Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

Ryse: Son of Rome (Steam) - Xbox One launch sword & sandal actioneer is only $10 on Steam. Worth it?

Time to march on & show our worth.

• The main campaign consists of 8 linear missions with a flair for the cinematic (the third mission in particular seemed to give Saving Private Ryan a roman era makeover, as your legions are brutally dismembered by arrow & catapult fire as you make landfall on Brittania, an inspiration the devs don't even try to hide as "Saving Private Marius" is the name of the achievement you get for clearing the mission). All in all the game took me 7.5 hours of playtime to clear on the game's equivalent of Normal difficulty.
• Combat seems to take a page out of the Arkham playbook as you tend to be surrounded by enemies and you must strike down a rhythm of strikes, parries, & dodge rolls to engage in a rhythmic dance of death. When an enemy is low on health you can trigger a brutal execution move (these can be contextual, as when you are near a ledge Marius may throw the enemy over, for example). It's not a particularly novel setup, but works smoothly & feels good when you get into a groove (it does a decent enough job of introducing one or two new enemy variants each mission as well, so things don't get too repetitive).
  
  I've disarmed you.
• There are 3 perks you can swap around as well, which are activated whenever you perform one of the aforementioned execution moves. Depending on which one you have equipped, each execution will either restore some health (I kept it on this), grant you extra EXP (I was practically able to max everything out without using this anyways), or quickly fill your Focus meter (an ability you can trigger to slow down time, I never had to use it much).
• There are also some light "shooter" mechanics, for a lack of a better term. Sometimes archers will be firing on you from afar, and you'll have to wait for openings to throw spears back at them. Other times you'll have to man a ballista (which puts things in a first person orientation) and fire away at waves of foes, striking exploding barrels & knocking over cauldrons of boiling oil for maximum carnage. The former segments can be a bit finicky, while the latter are pretty fun & make you feel powerful.
  
  I'll give it a shot.
• One of the game's big twists is that at certain points you can command a legion of soldiers into battle. Occasionally this means marching in a line (these segments feel overly cinematic, where your only options are to move forward, raise shields to block arrows, and throw spears to retaliate, but are nonetheless cool) or getting to slightly alter your next combat encounter (you can have them cover archers while you're left to melee encounters alone, or they can help you on the battlefield but you still have to dodge arrows), but mostly this means a lot of escort/tower defense objectives (probably two or three for every one of the previous types of situations). For example the line may be held down by ballistae positions, and it's up to you to go around on your own to take them out before they whittle your soldiers down (likewise, most of the time your in the ballista seat, you're trying to thin down the waves so they don't overwhelm your line).
  
  Take command.
• It also naturally features boss fights, but these tended to be the easiest encounters in the game, IMO. They're almost always one on one fights & they don't tend to have much of a deeper move pool than regular enemies, so they mostly feel spongy rather than challenging. Well, then there's the very last confrontation in the game which is just a hallway of QTE prompts.
• There's some longevity added to the campaign in terms of collectables which are hidden in out of the way locations right off the main path (sometimes you may have to break down a gate or some such to reach a little hidden area). There are a bunch of these & despite thinking I did a pretty good job combing through the levels I still missed quite a bit. You have "Vistas" (environmental concept art), "Scrolls" (character, enemy, weapon bios), & "Chronicles" (comic book pages that tell side stories/go deeper into the lore). It's the Chronicles in particular I missed a bunch of, they seemed to be well hidden & there's more of them than the others.
  
  Wonder what's behind there?
• There's also an entire gladiatorial themed multiplayer mode included, but I haven't tried it out (at this point I can't imagine there'd be many people playing it anyhow). Though I do know you get to customize the look of your combatant & there's some sort of DLC related to this mode as I saw a "booster pack" option in it's menu.
• Graphically it still looks pretty modern & even impressive looking at points, especially the environments (some of the less important NPCs still look pretty "PS360" though). There is some hilariously uncanny valley stuff going on with a few of the female characters though. It's clearly at the point where they were motion captioning real people for the important characters and there's one scene where a prominent woman is in a very serious conversation with Marius, however they decided to map near DOA levels of jiggle physics to her chest so she's just bouncing around as she lightly walks around during this serious moment, lol. There are a handful of other scenes where such effects make some sense, but this didn't feel like one of them.
  
  
  
  
• In terms of vibe it's very much a sword & sandal genre effort from the era where 300, Spartacus, & the OG God of War games were the most prominent names in the field. It's very gory (you can almost guarantee an arm or a leg is coming off during the execution moves, and goops of blood always), and you're not making your way through without seeing some boobs (queue the decadent orgy party showing how corrupt/out of touch Roman leadership is).
  
