Ryse: Son of Rome is a third person hack and slash adventure game. It was initially released in November of 2013 as an Xbox One exclusive launch title, but was later ported onto PC in October 2014. The game is set in an alternative version of Rome history. You play as a centurion named Marius Titus as you battle through the game as you seek revenge for the killing of your family.
The main gameplay element in Ryse: Son of Rome is the hack and slash combat. This feels very similar to other action games such as the Batman series, a very simple but fluid action system means you have no problems taking on hordes of enemies, as you weaken your foes, you get the option to perform an execution on them – this prompts for a small quick time event as you have to press the corresponding mouse button with the colours on the screen, carrying out an execution every time you can tends to make the gameplay feel very repetitive though; it’s nice for the first few times but it soon becomes the same over and over again. You are able to learn different variations of executions through the upgrade menu, allowing you to purchase upgrades using the experience points you have earned, ironically though performing executions. On top of being able to upgrade the executions, you can also add the points into more passive talents such as straight health upgrades, or adding a multiplier to the amount of experience points you earn. If you are like me and you don’t really like learning combos and such, the passives tend to be more the attractive options here.
There is a hint of strategy involved in Ryse: Son of Rome too; a couple of battle scenes allow you to command orders to squads of men, such as ordering archers to cover a flank, or ordering the catapults to aim on different targets – these are few and far between however so don’t go into this game expecting a really in depth strategy element. The larger scale fights are really impressive though, one scene which stands out the most to me would be where you have to defend a castle against an oncoming barbarian army, whilst it is completely reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings scene in Helms Deep but has some really action packed gameplay as you avoid incoming fire bombs, preventing enemies from scaling the walls by kicking off their ladders and tackling any enemies which make it through.
Ryse: Son of Rome has some excellent graphics – this is one of the first “next gen” games released, and it really does look next gen; it looks almost photo realistic, the characters look real and the environments which the game is set in look absolutely stunning. There are a couple low quality textures but nothing you will really notice unless you go out of your way to find them. All of the animations are perfect too; the fluid combat system allows for some exciting fight scenes as you string together plenty of combos. It is safe to say that the PC version of Ryse looks so much better than the console given the amount of options you can change to ramp it up to full glory.
The game is also voice acted to an almost perfect level as well, and the ambient battle sounds draw you further into the immersion of this game. I cannot fault the game one single bit on the audio performance.
One of the disappointing aspects of Ryse: Son of Rome is that it is an extremely easy game; since the combat system is so simple, hordes of enemies pose no threat once you master the controls; allowing you to cleave your way through armies of barbarians with ease. The boss fights do offer a little bit more of a challenge but I still did not manage to die once on them. Come to think of it; I can count the amount of times I died in this game on one hand. The only saving grace is that once you finish the game you unlock a legendary mode which will test your skills at the highest level; the three previous difficulties are all very much the same and any veteran gamer will not find this game to be a challenge to complete.
The game is split into eight chapters, each chapter has a couple of different areas in which you will find yourself in and each chapter is split into further sections with cut scenes aiding transitions between them all. Throughout each of the chapters you will find your self-hunting for various collectables which whilst they offer no gameplay benefit, they will grant you little unlockables which is always nice. The game is very linear though; there is only one route through each of the levels allowing you very little room to roam off the single path, you are very much funnelled throughout the whole game.
The second disappointing issue with Ryse: Son of Rome is that it is unbelievably short; I finished the game in just over five hours and due to the completely linear single player you can uninstall the game as soon as you complete it as there is no reason at all to play again. There is a multiplayer element which may interest some; a sort of two player co-op mode in that you are pitted against waves of enemies in a challenge modem each wave has increasingly difficult enemies to encounter – sadly you can also find yourself some annoying microtransactions in this mode too; allowing you to use your real life money for items in game.
Ryse: Son of Rome will require you to have a pretty beefy rig if you want to play it on full graphical settings; I was playing on a 4k resolution and sometimes struggled to keep up with the 60 fps. I also had to configure a different profile for the game in my nVidia settings for it to work with my SLI setup properly (using nVidia inspector). I tested out 1080p settings and this allows the game to play on almost 120 fps with v-sync turned off – leaving this option on locks the gameplay at 30 fps too. Given that this game was initially released on Xbox, the Xbox controller works perfectly, however I had much more success playing with the keyboard and mouse, and I would recommend you try that option out first before opting for the controller.
My final thoughts on Ryse: Son of Rome is that it a finished product which will give you an evening’s worth of entertainment – I finished it in one sit through and was satisfied with the end results, however I picked up this game when it was on sale in the summer for less than £9. I cannot recommend Ryse: Son of Rome when it is priced anything more than the £10 mark, simply because it has a short single player story mode and no levels of replay ability. If you find it on sale for £10, you should seriously consider picking this game up as it is the entry point for the next generations of games we are going to be seeing in the next few years, the graphics and story alone make this game a worthwhile play through.
Tom’s Score Card
1) Stay away
2) Not Recommended
3) Only recommended when on sale
4) Recommended
5) Highly recommended
6) This is a must play