Gaming

Rise of the Ronin has a blade that cuts deep

But falls short of dealing a fatal blow.

Published

March 22, 2024

Rise of the Ronin feels like a wandering swordsman trying to do too much. It shines when focused on what it’s good at, which is fighting. And while it’s competent in other areas, it just isn’t as good as when you don’t have weapons in hand.

The game offers a challenging but not throw-your-controller level of combat. There are plenty of fighting styles, weapons, and encounter approaches to keep you engaged.

The main story will pique your interest. However, it sometimes feels like it takes a backseat to the personal stories of the characters you meet along the way. And that way is set in an open world that has a mixed bag of activities.

Mid 1800s Japan, Blade Twins

Rise of the Ronin is set in the mid-19th century Japan. It’s a time when there’s a fierce ideological clash that extends into actual crossing of swords. Should the country remain closed-off or should it be more welcoming to foreign forces. That’s an oversimplification, but I trust you get the gist.

In the midst of all of that, you play as one half of a Blade Twin assassin under The Veiled Edge clan. The two of you were taken in as children and grew up fighting together. But one fateful mission – the game’s opening – sees you two parting ways which the situation called for.

You return to your clan where your master is being attacked and while you ultimately best the attackers, you end up facing your master which leaves you masterless. Your goal now is to find your Blade Twin in a world filled with people with their own interests and agenda.

Character creator

The game being set in this particular time period means that if you’re a Kenshin Himura fan (Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X), know that you can most certainly take on this game as your very own Battousai.

I did make a Kenshin-ish character, throwing in some Takeru Satoh in there who played Himura in the fantastic live action adaptation of the franchise. Too bad there’s no option to put a cross mark on his left cheek. Here’s the character code if you want to use this as a template.

Battousai???

However, the Blade Twin story had me going in a different, quite unconventional direction. I instead went with two Japanese members of TWICE who were often mistaken for each other during their pre-debut and early years.

Blade Twins: Momo Hirai, Sana Minatozaki

The character creator was deep enough that I felt I was able to recreate the faces of both Momo Hirai and Sana Minatozaki. Believe it or not, this personally helped a lot in myself being a little bit more immersed in the Blade Twin story of it all.

Deep, challenging combat

You start off choosing a fighting style. Each of which has a better affinity to certain weapons you start with. I went with the default Uchigatana (Katana) and Odachi to keep things simple. But you can choose one that’s more oriented to speed and stealth, or one that’s just hand-to-hand combat.

At the heart of the combat is its parrying system, called countersparks. Countersparks allow you to stun and stagger an enemy, depleting his stamina gauge callede Ki, that then lets you deal heavy damage or even a finishing blow.

Getting the timing down can be tough especially with the unconventional default controls of the game. It’s definitely going to take a while to get used to and can be tough even in normal difficulty.

It is imperative to really get the basics down as this isn’t a game you can button mash your way through. Even a common-level enemy can punish you if you’re not paying attention and fight within the game’s intended mechanics.

Strength, Dexterity, Charm, and Intellect

From there, the combat opens up in interesting ways. Your primary skill tree is divided into four categories: Strength, Dexterity, Charm, and Intellect. Strength leans more towards sword, great sword, and rifle handling abilities. Dexterity applies to stealth, grappling, and arrow-shooting abilities, while charm and intellect lean more towards passive buffs and item crafting.

The Strength category unlocks cool sword skills like letting you deflect bullets. This is also where you upgrade the effects of your gun-toting skills. Your rifles gain more speed and distance while you learn handgun tricks and finishes.

Dexterity ups your ‘ninja game.’ Here, you learn skills like multiple assassinations where you can kill-off two targets quickly, consecutively. This also expands what you can do with your grappling hook. Some skills will let you to grapple enemies for quick assassinations or use it to throw items at tougher enemies with massive health.

All these skills prove useful in dealing with enemies as you progress through Rise of the Ronin .

Ten, Jin, Chi

These are the three primary fighting styles which apply to a whole suite of weapons. The game lets you play the way you want and is very generous with you acquiring these weapons. Learning the fighting styles though, is another story. You have to go on Bond Missions, Side Quests, or simply progress through the story to unlock certain fighting styles.