  
  Whether you want to see bodies, or... bodies, this game has you covered (hopefully that second screenshot is still covered enough to be safe here).
• Story is pretty simple but sets the stage well. You play as Marius (a young soldier with a family legacy in the Legion), and after being sent off to quell a revolt in Brittania he must question loyalties as the sons of emperor Nero just make things worse with each decision. In the end he'll have to make choices that'll effect the future of Rome. While it's not to the level of the GoW games, there is some level of supernatural/divine work at play as well (though your only foes are fellow humans... and a few elephants).

Overall:

• While it's GotY material or anything of the sort, it's still a pretty solid action game that's well worth the inexpensive $10 (that's not even it's sale price). As far as short launch window "look what our box can do" titles go, I think I liked it more than the other brand's The Order: 1886.
  
  A new legacy is born.

@RogerRoger Some of the reviewers on this site REALLY like the moody/cinematic-style independent games like INSIDE, Limbo, Journey, Abzu, etc. Those latter two rank as some of my least favorite games I've ever played, but thankfully PlayDead's efforts are rooted in solid game design that makes them more enjoyable. Still, I feel like the sort of person who can give a game like INSIDE a perfect score is fundamentally looking for different things from the medium than I am.

America and Japan have been on pretty friendly terms for a long while since the nasty business during WW2. As with Germany, reconstruction was crucial to this: if we'd be as thorough about wiping out the memories of the confederacy and fully integrating our southern states into the union after our civil war, we'd probably not be staring down the stark regional differences in culture and values that is paralyzing our own political system today.

The good thing about the Metal Gear universe is that, on the nose or way off base, the series is always so theatrical about its own mythology that it ends being a ton of fun to learn about regardless.

My favorite Platinum Games title? I have to go with NieR Automata for a variety of reasons. It has the best soundtrack of any of their games. I really enjoyed the bleak, existentialist themes it unflinchingly explored. And, most importantly, as someone who rarely enjoys action games outside of Monster Hunter and old 2D stuff, I appreciated how they dialed back the character action complexity in favor of integrating in significant RPG elements to the gameplay.

Well, no reason you can't dip back into an activity you're excellent at about a subject you're passionate about on occasion, even if the majority of your energy is still directed toward that book you're working on.

@RR529 Nice piece. You know, I've always sort of wondered about this game, with it being one of the few console exclusives on Xbox One that actually sounded halfway decent.

The tone actually sounds a bit like the old God of War games, before it became another Serious Dad Game series. It's a pity to hear the NPC animations aren't always great (and a little surprising to hear about the presence of pronounced jiggle physics, which I wouldn't have expected to see in a AAA Western-developed game by this point), but the screenshots definitely illustrate how much of an upgrade the Xbone was over the 360 with its attractive environments.

Gameplay... sounds serviceable, except for the boss fights, apparently. Something that a lot of AAA devs struggle with, weirdly enough.

Well, it sounds like it was worth the price of admission, at least!

@RogerRoger, @Ralizah, thanks!

Yeah, it's an interesting case. It feels like it's stuck between eras in that graphically/mechanically it feels pretty thoroughly modern, however it feels more 6th or 7th gen culturally (which isn't necessarily a bad thing mind you, just not the kind of vibe I'd see a western dev applying to a AAA release these days).

I'll also add that it was nice to play a "AAA" style release that doesn't overstay it's welcome & clocks in at well under 10 hours. That's another facet of it that feels a bit more old school.

@RogerRoger Thanks for calling my attention to this. I'll get right on my half.

A 'wave' of member departures/account deletions sounds alarming. Who've we lost now?

@RogerRoger so I read the opening salvo and my appetite is certainly whetted… I’ve had a real long day though and am off to get my head down. I’ll definitely be reading the rest of it in the morning though 👍

@RogerRoger really good review Rog… and you’ve really made this game (which I already own but never planned on playing) a much more intriguing proposition that it ever was before. The only thing that will ultimately stop me from playing it is my already overwhelming backlog and having to find a spare 200 hours or so to fit this in. I do think I’d really quite like it though… 🤔

Fantastic review @RogerRoger . Reminds me that I must play Ground zeroes.

@RogerRoger Interesting perspective considering how widely panned this was at launch. Although presumably a lot of that was down to people not opening themselves up to the (admittedly pretty bizarre) premise, which is a common thing when it comes to long-running series. How many poorly received games just fell on the wrong side of the public's expectations?

It seems like you were able to tackle this with fresh eyes and very little baggage in terms of expectations, though, and... the game sounds interesting! While I do agree it was smart to utilize the assets from MGSV to create a potboiler spinoff, I think it probably would have been more warmly received overall if it hadn't been branded as a Metal Gear game.

