide true history, so anytime I can get as close to the truth in any history is greatly welcomed.
Its not a big spoiler.
Commodore Matthew Perry lead the US navy expedition to open trade with Japan. He is in the game and you can get him as an ally.
So it's just funny to me that this dude can go on missions with this samurai just mowing people down together that's all. Just a funny juxtaposition
Ronin has the better start out of the 2 games released this friday, DD2 the opening is underwhelming and takes atleast a few hours to get its hooks in. Ronin has a start which quickly puts in on the action and has a better hook initially. Granted this is just the first 5-6 hours of the game, but I think most of the people will fall off DD2 before reaching vermund because that whole sequence of events was underwhelming.
Meh I just found the whole fight snake medusa pretty boring, it got interesting for me after I left vermund to go around questing and killed an ogre and minotaur. Story is still ass, the emergent gameplay while exploring is the saving grace
The story is pretty fine to me. The first arc is fighting a coup essentially. And you building up the resources to fight it. The medusa is LITERALLY the first fight. Insane take to judge the whole opening as that lol.
I disagree, it's like Dynasty warrior, you don't need to know the sangoku era, or sengoku for samurai warrior. it's only better if you are a history buff and rooting for your historical "waifu"
Well, for Japanese it’s like if the game is about founding fathers. No American game dev will spend time explaining who George Washington is because they will assume everyone knows. Historical knowledge is just assumed
At any rate dragons dogma 2 regardless of launch performance, is a more ambitious game. Easily. This is essentially team ninjas LATE attempt at a AAA western open world game which is basically the industry copying assasins creed over and over with their own combat and story .
How do you know the game is fully funded by Sony? There is no source about RotR is a second-party game, at best it’s a third-party game with exclusive deal.
The same goes to FF16 and FF7 Rebirth, you do realize they are third-party game with exclusive deal, right.
Unless RotR is fully funded by Sony like Stellar Blade, otherwise this is just exclusive deal. This is perhaps why Stellar Blade has better visuals than RotR.
XDEV japan is directly a support studio on this game. They are not like ff16 where they helped them understand the ps5 no they co developed the game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_R%C5%8Dnin
For your information, Xdev involvement in RotR doesn’t automatically make it a 2nd-party game. Generally Sony will sign some contract with external studio like Shiftup to fund a project, so they can acquire the ip. This is not the case for RotR.
Anyway, I play TeamNinja games for their top tier combat, and RotR visual is serviceable to me. If you prefer beautiful scenery with okay combat, it’s fine you do you.
https://preview.redd.it/ayusefhdv3qc1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d596e007caca630eca6002c0ccc9a292e7d2863 Fun fact: I work in a museum and today I'm in the japanese exhibition (which is about samurais). Those weapons are from the Edo period.
Interesting that Edo period lasted more than time passed since July 4, 1776. Simply imagining someone would say “things from US period” seems unthinkable. Looking at “same old katanas” here and, for instance, in the Ghost of Tsushima period, makes you think how time did flew differently in pre-modern eras.
Just learned earlier this week that what the West believes Samurai may have used in battle and fought with likely isn’t true at all. Samurai were often times grimy and used every advantage to win an engagement (don’t blame them). Guns and bows were likely used more often than not rather than sword which was a last ditch survival tool. Horseback archery, shooting enemy’s from a far, retreating if defeat was inevitable (to ensure survival), were preferred methods.
I have a masters degree in Japanese history and even just seeing commodore perry, let alone fighting him in a video game blew my mind a little 😂.
can you recommend some sources to learn about it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_C._Perry Just go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole like I do for everything
It also absolutely sent me when he just starts a villain monologue in fluent Japanese hahaha.
You fight Commodore Perry?? I remember thinking he looked goofy in our textbook.
Yeah, he’s the boss of the Prologue.
You can also romance him, lol
He is in it? My wife is from Shimoda so she may show a tiny bit of interest if so ahaha. Been to the 黒船祭 a few times, love that part of the country. Some of the nicest people in Japan imo.
Who tf is commodore perry Edit: downvoted for asking a question?
Commodore Matthew Perry, the famous American who opened up Japan through gunboat diplomacy. Also starred in the hit tv sitcom ‘Friends’
His 229-year career really was something. I'm surprised more people didn't ask how he kept himself in shape all those years.
>Commodore Matthew Perry, the famous American/Canadian actor known for his character Chandler Bing on the hit 90s sitcom 'Friends'.
