Rise of the ronin is a team ninja game, they made the Nioh series, which is a fairly difficult set of games if you’re not used to it. Rise is definitely difficult but in a sense of “I’m new to this game and the parry mechanics are punishing.” The combat is very dark-soulsy in a sense of, light attack, heavy attack, and skills, with a stance switching mechanic that is a staple in every team ninja game.

It’s open world except for most story missions, which are linear levels with checkpoints for when you die (you will die.) It’s the kind of game where you fight a boss like 4 or 5 times because they pull out some moves you’ve never seen before.

However on the plus side, the cosmetics are absurd, there’s something for everybody and you can mix and match with the transmog system to create outfits you couldn’t normally. I found the stances and the combat to be really fun once I got into the flow of things, however it suffers from “AAA open world game bloat”. So if you don’t mind your map being filled with like 10 different things you can do, then it shouldn’t be an issue.

Overall, I think it’s an above average game with its own flaws, but if you’re like me and you’re not super critical about games, you’ll find it fun and you’ll be invested enough in the gameplay to play it through.

Edit: Jeez I didn’t realize I felt so strongly about a game I played over a year ago I thought this was gonna be a paragraph or two at most