There are pretty high expectations for Team Ninja’s PS5-exclusive Rise of the Ronin, which releases in just a couple of days time. While we all still await scores from online media and content creators, iconic Japanese videogame magazine Famitsu has jumped the gun in its latest issue, and its Rise of the Ronin review score of 37/40 makes for promising reading.
Rise of the Ronin is one of this year’s top PS5 exclusives and looks to continue the excellent form Team Ninja has shown with the Nioh series and Wo Long Fallen Dynasty in recent years. Our Rise of the Ronin preview was full of praise for the early hours we’ve played so far, highlighting the open world game‘s excellent recreation of 19th century Japan and its combat that leans just the right amount into the territory of the best Souls likes. Now, Famitsu’s score of 37 (which is made up of three 9/10 reviews and a full-marks 10/10 review) gives you even more confidence that Rise of the Ronin is on track to be one of the best PS5 games.
If you’re not aware, Famitsu uses a team of four reviewers for each game it passes judgement on – each one scores the game out of ten to give you that unusual top score of 40. It’s also fairly tough to get very high scores – the magazine has been around for over three decades, and out of all the best games that have been released in that time, only 30 have ever received a perfect 40/40.
In a brief review roundup of the latest Famitsu issue, posted by Ryokutya2089, the magazine highlights some of its favorite elements of the game. It says (translated from Japanese to English via Google) “the experience of making your own choices and proceeding in an open world set [at] the end of the Edo period is immersive and enjoyable”, and also mentions that Rise of the Ronin’s difficulty settings can make it both super accessible and super challenging.
It does say some elements can be a bit confusing and that there are a couple of “rough edges”, but aside from that, Rise of the Ronin seems to be an excellent experience.
To put its score of 37/40 into more context, Famitsu scored both of Team Ninja’s Nioh games 36/40, and it’s also scored Rise of the Ronin higher than big new PS5 games like Tekken 8 (36), Granblue Fantasy Relink (36), and Helldivers 2 (30).
We can’t wait to share more with you about our time playing the game in the coming days, but this Famitsu review will keep you ticking over until the release date arrives on Friday, March 22, 2024.
In other big PlayStation news, another of Microsoft’s lineup of Xbox exclusives has landed on PS5, and production of the PSVR2 has been paused while Sony tries to shift a backlog of stock.