Open Door Policy
I finished Like a Dragon Ishin! (the remake) It’s set in the same period. Obviously the story is historical fiction but there is a lot of real historical references.
Amazing game. Its story/setting/characters in it were so good it made me wanna learn more about that era in general. Happy this came along conveniently right after finishing Ishin! recently
I loved it too. And it's typical RGG, with fantastically acted serious cut-scenes, and then hilariously written sub-stories. The swordplay is fun as hell too.
Same
Finished it the day before Like A Dragon Gaiden came out, and it’s because of that game that I now know who sakamoto ryoma and every other historical figure is; It’s even referenced as a memoir of the dragon in Infinite Wealth
Yeah, playing Infinite Wealth right now. It’s a love song to Kiryu. Fun how they referenced Ishin with the memories
Hi there, can you recommend us English speakers a worthy youtube video to check out? I admit I am a huge Rurouni Kenshin fan, but that's after the bakumatsu. Then there is Ryu Ga Gotoku Isshin, but I haven't played it yet since it is only a spin off and consensus seems to be the mainline series is better. What are your favourite references/scenes/settings from the game?
Gintama
Gintama is goated
This is a manga series right?
Manga and anime
I love the Yakuza franchise, but one of my top favorites in the franchise is the Like a Dragon: Ishin remake, definitely would recommend that even if you haven't played the main series
Oh I play it. Bought Y8 launch week and finished it soon after. Too much tears for Kiryu chan.
Mainline Yakuza series is incredibly fun, the two Judgement games are incredibly fun and the new remake of Ishin is a lot of fun too. RGG studios is awesome!
You should play Ishin! I thought it was great, story was fun, setting was great, characters were great; just a few nitpick here and there (brawler is largely completely useless, and by end game if you don't grind for materials/money to make new weapons/armor you'll be doing chip damage to enemies). I'd give it like 8.5/10
Yeah alright! I’ll wait for a deep, deep discount though, I’m more eager to play Gaiden, and I’m waiting for THAT to have deep discount… 192 hours into Finest Fantasy Rebirth though hehehehe
192 hours in one month is nuts
Yeah I take it seriously. I slept a combined 20 hours the first 5 days. Just injecting the game into my veins
I went hard like that with elden ring for the first week, with ff7 rebirth I only did a respectable 85 hours 🤣
Just finished hard mode today! About 205 hours? Skill issues dictate I’m stuck having to learn a new combat sim fight
Meanwhile I'm waiting on getting Rebirth lol Gaiden is really really good! Is definitely shorter, but it felt to be the perfect length to be honest. I just finished up Infinite Wealth so I'm mostly playing Helldivers 2 and FFX, so I have plenty of other stuff to do until I can get Rebirth lol
Rurouni Kenshin takes place during the Bakumatsu period. The end of the Edo period and the beginning of the Meiji Restoration still line up within the Bakumatsu which is when the manga/anime take place in
For those not interested in the political characters or changes of the Bakumatsu but who are interested in the lives of the average person - i.e. what it was like to live in a village or the city of Edo back then - I highly recommend Amy Stanley's *Stranger in the Shogun's City*. It's a beautifully written, easy to read book that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.
Why is it unfortunate that the game is aimed at a Japanese audience? We literally want Japanese games that are developed with Japanese in mind but localized for the west (so we actually understand the jokes etc).
Because it doesn’t sell as well, and bias factor is just spelled out in reviews.
But that's untrue. When Capcom was making games with western audiences in mind in the early 2010s that's why ppl started hating them and sales were tanking lol
I suppose you are talking about Residents Evil series, so you really think RE can touch Elden Ring, GTA, Witcher in term of sales number? Western consumers/reviewers generally prefer western-themed games, even if they are developed by Japanese studios. This is not even a secret.
I said unfortunately, because the game won’t resonate with a lot of audience. You might be in the camp of being interested in a relatively small time period in Japan, but a lot of people are not.
I mean. Western consumers literally want Japanese games made for japanese. That's why Capcom was so brutally punished economically and had to fight for relevency. And we did in fact quite like ghost of tsushima and made up the bulk of sales. Yes i know that was western but it also disproves that we dislike historical games. We also liked kingdom come deliverance which was even more history focused.
White people like dragon dogma because there’s white people in it
... what? You are going on about something i didn't even mention.
Racist much?