These, again, will prove useful. The more you progress, the more you’ll encounter enemies who can switch styles on the fly. This means you’ll have to switch too if you want to be effective against that particular enemy. Even if your level is higher than an opponent, you can still very much lose if you’re unable to adjust to an advantageous fighting style.

Fighting puzzle

All these mechanics combine to make a combat that will have you thinking on your feet. You have to balance patience and aggression to best your opponents. Learning the timings of their blows, keeping an eye on their stances, and using the fighting styles available to you, all while minding potential effects like poison and burning make this a deep and challenging combat gameplay.

The sword play in Rise of the Ronin is exquisite and extremely enjoyable. But sections of the game also do a good job of teaching you that going head-strong sword swinging isn’t always the best course of action.

Stealth is rewarding in that it’s tricky enough that it feels like you’re trying to figure out the best route to take out enemies quietly. But the AI is inconsistent. Plenty of times, you’re taking someone out with another enemy just a few paces away but they don’t react at all. And while that’s technically a good thing for your sake, as a function of the game, it can certainly be better.

But when you do break away from stealth, most of the time you won’t mind because the combat is so incredibly engaging.

An okay open world

There’s nothing groundbreaking about the open world of Rise of the Ronin. But that’s not to say that it’s bad. It just is. And most of the time, it’s fine. Objectives aren’t too far apart from each other. And there’s a good chance of you encountering them just as you’re traversing the world.

Traversal, by the way, is done by running, riding, gliding, and grappling. There’s enough here to make you feel like a bad-ass as you’re moving along. But if you’re going for the completionist route, you’ll likely find yourself using the fast travel option more.

The world is filled with many different activities. There are multi-tier side quests, Bond Missions, treasure hunts, cats to pet, shrines to climb, and training sessions. All of these lead towards the improvement of the protagonist. Whether that’s through battles that earn you EXP, loot that improve your gear, tasks and places that add to your skill points, and more.

All the activities benefit you in one way or another. With how pertinent they all seem, it should feel more connected and immersive. But something about it just isn’t. Especially on the immersive part, you can listen to a podcast or two while ticking off some of these open world objectives. This is understandable when clearing enemy camps, petting cats, and climbing shrines. But even some side quests with a fair bit of story in them don’t feel as engaging as say the ones you find in Ghost of Tsushima. They are solid, not stellar.

Masterless Samurai

Rise of the Ronin lives up to its name. The game overall feels like a masterless samurai getting by with enough strength and guile. But it needs a bit more to get to a higher level. The swordsmanship is good but not refined. It survives through some clever, but proven street smarts and is averse to risks which could prove costly.

I have to note that while playing this game, I couldn’t help but think how there are other open world games I’d rather play. This is especially during its early hours. It gets better the more you play. But it just doesn’t grab you enough to make you really want to stay.

It’s a good game but is a victim of terrible timing, releasing a few paces after FFVII Rebirth and right at the same time as Dragon’s Dogma 2: Two open worlds that you might be better off spending your time in.

Overall, if you’re looking for a sprawling samurai adventure with enough political intrigue, a more than fair share of characters, a satisfactory gameplay loop, and challenging combat, then give this one a go.

Related Topics:featured Koei TECMO PlayStation 5 PS5 Rise of the Ronin Team Ninja

Gaming

The regular PlayStation 5 is getting an AI upscaling feature

The feature debuts with Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei.

Published

October 2, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

If you’re an owner of a regular PlayStation 5, watching a PS5 Pro owner might touch you with a tinge of jealousy. Besides the upgraded console’s better hardware, it also has something called the PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), which uses AI to improve resolution and framerate. Unfortunately, that feature isn’t available on the regular console. But Sony is throwing the classic console a bone today by adding Quick Spectral Super Resolution (QSSR), which does the same as PSSR but on the older machine.

Since the introduction of PSSR, fans and developers alike have asked whether the older console can have a version of the technology. Developed with AMD, QSSR is an AI upscaling feature that improves performance for modern games on the PlayStation 5. For now, the feature is debuting first on Ghost of Yotei and Marvel’s Wolverine via a set of patches. Moving forward, Sony will also allow its developers to add the feature for their respective games.

