Rise of the Ronin PC review: A beautiful blade, tarnished by technical woes

The Rise of the Ronin PC port's release on Steam has marked another PlayStation 5 exclusive arriving on the platform. Originally, the game was released on Sony's console in 2024, and the reception was somewhat mixed. Fans either found the game extremely fun or another open-world title that commits many sins known to the genre.

Now after almost an year, we have the game's PC release, and to say it is a smooth ride will be straight up lying. The Rise of the Ronin PC version suffers from technical and performance issues, but looking beyond that lies an amazing game with one of the best combat that you can experience.

So how does the Rise of the Ronin PC port play now? Should you give it a try, especially if you love open-world action games? Let's take a deep dive into this review and find out.

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Rise of the Ronin's beautiful Japan suffers from an invasion of technical problems

Performance: Is the Rise of the Ronin PC port any good?

The Rise of the Ronin PC port suffers from technical issues (Image via Sportskeeda Gaming, KOEI TECMO)

I won't beat around the bush much as I will say that the PC performance for the game is extremely inconsistent. Even in our original Rise of the Ronin Review, we had a few complaints regarding the irregular performance on the PS5.

Team Ninja do not have a great track record on PC ports, and that shines especially well when it come to the Rise of the Ronin PC version. Originally, I got access to the game before it came out on Steam, and the cracks started showing once I reached the outskirts of Yokohama after the prologue ends. The performance took a sudden drop, as the frames went from a smooth 80 FPS to averaging on around 40-50.

Future patches might fix the issues with the Rise of the Ronin PC port (Image via Sportskeeda Gaming, KOEI TECMO)

I had to change a few settings, such as locking the FPS to 60 and turn on AMD's FSR 3 Frame Generation and XeSS Upscaling to even remotely make the game playable. Albeit, while the performance improved, the visuals suffered a downgrade. Jagged and blurry textures, weird stutters were a common factor as I progressed through the outskirts to the main city of Yokohama.

Performance definitely improved when Team Ninja released a patch when the game was officially released on the platform, as the stutter was gone and it ran smoothly for the most part. I was getting a stable 70-80 FPS, with most of the visual clutters eliminated for the most part. Some weird texture issues remain here and there, but that is mostly due to the upscaling.

My PC specs are as follows:

Ryzen 5 5600X
AMD RX 6600 8GB VRAM
32 GB RAM DDR4

The performance of the Rise of the Ronin PC port is definitely something that you need to know about before buying the game. From my experience, the PC version of the title is running fine, but as I have seen on various forums, it has been inconsistent for others. I will definitely not recommend the game unless you have a powerful machine, and last generation cards will definitely suffer from performance issues.

Half-baked PC ports are common nowadays and plagueing the industry, and the Rise of the Ronin is no exception. Developers should strive to fine-tune their product before they release them on PC and stop relying on Upscaling and Frame Gen tools. Not everyone can afford a $1000 machine, and that should not restrict them from enjoying fantastic video games.

Overall, the PC performance is somewhat fine now in my experience, but hopefully Team Ninja can make more improvements to it so that more people can enjoy the beautiful product the team has crafted.

Combat: A perfect synthesis of souls-like and action hack-and-slash mechanics

Most fun combat I have experienced in a while (Image via Sportskeeda Gaming, KOEI TECMO)

The combat of Rise of the Ronin is where the game truly shines. Team Ninja brings back Nioh's stance system and you will often find yourself changing stances to gain an upperhand on your enemies. The progression system will require you to constantly swap between a plethora of weapons to adapt to the situations the game puts you in.

You can dodge, block, and even parry enemy attacks. You will have a small stamina meter that depletes when you perform actions, but so does the enemy. Once you completely drain enemy's stamina, they will become vulnerable and you can use a powerful attack to either kill them, or take out a chunk from their HP.

The boss fights in Rise of the Ronin is the icing on the cake. Each and every main story boss fights provided a rush of adrenaline that I have not felt for a long time. Combine that with the plethora of tools and weapons that you can obtain, and the combat will feel always fresh.

