Ryse: Son of Rome Reviews
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.
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.
For those who enjoy a simple hack-n-slash game, Ryse: Son of Rome fits the bill. This is no deep adventure, but rather a chance to burn your aggression by chopping your way through hundreds of barbarians, slowing only to enjoy the carnage during the brutal executions. Still, the stunning visuals and compelling setting will keep some gamers engaged throughout, making Ryse a flawed-but-interesting addition to the Xbox One launch lineup.
Ryse: Son of Rome rises above its rote hack-and-slash design with a handful of inventive ideas and a killer story.
Ryse is a bit of a marmite game, if you are looking for a great gaming experience that takes forever to perfect then Ryse is not for you. If you are interested in a Roman interactive movie with a solid story line then I'd say give it a shot.
We must say that Ryse offers no long-lasting value, it is definitely a renter at best, but it is a beautiful one. Once you complete Marius' story mode in about five to six hours and try out the co-op multiplayer once or twice, there isn't much else to it. Ryse does an excellent job at showcasing the capabilities of the Xbox One itself, but it lacks any real substance.
Ryse: Son of Rome is the most technically incredible title available on Xbox One. It is a display of graphic and communicative power, a lesson in style, and a clear example of the wonderful places where the Microsoft console will lead us. Unfortunately, it is also a rather boring title, too equal to itself, which fails to evolve. The combat system, in its foundations, works well: it is fluid and well guessed. But the choice to focus so much on Quick Time Events dampens too much the degree of challenge, and the structure of the campaign, excessively linear, is all focused only on the clashes.
Review in Italian | Read full review
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 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
Brilliant combat, a sumptuously produced story and some of the best visuals we've ever seen make up for the limitations of the gameplay. Ryse: Son of Rome is bloody good fun.
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.
It's easy to see a new franchise in Ryse; one that could potentially rival God Of War if it maintains the momentum of the latter half of the campaign. However, the gameplay is so rote and uninspired that it merely hints at a more robust and rewarding experience that it fails to deliver. Ultimately, it makes for a few hours of passing entertainment, but it's certainly not one for the history books.
Still, beautiful visuals can only do so much to redeem a game, and as beautiful as Ryse is to look at, it's still more than a bit underwhelming to play. Which is sad, because, with a bit more thought put into the game design side of things, this could have been the Xbox One's standout launch title.
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.
Ryse: Son of Rome is a great tale set in the Roman period, with its visceral limb chopping and an authentic weight to its centurion credentials, but as a third-person action adventure it's something of a one shot deal with little to pull you back in once you've seen Marius' journey through. Its gorgeous visuals and in-your-face combat may wow, but their shine dulls with unfortunately little to be offered in their place to reignite that initial excitement.
Crytek brings its Xbox One launch exclusive over to the PC and it's not great. But PC graphics enthusiasts should probably check it out anyway.
Play your part in protecting the Roman Empire as legionnaire Marius Titus, a man with a thirst for revenge and a penchant for particularly gory execution moves. Ryse Son of Rome could have been a great game but its repetitive gameplay holds it back from greatness.
If you played Ryse: Son of Rome on Xbox One, there's little reason to return on PC. It may contain higher resolutions and a more flexible frame rate, but otherwise it's substantially the same game.
Yes it screams "I used to be a Kinect game," yes it's limited in story as well as combat and yes, you've played many, many games like this previously, better games with more systems and gameplay but...but...crucially, Ryse: Son of Rome looks breathtaking. The perfect launch game, doing nothing new, arguably less so than current gen games but adequately showing off the new hardware - think of it as a tech demo with quick time event executions and you will not be disappointed.
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."