Now, the choice of games is deliberate. Marvel’s Wolverine is still fresh on everyone’s mind. Meanwhile, Ghost of Yotei has just released a Complete Edition, which packs in a new story expansion and a roguelike mode. You don’t even need to Complete Edition or the corresponding paid upgrade to enjoy the new feature.

Gaming

Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition review: More of a great thing

Picking up where Atsu left off

Published

October 2, 2026

Rodneil Quiteles

A year away from Ghost of Yōtei was enough to make me rusty. It wasn’t enough to make me forget why I loved it.

What immediately jumped out to me is how beautifully connected this game’s open-world mechanics are. Moving about and exploring felt like picking up where I left off after roughly a year of not really touching the game.

The Guiding Wind, the birds that point you toward locations of interest, and the encounters scattered throughout Ezo all work together to keep you busy without the tasks ever feeling like a chore. There is always something worth looking toward, whether it is a quest, a hidden location, or simply another reason to stop and appreciate the scenery.

And of course, the new area is just as beautiful as everything else we’ve seen in the base game.

That is probably the biggest compliment I can give Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition. It does not feel like an expansion bolted onto an existing game. It feels like another excuse to step back into a world that already knew how to pull me in.

Picking up where I left off

I started my playthrough of the Complete Edition with Echoes of Sekigahara. I thought it was going to be a quick romp, but it’s proving to be a longer experience than I initially thought it would be.

I’ve spent roughly five to six hours playing through it, and I don’t think I’m anywhere near completing the story.

That said, I did get sidetracked quite a bit.

Which tends to happen with these Ghost games.

Not to their detriment, though. Every other quest and encounter in the open world feels like a contained story on its own that is well worth your time. The game has a way of presenting distractions that never really feel like distractions. You can set out with one objective in mind, stumble into something else, and suddenly realize an hour has passed.

That familiarity came back surprisingly quickly.

The new region introduced in Echoes of Sekigahara brings unfamiliar enemies, new weapons, and memories tied to Atsu’s past, giving the expansion its own identity while still operating within the systems that made the base game so easy to lose yourself in.

The Wolf quest line in particular was the first one I tackled, and it was quite a ride.

I’m deliberately leaving the details there.

This is the kind of story that is better experienced without knowing too much going in, and the review guidelines themselves ask reviewers to avoid major narrative developments and surprises.

Finding my footing again

While movement and exploration felt natural, it took me a while to get reacquainted with the combat.

My Atsu had many skills mastered, but being a year removed from the game meant I was rusty. I was dying against what I would consider fodder enemies.

There is something humbling about returning to a game where you once felt completely in control, only to discover that your muscle memory has apparently packed its bags and moved somewhere else.

Even now as I write this review, I don’t think I’ve gotten to the level I was when I first completed the game.

But I’m getting by just fine.

And that is partly because Yōtei gives you another toy to play with.

Massive weapons make a massive difference

Massive Weapons

The new wrinkle in combat is the Massive Weapons you get to pick up and swing around.

They are an absolute joy to use.

More importantly, they bailed me out of a few encounters already.

There is a satisfying weight to picking up one of these weapons and simply going to town on enemies. It changes the rhythm of a fight without asking you to relearn the entire combat system. After spending several hours trying to remember how I used to fight as Atsu, having the option to grab something enormous and start swinging was a welcome change of pace.

This was a definite win.

It also highlights one of the strengths of Yōtei’s combat. The foundation is already strong enough that adding another layer does not need to completely reinvent it. Sometimes, giving Atsu something massive to hit people with is enough.

Most Wanted keeps the blade moving

If you want to dive deeper into combat, Most Wanted is where it’s at.

PlayStation first-party games have had a habit of adding these roguelike-inspired modes to some of their games. There’s Valhalla for God of War Ragnarök and No Return for The Last of Us Part II.

Most Wanted takes that idea and puts Yōtei’s combat front and center.

