Rise of the Ronin is here, and after crafting your own Blade of the Veiled Edge, you’ll be thrown into a world of high political tension, tough enemies, and 100 cats to track down and pet. There’s a lot going on in Rise of the Ronin, but if you need some tips to get your adventure started as quickly as possible, we’ve got ten of them for you.
1. Choose a weapon that feels right
At the very start of the game you have to choose a class, and while you get some recommended weapons based on the abilities you get from your class, you can choose to ignore them completely and take whatever you want from the training area. There is a wide variety of weapons to choose from, including the slow but brutal Odachi, the fast and clean Pairswords and the standard Uchigatana.
If you’re new to Team Ninja games or soulslikes in general, or just want to learn the mechanics as quickly as possible, we recommend Uchigatana as primary weapon in combination with a Polearm or Spear. The former has a nice mix of speed and power, while the latter allows you to keep some distance, allowing you to get away more easily if you need room to heal. Otherwise, just choose what feels cool and works for you. You get tons of weapons along the way, as well as some you unlock by playing, and you can even choose an unarmed version if you want.
2. Learn the parry system
Like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the battles in Rise of the Ronin are quite rhythmic, and if you want to feel like a dueling beast, you’ll want to learn the timing of your parries. Parries in this game are called Countersparks and damage both the opponent’s health and Ki. With so many different enemies, parrying can be difficult to get used to at first, but the more time you spend learning, the better you’ll get, and in boss fights, parrying is necessary when you’re cornered.
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3. Don’t just rely on backsparks
This is going to feel pretty contradictory to what I just wrote, but while Countersparks are one of the best defensive options, they aren’t the only way to keep the pressure down. You can block and dodge, and unlike in Sekiro, those are sometimes the most effective options. You can’t break the enemy’s position just by blocking, but you can hold them at bay until you (or your allies) have time to strike. I spent way too much of the early game thinking I could just parry everything, but occasionally you’d rather dodge grappling attacks or just block than eat chip damage through a combo.
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4. Get better at traveling as soon as possible
Rise of the Ronin has a lot to explore, and you’re pretty much free to find whatever you want in the world after the first hour, but instead of just running out into the wilderness in bare feet, we recommend that you first get hold of a glider and a horse. The glider can be found in a story mission very early in the game, so you don’t have to worry about running through the main objective, and you can also buy a horse from a stable early on. If you only travel on foot, it will just take an unnecessary amount of time, although there are many fast travel points around.
5. Practice, practice, practice, practice
If you don’t care about exploring and just want to experience the story, we still recommend walking around the map and taking out some of the bandit camps and fugitives you can fight. These camps are set up much like outposts in other open games. Kill as many enemies as you want and you’ll reclaim the area for the general public, giving you another fast travel point, a trader, and some loot. But in addition to the rewards, you also get much-needed experience, that is, more levels in the game and a better understanding of the battles.
You also learn how important it is to be hidden. I didn’t think it was worth a whole point to talk about stealth since it’s pretty obvious that’s the focus, but it really helps thin the field. Otherwise, you will likely be overwhelmed by enemies.
6. Build your bonds
In Rise of the Ronin, the more you do for a given area and potential ally, the more you get out of it/them. If you take out some bandits or simply raise the banner of Veiled Edge, you can build up an area band, which in turn gives you access to more things on the map. If you’re a collector by nature, you’ll want to build up an area bond quickly so you can more easily see cats, photographs, shrines, and other things to explore. The characters also have their own bonds, and even if you can’t spend the same amount of time with everyone, we recommend that you take the time to talk to and give gifts to the allies you can. When they join you in battle, you’ll be glad you found out what their favorite flower was or gave them a cigar for sticking with you.
7. Get the most out of your allies
This is a nice transition to the next tip. As mentioned, allies can and will join you in the main story missions when they get the chance. Usually it’s to help you out in a big boss fight, which is where they really come in handy. Switching between different fighting styles while switching allies along the way might not be for you, but even if you want to play as much alone as possible, you can still make use of your NPC friends. In boss fights where you’re fighting more than one enemy, you can use them to draw the aggression of one enemy while dueling fairly against the other, or just switch to them when you’re down and need help. We found it useful to switch between allies at the start of a boss fight, just to see if one of the two friends you have with you has an advantage against an enemy with their fighting style.
8. Change your position
As you progress through Rise of the Ronin, you may notice that the attacks that worked before aren’t as effective this time around. That’s because, just like in Ghost of Tsushima, certain fighting styles work better against certain types of enemies. Whichever weapon you use, it’s worth building up experience with it so you can access some different fighting styles. If you ever see a red arrow next to an enemy’s health bar, it means it’s time to change your fighting style. A neutral white arrow means you’re probably doing well, but you should aim for the blue arrow to ensure you’re most effective in your matches.
9. Manage your consumables
Even though you have a lot of loot in Rise of the Ronin, and we mean a lot, it’s likely that you’ll spend a little extra time getting used to the combat if you need to. In the game, the main options for regaining health are medicine pills and healing potions. You can carry no more than three potions at any one time, and you can carry up to 10 pills. You may think that it is better to use up the pills first, but we recommend the opposite. Healing potions are much easier to obtain as they can be bought and crafted, while you can only pick up medical pills. Also, it’s a good idea to keep the medicine pills when fighting bosses, as they bring the allies back when defeated. It’s a small piece of advice, but it helps.
10. Get these skills early
Here’s some general advice on skills you should probably pick up early, no matter what game you choose. We recommend that you acquire all the speech skills (persuasion, intimidation, lying) so that you have more dialogue options. Without these skills, you can find yourself in difficult battles, and you can even lock yourself out of paths you want to take later. Aside from getting better at talking, we think the dexterity path is a good way to go early on, as you gain access to various assassinations that give you the ability to take your stealth game up a notch. Particularly effective is the rope slaughter, where you can lure several enemies to be dragged up to their doom. Finally, this one is a bit more niche, but in the power tree you can get a skill for unarmed Countersparks, which will really help when you need to go unarmed in a mission that requires you to fight unarmed.
Think we missed something? Remember to give us your best tips!