I do like the sound of how integrated the survival mechanics are into the gameplay. It's a tricky thing to do in a way that's not purely alienating to the player.

It's a pity that it doesn't sound like there was proper scaling on the multiplayer-centric features, though. Reminds me of the old Monster Hunter games, where taking on a guild quest by yourself basically meant you were throwing yourself at a challenge that had scaled itself to account for a full crew of teammates.

Anyhow, terrific review of Metal Gear Survive! I enjoy the way you weave story-telling into your pieces.

Just one question about the game.

To be clear, this means stuff happens to you in the game on a real-time schedule, whether you're playing or not?

If so, that sounds like it requires a tremendous amount of personal investment on the player's part!

@RogerRoger Thanks, Rog! I really enjoyed reading your review, as always. The scenario at the beginning hooked me from the start and your recount of your adventures mixed with game mechanic descriptions made for a very effective review.

It’s amazing how under appreciated Metal Gear Survive is. Apologies since I know you don’t typically reduce your reviews to a number, but it reads like what would typically be a 8/10 or so, and the screenshots look very high quality. Shame the game flew under the radar so much. I’ve not seen sales data, but based on lack of hype (and at times full-on hate) for the game on release, I’d suspect it didn’t perform well in that regard. Still, like you mentioned, much of the work had been done and using assets from MGSV kept production costs low and maybe they still turned some profit, I don’t know.

Really glad you enjoyed it. Did this spark interest in the survival genre and if so have you considered playing another game of that ilk now?

@RogerRoger first off I really appreciate the offer… and that definitely does add a fair bit of weight to the devil on my one shoulder doing his best Ben Stiller’s Starsky incognito impression 😉. I’ll deffo be having a think on this and will let you know Rog 👍

Secondly, I did not know that Konami patched the PS3 version of MGSV… that’s awesome! … and I just ordered it as a result 😁

@colonelkilgore Could you let me know what you make of "MGS V" on PS3? I don't know a single person who played that version!

@LN78 I will… but I honestly couldn’t tell you when I’ll actually play it. By all accounts the PS3 version was surprisingly close to the PS4 version given the difference in hardware… but that’s just things I’ve heard over the last few years. One thing I’d hazard a guess at… it’s browner 😀

@colonelkilgore For some reason I was under the impression that it was a pricey PS3 game. Evidently not - I've just ordered one for myself!

@LN78 👍 what did you pay? I got one for £7.22 with £1.76 p&p. There was one slightly cheaper but I’ve always had a good experience buying from music magpie so I went the extra couple of pence 😉

@RogerRoger good to know Rog… I’ll be sure to do a bit of research on that as I wouldn’t want to start it again if the plat was unobtainable. I have a sneaky feeling that we may end up with a PS5 (or even PS6) remaster one day anyway. So even if the PS3 plat is a forlorn hope… I’m hopeful that I might get to plat it again in one form or another some day.

@colonelkilgore Same - just shy of a tenner with postage. Should make for a good compare and contrast if nothing else.

@RogerRoger well I’ll wish you good luck then buddy. It’s certainly not the hardest of the MGS plats… still not easy either… and obviously a helluva time-sink. Think it took me 186 hours… loved every second 😎

@RogerRoger no dramas mate… always did have an itchy-trigger finger, I should’ve learned by now 👊

@RogerRoger mate, seriously don’t worry about it at all. I’m not even thinking about cancelling the order… it’ll be another to add to the collection at the very least. Appreciate the offer though 👍

My side of the directory should be fully fixed, and I added the most recent reviews as well.

@RogerRoger Metal Gear has arguably done weirder things, but those are generally weird in a Metal Gear sorta way, if that makes sense. However you approach it, a MGS spinoff going the isekai route feels off. But this doesn't make it a bad game. Sort of like Nintendo's own Metroid Prime: Federation Force, it seems like a decent game that got a bad rap partially as a response to the publisher's own mismanagement of the IP overall.

Good to hear you have to actively trigger the events. The idea of having to structure your life around a video game like that sounded rather presumptuous on Konami's part. And yeah, the time tracking software on some platforms can be deeply weird. There's an indie game I own on Steam that thinks I've played it for over 1000 hours. In reality, I've probably spent less than 20 on it, and I don't leave games running in the background, so I have no idea where that number came from!

I really need to get to MGS V one day. I've owned it for years, but... I dunno. Something about the base building elements sounds tiring to me. I do want to play it, though. The funny thing is that MGS V: Ground Zeroes was actually my very first PS4 game.