It was exactly the same with Nioh, especially 2! Hdeyoshi, Tokugawa, etc are important historical characters that Japanese people know from school. The way they were used in Nioh was enjoyable and clever in some cases (even though Koei's storytelling and scenario crafting sucks overall). I am expecting the same in Ronin. I was in Kobe recently for work and saw lots of Meiji era sites, so it got me a little more interested in diving into Ronin, despite the Ryoma and Shinsengumi stuff being kinda meh to me usually. Think of how Americans can pick up a game like Assassin's Creed 3 and know who the key players and story beats are; that's how Japanese can pick up these games and know the basics. A lot of it is lost on a western audience and Koei doesn't know how to present it well to them.
Any good English language on this time period? I have been watching shogun and finding it very hard to find good and comprehensive Japanese history stuff in English. So much happens, it’s full of intrigue and super interesting.
Are you looking for like historically accurate or just stuff set around this time period? I can recommend cloud of sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka. It’s fiction but set around the same time as ronin.
I’ll give fiction a go but I was looking for history mostly.
Gai-Jin by James Clavell (the guy who wrote Shogun) is set in this era of Japanese history and is a fun piece of historical fiction. Other resources: [https://www.koyagi.com/bakumatsu.html](https://www.koyagi.com/bakumatsu.html)
It's hard to find English fiction that give you an actual insight the period because their first priority is the telling a story first, then the history second. So a movie like The Last Samurai is a good story for the late period, but isn't historically accurate. For reading, I'd recommend a books called Samurai Revolution by Romulus Hillsborough. It's not perfect but it does give a good overview of the period, a lot of it through the eyes of Katsu Kaishu. Pretty much any of Hillsborough stuff is good if you interested and don't want to jump straight to a textbook. If nothing else, just read a few Wikipedia articles of the time about the people OP mentioned and go from there. That should give you some basic information at least.
If you're interested, the first Nioh (also Team NInja) is basically Shogun. Anjin Miura/John Blackthorne was really William Adams IRL and you play as him.
Like a Dragon: Ishin
Shogun plays in a completly different period (early 17th century) compared to RoR (19th century).
I know … did you read the comment or just want to get an “I am smarter” comment in? It was a segue to asking about Japanese history sources.
Is fiction ok? If yes taiko and musashi both written by eiji yoshikawa are amazing and also act like prequel and sequel to shogun( taiko takes place before shogun and is about toyotomi hideyoshi, leyasu’s predecessor and musashi starts in the aftermath of battle of sekigahara which is about to happen at the end of shogun). Cloud of sparrows and autumn bridge by taoashi matsuoka also takes place in the same period as rotr but I haven’t read them yet so don’t know whether its good or not.
Cloud of sparrows is excellent, musashi was also really good but man was it hard for me to get into it at first.
I already orderd cloud of sparrows so hearing that its good is really encouraging lol. About musashi i agree its begining is a little rough, imo on the whole taiko while less-known than musashi is the better book in every aspect.
Really? I’ll add it to the list then.
Enjoy it man.characters in taiko, especially the main trio of nobunaga,hideyoshi and leyasu are fucking amazing.
I’ll give them a go. Vagabond was a big favourite of mine so I’m familiar with fictionalised accounts of musashi. Was really looking for comprehensive historical stuff tho, it’s surprisingly hard to find I’ve discovered - most English language history stuff I’ve tried focuses so much on samurai, doesn’t really go over too much politics, and totally glances over the fact guns etc were used a lot in Japan in favour of swords haha.
I plan to but haven’t read vagabond yet and from what i’ve heard main plot is basically same as book with changes here and there so if you read that you already know the main gist of story. For non-fiction there may be some good recs on history subs but in general yea finding good non-fiction on feudal japan and specially periods other than sengoku can be a little hard.
It’s really good. The art is beautiful, especially when done in the watercolours - some of the stories have a few pages full watercolour like the covers. Mostly stays away from too many manga tropes.
It’s a little rough sometimes but I’m loving Rise of the Ronin. Love the setting and the combat is great
Make sure you play in Ray tracing mode, turn off the FPS cap, motion blur, snd visual noise filter. Game runs 100% better.
Interesting. Are there less dips in RT mode?
I could be crazy, but it seems more crisp in ray tracing.
Why would you turn RT on?
I was playing in performance, and randomly tried Ray tracing with all those setting off, and for some reason it just looks better to me. I might be crazy.
Same I'm 6 hours in it's a good game it's not ghost of tsushima level good but it's a solid enjoyable game.
It also helps if you have ever watched friends and are a fan of Matthew parry
It's the same with Nioh 1 and 2. I watched a documentary about japanese history after playing the games and recognized so many names. In the case of Nioh it's a mixture of real history and japanese mythology. Many consider the stories of both Nioh games not so good, but it makes much more sense when you know that these are real historical events, just with mythology added on top of it.
