Pavel Sorokin (NeverwinterMoon)

This game was developed with single hardware in mind: PS5. This means optimizing for one configuration and one configuration only. I am not a game developer, but I know a couple of things about software development, and having one platform to develop for makes things so much easier. Furthermore, I know that Sony is more than willing to extend a helping hand to companies, especially the ones going with their exclusivity. Yet, this game is a technical mess. It looks extremely dated, and it runs terribly. Even outside of the open-world, in the opening section, the frame-rate fluctuation was wild in performance mode. Almost every fight lags, even if there is just a single opponent. Gliding in the air lags the most, while also dropping the resolution down aggressively. Don’t get me wrong, I think the game does not to have to have all bells and whistle to be enjoyable, but when frame rate jumps all over, it affects the perception of a high-paced action game, and Rise of the Ronin is designed to be one. Honestly, I would be ashamed to release the game in this state, especially when we have Ghost of Tsushima running perfectly on PS4 (at very stable 30 FPS) and running smoothly while looking sharp on PS5 (at 60 FPS). If you compare these two games side by side, Tsushima looks and performs better. And that’s a much older game. OK, some exceptionally good game gameplay- or story-wise, would have made it possible to overlook the coating. Sadly, it’s not the case here. The game is a bunch of unoriginal ideas picked from an array of other games, none of those ideas improved in any possible way. It’s very uncreative and bland. The story could have been great, as I really like the setting and the time period, but it also falls short. Everyone in the game seems two-dimensional and it’s hard to root for anyone or like anyone. The huge beef goes to the combination of voice overs and authenticity. A lot of people on the Internet claiming that Japanese voices is the way to go here. I would disagree. The quality of voices is good, yes, but everyone speaking fluent Japanese breaks the immersion so hard. The game is all around foreigners coming to Japan and changing the old ways. There are Dutch, Americans, British and French. When a regular American soldier starts speaking to you in fluent Japanese in 1858, it sounds so ridiculous. The English voice overs have distinct accents - you have Japanese accent, American, French and so on. Already better, as this is a decent way to show that people are speaking their own language (so, someone speaking English with Japanese accent reflects them actually speaking Japanese). But is it ideal? No. At that time, some people in Japan learned Dutch (it’s even mentioned in the game). Mind you, very few people. In Ronin, most of the foreigners shown are American. Most of Japanese wouldn’t know English, very few Americans would know any Japanese. In reality, the communication was not easy at the time, and interpreters were used. Telling the story the way it is told shows very little effort in depicting the time - everyone understands everyone in the game.

First of all, I was very hesitant of this game - I am not a fan of the Avatar movies and I am not a fan of Far Cry games. I’ve seen the first Avatar movie twice - when it was released and over ten years later. Both times I was amazed by how good it looks. The sequel was even more visually satisfying. Yet, both of the movies have such a simplistic plot, that I found myself more bored than entertained. As for the Far Cry games, I’ve played them all and completed none. So you see, that’s why there was hesitation. I’ve decided to get Ubisoft+ just to give Frontiers of Pandora a chance, and was I in for a treat. Yes, the game plays out almost exactly the same as, say, Far Cry 6: a ton of side quests, collectibles, bases to destroy - the formula is pretty much identical. Yet, the atmosphere in Frontiers turned out to be much more appealing to me. Running through the jungle, climbing the mountains - several hours in and I am still not tired of that alone. It’s almost a meditative experience akin to the one I had in Death Stranding. Parkouring is done so well, I’ve never seen anything like that since the Mirror’s Edge games. The music is very dynamic and spot on. The harvesting and hunting are almost perfect. I don’t even care for the plot and just enjoy roaming around. To me, this is an open-world experience done right. Because of Ubisoft+, I was able to try the game out on PC and XSX without having to buy it twice. On PC, it’s a visual masterpiece. I’ve played just a few days after the release (I think just one patch in) and had zero technical issues. The game runs at stable 120 FPS at all settings maxed out on RTX 4090 (although the official game partner is AMD). Aside from Alan Wake 2 on PC, I haven’t seen a game looking that good. On XSX it’s impressive as well, all things considered, but it’s the PC where you get the definitive experience in all aspects. If I can complain about anything, it’s the fast travel loading times. It could have been better on either of the platforms.

It’s highly repetitive. It lacks as cool bad guy as featured in Far Cry 3 or 4. I mean, Troy Barker as Pagan Ming... Giancarlo Esposito's Antón Castillo doesn't come anywhere close. For no apparent reason, it has real-time rendered cutscenes locked to 30 FPS on all platforms where the rest of the game runs at 60+ FPS, and it breaks immersion hard. It lacks depth to the story or the likable protagonist. It's missing any innovative gameplay elements (looking at you, Deathloop). Still, I had loads of fun wreaking havoc in the game and enjoyed the views immensely. I also found a radio playing Livin' La Vida Loca by Ricky Martin. Thus I am giving it four stars. I’ve played the game on XSX and then on PC. The latter version is the clear winner for me - Ray-Traced shadows and reflections, as well as greater drawing distance, make the console versions look outdated. Then, I also prefer my first-person shooters with keyboard and mouse. Difference in controls alone made the experience more enjoyable.

Frogwares took all the cool stuff from their Sherlock Holmes games, dumbed them down plenty (conclusion making now is basically picking between A and B, and neither choice is wrong, they just have different moral implications), then added some super-tedious, poorly implemented and completely unnecessary mechanics - like gunplay, crafting, copy-paste open world. All that on top of a very decent Lovecraftian base. Honestly, if Frogwares would make a game set in a Lovecraftian world having exactly the same gameplay as in the recent Sherlock Holmes adventures, this game would have been ten times better. The action element adds absolutely nothing but subtracts from atmosphere as it's implemented terribly - I don't remember the last time it was that boring to shoot things. It feels more fake than shooting a water gun. I honestly don't see how after testing this they've decided to keep this as one of the core game mechanics. Open world also does nothing but lessen the atmosphere - every neighbourhood is almost identical (unlike beautiful and unique locations we've seen in the Sherlock Holmes games). I had to force myself to come back playing this game every single time. Why did I do that? Well, I did want to see the story unfold. That's the only reason. Otherwise, I hate a lot about this game. Also, I see a lot of people reporting long loading times and such, so I assume they are playing one of the console versions. PC version does have a loading time here and there but they are as fast as one or two blinks of an eye on my system and are barely noticeable (especially compared to dreadful loading every minute or less in Days Gone).