Ryse: Son of Rome Review

When developing a game, things are always changing.  What seemed like a great idea on the whiteboard might not translate into any sort of meaninfgul gameplay.  Original intent might give way to present practicalities.  Sometimes, major foundations can change during the quest to produce something great.We all know how opposite situation goes:  tight deadlines and no leeway leads to terrible products.  Having a flexible schedule and timeline allows for greatness to at least be attempted.

What eventually became Ryse was first shown off during E3 2010 and for a few years things weren’t looking all that great.  Developed by Crytek in partnership with Microsoft, it appeared to take advantage of the worst of both companies.  Crytek had established legit credentials in the PC world with it’s Crysis series but had not broken into the more lucrative console market.  Meanwhile, Nintendo’s Wii was dominating the competition and Microsoft was planning a total Kinect takeover of the Xbox 360.  The initial footage shown looked like Crytek had sold out to Microsoft’s Kinect obsession and the project was set to be a Kinect only rail game.

Most were smart enough to see the notion of an omnipresent Kinect as sheer ridiculousness.  Sure, it could be fun for some things, most core games just didn’t seem to fit the Kinect.  While it’s impossible to know which side ended up pushing for what, the project changed dramatically.  It was shifted to be a launch title for the Xbox One and the Kinect functionality was pared down to some optional voice commands to control squadmates.  As one of the few exclusive, big budget launch titles, expectations were high.

Ryse: Son of Rome pits you as Marius Titus, a young Roman soldier.  Coming from a long line of successful soldiers, fighting for Rome is in his blood.  His initial deployments are somewhat quiet until during a trip back to Rome, his family’s home is attacked by barbarians who kill his mother and sister.  During the ensuing skirmishes, his father, who has since become an important senator, is also slain.

After the situation has settled, his unit is sent to quash the barbarian rebellion which stems from Britannia.  Propelled by notions of avenging his family’s death, he eagerly seeks to spill as much barbarian blood as possible for the glory of Rome.  As the campaign goes on, he slowly begins to question his previous blind devotion to the state.  Witnessing the cruel and savage way the Roman nobility treats the people of Britannia, he wonders if Rome’s leaders are to blame for for the barbarian invasion and Rome’s other problems.

On a superficial level, Ryse immediately acts as a beautiful looking game to accompany the launch of the Xbox One.  The Roman theme is definitely a nice change of pace from the endless cadre of modern shooters.  Though a different time in history and a different country altogether, you can’t help but think of the film 300 when watching the trailers.  The game evokes the same sort of hyper-masculine brute hand to hand force type of adrenaline rush.

The game does look fantastic – the people, the faces, the setting, the combat, all the intricacies of the Centurion armor, everything.  This is what Microsft was paying for and hoping for.  Crysis had set the bar for PC graphics and Microsoft needed Crytek to work their magic for the Xbox One.

Now for the combat.  This is where the game has been hammered by many.  Some of the criticism is deserved while some is a bit over the top.  The essence of the game is that as you navigate through each level you are repeatedly stopped for skirmishes against enemies.  Typical fights pit you against roughly 4-8 enemies.  Enemies attack you one at a time and you have an assortment of attacks and moves to best your enemy.

After an enemy has been sufficiently pummeled, an icon appears above his head indicating that he is ready for an execution move.  You don’t really pick what execution move to perform per se, but positional and other circumstances dictate what will happen.  Each execution consists of a slow motion, zoomed in set of finishing moves that require certain button presses in sequence.

These execution sequences look very impressive and are really fun, for a while.  The fact that they occur so frequently quickly diminishes the enjoyment you get from them.  Though the game incentivizes you to perform these moves by awarding a bonus of your choosing, you will quickly decide you would rather speed things up by foregoing the bonus and killing your enemies without these finishing moves.

Though this button-mashing gets the brunt of the criticism, the bigger problem with combat has to do with the limited types of enemies.  Excluding bosses, there are probably only 6-7  different enemies in the entire game.  Now I might be off by one or two, but this isn’t an exaggeration.  The world of Ryse is filled with thousands of soldiers that all look exactly the same.

This makes combat incredibly predictable because every bald guy with a shield behaves exactly the same way, every guy with a bearskin on his head behaves exactly the same way, and so on.  Every time a skirmish breaks out you know exactly how every enemy will behave before any of them even attempt to strike you.  There are a lot of action games out there that use some sort of button mashing for combat, but they introduce variety through other means such as more varied enemies, dynamic terrain, or new weapons.  This lack of any sort of variation is what holds Ryse down.

There are a couple ways that the mundane combat is broken up.  Occasionally you join the ranks of your fellow soldiers and interlock your shields to create an impenetrable wall as you advance towards a hostile position.  These are often the most enjoyable parts of the game.  Other times you are tasked with manning a large, mounted crossbow.  These mechanics are all nice, but they merely serve as a diversion from main game.

Otherwise there really isn’t much to complain about.  In fact, other than the mundane combat, the rest of the game is really quite good.  We’ve already discussed the great visuals, but the voice acting and motion-capture are all top notch as well.

One aspect of Ryse that deserves mention is the writing.  What starts as a fairly routine and not too exciting tale eventually escalates to something much more.  A soldier who might have earlier been mistaken for a meat-head delves into some serious introspection and does a fine job critically appraising his situation.  The moral blacks and whites of a soldier fade into a world of greys.  Things get messy and complicated and Marius is pulled in different directions.  The two constants are that he is determined to fight for for what he believes in and he is very good at fighting.

Let’s be honest here: Ryse is not going to be on anyone’s game of the year list.  It never was, but if you listened to a lot of the marketing hype over the past six months you might come away with the impression that Microsoft though it would be.  At the end of the day, a lot of the game’s reviews are probably a matter of missing expectations that were set too high.  It is a good game, and it is fun to play.  It is easy to think of several other action games that have come out over the past few years which have reviewed much better even though Ryse: Son of Rome is a better game.