Story and characters: Too many cooks ruins the dish

Ryoma Sakamoto the GOAT (Image via Sportskeeda Gaming, KOEI TECMO)

The narrative of Rise of the Ronin is extremely dissapointing. The Bakumatsu period of Japan is an extremely tumultuous chapter in the country's history. You will meet several known figures from that period who played a major role in shaping the history of Japan, and you will either ally yourself with them or stand against them.

Most of the characters in Rise of the Ronin, especially the anti-Shogunate ones, will mostly come as likeable. But where the game really drops the bomb is that there is very little explanation given as to why your player character will choose to ally with the pro-Shogunate forces. You are brought up as someone who despises the Shogunate as you saw your life getting upturned by their soldiers.

Rise of the Ronin offers almost no moral dilemma regarding this, and honestly the pro-Shogunate characters can come up as very shallow at times. The protagonist does not have much development outside of a few sequences, and honestly, tackling the entire Bakumatsu period with too many characters can get overbearing at times.

Certain sections of the story are good. However, mostly it's extremely weak, and in my opinion, one of Team Ninja's weakest offerings yet.

Open world: Beautiful yet lacks any flavor

A beautiful yet dated open world (Image via Sportskeeda Gaming, KOEI TECMO)

The world of Edo Japan's ending days looked extremely beautiful, especially due to the superior graphics of the Rise of the Ronin PC port. However, the open-world itself commits many of the sins known in the genre. The game's world is extremely checklist-based, where you need to repeat the same activity throughout the many sections of the gigantic maps of Yokohama, Edo, and Kyoto.

You will have your enemy outposts, shrines, various NPCs that you can help, and certain high towers that can feel like the Synchronization Points from the AC games. The open-world is littered with activities, yet can feel boring at times due to how repititive these are.

Do not get me wrong, as I really enjoyed looking at the beautiful world that Team Ninja crafted, but honestly I found myself skipping past these activities. It is the developer's first truly open-world game so I cannot give them much flak, but the design is something that I cannot personally resonate with.

Visuals: Beautiful, but nothing to drive home about

You can pet cats! (Image via Sportskeeda Gaming, KOEI TECMO)

The game's initial PS5 release was marked with many people commenting on how outdated the visuals looked. The Rise of the Ronin PC version is definitely an improvement due to it now running on superior hardware (if you have beefy specifications), but it is definitely not something to be in awe of.

The game looks fine for the most part, and even beautiful at times, but again, I have played other titles that look far superior and do not suffer from performance issues. Character models, environment, and many textures have received an improvement compared to the PS5 version.

Even lighting and shadows work better in the Rise of the Ronin PC port and do not suffer from the weird popping issues the PS5 version is infamous for. The game looks a bit outdated, but it is honestly not that bad.

In conclusion

Team Ninja can improve the Rise of the Ronin PC port's experience (Image via Sportskeeda Gaming, KOEI TECMO)

The Rise of the Ronin PC port is definitely not perfect, yet it can satisfy the itch of those who are looking for an open-world samurai video game. The story is by no means perfect, but Team Ninja offer a look at a highly under-represented period in Japan's history.

Exploring Japan during the Bakumatsu period will allow you to meet and befriend many famous historical figures, and even fight alongside them. The branching narrative that leads to various endings based on your decisions is also done well. But the overall plot suffers from pacing issues, and lacks any sort of moral dilemma that the protagonists have to face, making them quite one-dimensional.

The combat, however, is one of the finest and absolutely fantastic. Each weapon provides variety that keeps the gameplay loop fresh. The open-world design of Rise of the Ronin was quite dated with a checklist of same activities that many fans nowadays associate with the genre.

The Rise of the Ronin PC port mostly suffers on the technical front, but it is still a fun title that will guarantee you a good time. If you are in the market to pick up a game based on Japan and if you have a powerful machine, Rise of the Ronin PC version might be worth checking out on Steam.