Ryse: Son of Rome Reviews
As good a showcase for the new console's graphics capabilities as Forza 5 – if only the gameplay was as beautiful
Gladiator may have won Oscars, but Ryse is much more like the movie 300 – nice to look at, mindless and silly at times, and the kind of experience you'll probably forget as soon as the credits roll.
RYSE's stunning visuals, solid story and a nearly unmatched cinematic flair, are unfortunately offset by simple and repetitive combat, and gameplay that offers little challenge.
Ryse: Son of Rome rises above its rote hack-and-slash design with a handful of inventive ideas and a killer story.
At the end of the day, even though I had a good time playing Ryse: Son of Rome, it just didn't have too much to offer. Sure, it has online multiplayer and a gladiator mode, but these regurgitations of the single-player combat engine still feel repetitive and over-used. The story is shallow but well executed, with next-gen visuals and high-end sound production that make the experience worth having, if only once. I saw a lot of potential in Ryse: Son of Rome. With a little love, I could see a sequel to this game with several playable characters, combat styles, and a more diverse command structure that could seriously take this game to the next level. But for now, it is just a "pretty good game."
In the five hours it took to complete Ryse, I experienced a whirlwind of excitement and disgust. I loved the sights, sounds, and basic combat, and loathed the finishers and gameplay deviations
Ryse definitely looks the part, but the gameplay simply isn't up to scratch. It feels unfinished, or like a hardcore title whose mechanics have been dramatically simplified for the Xbox One TV crowd. Thumb down.
Ryse leans too heavily on its merely decent combat, but at least it looks really, really nice doing so.
There's no denying that it looks absolutely stunning, but sometimes a pretty face isn't everything and due to some extremely bland combat, Ryse: Son of Rome fails to be the killer app that many had hoped it would be. Still, for a launch title, you could do worse.
Ryse: Son of Rome might be the best looking game released on either the PS4 or Xbox One. Unfortunately, it's lacking in the gameplay department. You can tell that there's potential here, but it has yet to be reached.
If we will see more Ryse in the future, time will tell, but the base we currently have is very solid and only providing the game with a deeper combat system and more variety of situations, we would be facing a much rounder game,the failures of Ryse are intuited within a few hours, but these failures do not make the adventure and the story that it proposes to us totally satisfactory.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Sure, Ryse: Son of Rome is a gorgeous game, possibly the best looking Xbox One launch game despite its sub-1080p resolution. But really, it's more than that. It's slower paced, tactical combat is fun, even though it never evolves throughout the game.
At its core, Ryse is beautiful, flawed, but still enjoyable. Xbox One owners should definitely give Ryse a chance. Eventually. Maybe just not now, nor at its current price tag.
...a pretty game with a heap of promise that wound up as little more than an exercise in monotony.
Ryse: Son of Rome is a magnificent demonstration of the Xbox One, but if we want to take it as a finished product, it loses by far, relegating it to the sea of titles that are played inversely proportional to how good they look.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
If you can disengage your brain and just plough through the endless array of same-faced enemies, you'll enjoy the glorious visuals and well designed audio – but this is a game destined to be forgotten fairly quickly, even if it does help prove the Xbox One has more power than we first thought.
While Ryse may not be the train wreck that some feared, it just doesn't live up to the potential that many others hoped for.
Rome wasn't built in a day but you'll easily complete Ryse inside of one - but you'll also enjoy the adventure whilst it lasts.
Ryse Son of Rome is a beautiful looking game on the Xbox One that regrettably suffers from monotonous gameplay which is a "crying" shame. I wanted so much for this game and at the end of the day, it's more a tech demo than a fully fledged game.