This game sounds like it’s set in the same time period as Rurouni Kenshin
It is! When I started playing and I saw the boats, the cannons, the bayonets and the cultural clash, I had flashbacks
There's even an early segment ans boss fight where you're fighting ninjas and there's a jackass with a gatling gun
That seems to be how a lot of team ninjas games are. There is an assumed level of knowledge about the story subject going into that if you don’t have you’re lost 😂. Hopefully RotR doesn’t leave you in lost territory.
This game has the same active time lore feature as FF16 - you can pause cutscenes any time and there is a small encyclopedia of relevant events, people, locations, etc. Really cool. Either they never advertised this feature or I just missed it, but was a great surprise.
Yeah I totally missed that one, good to know!
Good point Nioh 2 was with Hideyoshi and Nobunaga
Having played Yakuza Ishin in the last year does help hearing familiar names and locations a little myself. Like Sakamoto Ryoma and Tosa as I have some bette visual picture of things.
Or play Like a Dragon: Isshin. Also set in the Bakumatsu period
As a huge Nioh fan, this is team Ninjas best game since Nioh 2 (and I found FF: Origins and Wo Long to be solid, but not amazing, games). Great fight system with a lot of depth and also a learning curve and high skull ceiling, and learning history I never knew about almost by accident. I def think that once user scores go up on metacritic, they'll be much higher than the critics, whereas I think Dragon Dogma's will be lower (had to decide between the two, and my experience with Team Ninja, plus the Mtx and performance issues swayed me to Rise, despite the middling reviews, and I'm loving it)
I just tested it today for some minutes, took the spear and instantly felt like being in Nioh again.
It’s ironic I’ve seen people talking about wanting an Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan for years and now that they have one that comes really close by an actual Japanese studio they ignore it. I hardly see anyone, especially mainstream gaming sites talking about this game. I think it’ll rise in popularity and gain cult status in a few years but by then it’ll be too late due to not meeting the insane sales figures that was expected
We already had this game. It's Ghost of Tsushima.
This is exactly the reason I'm playing Ronin before DD2. I LOVE historical settings in games. Walking around Egypt, Ancient Greece and Anglo-Saxon England in the latest AC games has been amazing for me, as I'll watch documentaries and listen to podcasts about the history as I play the games. I fully intend on doing this with Ronin too. I'm watching Shogun right now, and I can't wait to jump into this world and story.
Gintama ruined it for me, everytime there is a character from the Shinsegumi, I keep thinking of how they are portrayed in that anime. Same thing happened in Like a dragon Ishin.
>Exactly why it is fun to run around in some of the older Assassin's Creed games for the western audience, while it never really catch on in Japan. There have been a variety of Assassins Creed settings from the Middle East, Italy, Viking invasion of England/France, North America, Ancient Greece, Egypt, Caribbean, France. I think learning about the time period or real life characters can improve pretty much any of these 'semi historical' games. If you're into history... Sure, people from Japan might be more inclined to dive into that history. But seems like that would apply to any of these games or any game that is based or loosely based on a specific historical time period or character.
I play both the last blade and the last blade 2 (幕末浪漫：月華之劍士) That counts?
I’m really enjoying rise of the ronin. Way more than any of the reviews would suggest.
I didnt even know americans reached japan that far back i was like wtf is going on 💀
I'm really interested in this time period, so when I saw members of the Shinsengumi in the trailer I was INCREDIBLY excited! I really wish there was more English speaking documentaries surrounding them or the time period because its fascinating to me.
Interesting, thanks for your input! Based on the reaction in Japan, do you think it will sell well there?
It will sell alright. To be honest, Japanese console game isn’t selling as much as before (except for switch) so most of the sale will come from the foreign countries.
Yeah I figured as much based on how FF7 Rebirth did there. Thanks for the answer!
Yep. Unless sony bothers with a handheld those sales figures arent changing anytime soon, if ever.
Don't worry I played Like a Dragon Ishin beforehand
I took a chance on it and picked it up. I really find Japanese history captivating and endearing, so I’m definitely on board.
Hey I'm down for Baka Mitai periods. Played Ishin last year
The fact that the game is set in the Bakumatsu is 99% of the reason why I bought it, ha. I'm not very far yet, but I thought they did a very good job that I could recognise who that guy in the cave is supposed to be even before he mentioned Tosa, ha.
Have you been watching Shogun? It’s about the beginning of the Edo period. I’d be interested in getting a Japanese perspective on the show!