The mode is a single-player combat survival experience built around escalating bounties, different playable characters, and experimenting with the game’s combat system. Unlike Echoes of Sekigahara, you can jump into it immediately without existing save data or base-game progression.

I’ve only had a couple of runs so far, but I can say I thoroughly enjoy the mode.

Mostly because I love the game’s combat mechanics.

That is what you engage with for much of Most Wanted, and it gives you a reason to keep testing yourself. You start a run, make your choices, fight your way through increasingly demanding encounters, and inevitably reach a point where things stop going according to plan.

Then you try again.

And again.

There is a particular satisfaction to a mode like this when the underlying combat is already enjoyable. Losing doesn’t necessarily feel like wasted time because every run gives you another opportunity to get better at the thing you were already having fun doing.

It can also be frustrating.

That is part of the appeal.

More Yōtei is still more Yōtei

The biggest strength of Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition is also the simplest.

It gives me more Ghost of Yōtei.

Echoes of Sekigahara gives Atsu another story to tell. Most Wanted gives the combat another place to shine. The Complete Edition also adds cosmetics, Trophies, Photo Mode content, and other extras. Meanwhile, the October 1 update brings additional Watanabe Mode tracks, Beauty of Yōtei mode, quality-of-life improvements, and a new high-contrast accessibility option to all Ghost of Yōtei players.

After roughly a year away, I was surprised by how quickly I settled back into the rhythm.

The wind blew, birds flew, a quest turned into another quest, and a random encounter became a story.

Then I picked up a massive weapon and started remembering why I enjoyed this game so much in the first place.

That cohesion remains Yōtei’s greatest strength. Its world constantly gives you reasons to move forward without making the journey feel like work. The Complete Edition simply gives you more reasons to keep going.

Is Ghost of Yotei Complete Edition your Play Match?

Ghost of Yōtei was already one of the best experiences on PlayStation 5.

The Complete Edition gives you more of it.

Echoes of Sekigahara is shaping up to be a substantial addition rather than a short side adventure, while Most Wanted offers a compelling excuse to keep coming back to Atsu’s combat long after you’ve finished the main story.

I still have plenty more of both to see. But even after only a handful of hours with the new content, I know exactly how I feel about returning to Yōtei.

It feels familiar, fresh, and Most Wanted will both frustrate and hook you.

It’s absolutely thrilling.

Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition is an easy Swipe Up.

After a year away, I came back rusty.

I’m still swinging. And I’m still having a damn good time.

Gaming

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered is now available

The Witcher 3 gets a major overhaul

Published

September 29, 2026

GadgetMatch

CD PROJEKT RED has released The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered, a free upgrade that brings a wide range of visual, performance, and gameplay improvements to the acclaimed RPG.

The remastered version is available as a free upgrade for existing owners on GOG, Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Players who own The Witcher 3 on the original Nintendo Switch can also upgrade for free to the native Nintendo Switch 2 version.

The upgrade also includes both expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, even for players who originally owned only the base game.

PC and PS5 Pro

On PC, The Witcher 3 now supports Path Tracing alongside improved textures, foliage, lighting, rendering, and ray tracing. The remaster also adds dedicated PlayStation 5 Pro support, with PSSR enabling ray tracing at 60fps and a performance mode that can reach up to 90fps with VRR.

Gameplay also gets an overhaul. CD PROJEKT RED has rebalanced the skill system, revamped combat animations, added new finishers, and introduced an adaptive camera. Geralt and Roach also receive updated animations, including more fluid traversal, vaulting, and ladder climbing.

The remaster adds cross-platform mod support through mod.io on consoles. Players can access custom content ranging from new quests and equipment to balance changes.

Switch 2

Nintendo Switch 2 gets additional features through its native version. These include motion controls, gyro aiming, mouse controls, and touchscreen support. Players can use motion controls for actions such as aiming the crossbow, throwing bombs, casting Signs, and controlling Roach. The touchscreen can also be used to navigate menus and play Gwent.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered is also available to purchase on Battle.net and the Microsoft Store, where it supports Xbox Play Anywhere.

The remaster replaces the Complete Edition on supported platforms and includes Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine as standard. It was developed in close collaboration with Yigsoft.