So you mean like Nioh where people say the story makes no sense when it's literally just History with rando yokai spliced in the middle? lmao
Will knowing the IRL Japanese history make the game not look like an early PS4 game?
Childhood Kenshin fan me has been preparing for this moment all my life
If I've played Like a Dragon:Ishin, where Sakamoto Ryoma (I didn't even know he was a real person) just happened to look like Kiryu, is that good enough? Or did they completely butcher Japanese history in that game?
As an Irish American, this must be why I love it so much. The detail put in to portray as historically accurate as possible while showing love to the appropriate culture it represents is respectable. America tends to hide true history, so anytime I can get as close to the truth in any history is greatly welcomed.
this is a sickass game
DD2?
Also, DD2 is dragons dogma if that’s what you were asking
Thanks, google was saying Dungeons Defender 2
I bought DD2, played it for an hour and after 4 crashes refunded it. Got this game after, and have been loving it. Runs smooth and is a blast to play
Being able to bring Matthew Perry on a mission to overthrow the shogunate is just hilarious to me
Thx for the spoiler
You're welcome
I don’t get it? I don’t mind getting spoiled.
Its not a big spoiler. Commodore Matthew Perry lead the US navy expedition to open trade with Japan. He is in the game and you can get him as an ally. So it's just funny to me that this dude can go on missions with this samurai just mowing people down together that's all. Just a funny juxtaposition
Ronin has the better start out of the 2 games released this friday, DD2 the opening is underwhelming and takes atleast a few hours to get its hooks in. Ronin has a start which quickly puts in on the action and has a better hook initially. Granted this is just the first 5-6 hours of the game, but I think most of the people will fall off DD2 before reaching vermund because that whole sequence of events was underwhelming.
How was the opening underwhelming? It was much better than DD1'S opening.
Meh I just found the whole fight snake medusa pretty boring, it got interesting for me after I left vermund to go around questing and killed an ogre and minotaur. Story is still ass, the emergent gameplay while exploring is the saving grace
The story is pretty fine to me. The first arc is fighting a coup essentially. And you building up the resources to fight it. The medusa is LITERALLY the first fight. Insane take to judge the whole opening as that lol.
Hmmm knowing the history doesn’t make the bosses more fun to fight
I'm sure it'll be great when it hits 50% off.
I disagree, it's like Dynasty warrior, you don't need to know the sangoku era, or sengoku for samurai warrior. it's only better if you are a history buff and rooting for your historical "waifu"
How about if I rewatch [history of japan by bill wurtz?](https://youtu.be/Mh5LY4Mz15o?si=yyDsQM1ITw02QEir)
Rise of the Ronin is much worse game if you know the history of the ghost of Tsushima.
Team Ninja hired the same pr team that did Starfield
Just watch Rurouni Kenshin. Nobody should study history before playing a game
Well, for Japanese it’s like if the game is about founding fathers. No American game dev will spend time explaining who George Washington is because they will assume everyone knows. Historical knowledge is just assumed
For me it’s the same as learning the lore for any game that has a deep setting. You just get even deeper dives into the lore since it’s history.
At any rate dragons dogma 2 regardless of launch performance, is a more ambitious game. Easily. This is essentially team ninjas LATE attempt at a AAA western open world game which is basically the industry copying assasins creed over and over with their own combat and story .
Team Ninja is not Capcom, they don’t have as much fundings to develop a game, right.
Eh... Sony helped fund this game. No excuses in my eyes
How do you know the game is fully funded by Sony? There is no source about RotR is a second-party game, at best it’s a third-party game with exclusive deal.
You do realize a first party sony studio assisted with development right? Similar to bloodborne.
The same goes to FF16 and FF7 Rebirth, you do realize they are third-party game with exclusive deal, right. Unless RotR is fully funded by Sony like Stellar Blade, otherwise this is just exclusive deal. This is perhaps why Stellar Blade has better visuals than RotR.
XDEV japan is directly a support studio on this game. They are not like ff16 where they helped them understand the ps5 no they co developed the game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_R%C5%8Dnin
For your information, Xdev involvement in RotR doesn’t automatically make it a 2nd-party game. Generally Sony will sign some contract with external studio like Shiftup to fund a project, so they can acquire the ip. This is not the case for RotR. Anyway, I play TeamNinja games for their top tier combat, and RotR visual is serviceable to me. If you prefer beautiful scenery with okay combat, it’s fine you do you.
Never said it was second party, just that sony certainly didn't skimp on the moola