Mento's May Mastery '16: Day Fourteen: Ronin

Ronin

Well, Ronin perhaps did a smart thing bowing out as early as it did. As it naturally ratcheted up the difficulty for its later missions, those seams I talked about last time did begin to transpire. I've a laundry list of grouses that I'm thinking of sticking in their own spoiler block section for my peace of mind, but suffice it to say that a game that demands a certain amount of precision from its player should see to it that it exhibits a similar level of mechanical rigor itself. A tool-tip straight up admits that the jump indicator line is a lie, and you're likely to find many other ways that the UI will inaccurately portray the predicted result of the next move before you execute on it, rendering the protagonist dead or close to it through no fault of the player.

I can respect the game's strengths though, and I do think the turn-based aspect is a really neat idea that allows for some creative balletic murdering. It would've been fantastic if it followed a time-stop system like this to its natural end point; namely, an option to view a replay of the mission you just completed without all the pausing so you can watch your little revenge-obsessed assassin quickly flip around a room and systematically take out all of its guards in real-time. I'm guessing that, along with the mysterious other characters in the frequently shown photograph of targets the heroine carries around with her, it was a feature that the developer didn't have the time or resources left to implement. It's a shame they weren't given more time to polish the game, though it also makes me hopeful that Ronin 2 can excel where the first fell flat a few times.

The acquired skills really helped with the end game, and not just because it made the level of challenge more approachable. The ability to teleport directly towards someone is an insane game-changer that allowed for some truly nonsense killing sprees, as you're likely to quickly regain enough points from killing your surprised foe to teleport again to a goon on the opposite side. Add to this other badass skills like throwing and recalling your sword, or tossing shurikens at everyone in sight to give yourself a moment to breathe, and there's no disputing the game's coolness factor. In that regard, it's perhaps a little closer to Klei's highly stylized Mark of the Ninja game.

But then we come to those little annoyances that the game throws at you with greater regularity as the difficulty, size and complexity of the missions grows ever higher. I've stuck it behind a spoiler block as it's a fairly nit-picky bulletpoint list that throws off the format of this article. However, there's a second reason too, and that's because the last item on this list concerns the final mission. I didn't want to spoil anything about it, but the game tries to go for something cinematic and it ends up being very user unfriendly and detrimental to the overall game. Consider yourself warned for spoilers (as well as for a lot of quibbling):

• There's no way to climb up ledges while in turn mode. if you get stuck on a wall between areas, or the frame around a window, your options are painfully limited. Many of the game's mechanics are contingent on the speed and flexibility of the protagonist, and not letting them escape in an elevator or climb over a wall while in the turn mode is really unfortunate.
• Every time the heroine attacks someone it's with a giant overhead chop that causes her to leap up, making it easy to get shot by any overhead laser target line in the middle of the swing. What kind of ninja doesn't know how to stab upwards from a crouched position?
• Civilians add nothing to the game. These scientists and administrators need to be left alive to earn skill points, and they need to be left alone because if they spot you they'll call in an alarm which is an entirely different fail state. This also means the game was lying when it said it wasn't a stealth game. Also, there's no option to tie them up either, which seems kinda ludicrous when you have a rope for garrotting soldiers from the ceiling.
• Checkpointing can be a little off. There's a sequence where you hack a computer near some civilians you have to avoid (ugh), and then make your way to the next elevator down before they see you. Down the elevator is a tough gunfight against five or six guards. I had to get past that same bunch of civilians every time I restarted that fight because of the unintuitive way the game will checkpoint progress.
• Every gun has infinite range and perfect accuracy. This includes the machine guns held by the blue guys. Future weapon tech sure is something. (I've been told that on new game plus, the gunfire is more spread out and even harder to deal with, so I suppose I should count my blessings.)
• So, that last mission. Holy crap what a miserable way to end any game. No checkpoints, several floors of goons to clear out. If you get hit once, you start a "death counter" that replaces the usual lockdown counter (which, thankfully, is nowhere to be seen for this finale). More hits reduces the death counter while killing enemies restores it, but it will eventually run down and cause you to die. Whether or not you've killed the boss at this point determines if it's a standard game over or the game's pyrrhic "bad ending", where you get your revenge but succumb to your wounds. This is essentially the gimmick for th final mission: it expects you to get hit once and then desparately try to stay alive long enough to take the evil boss down with you. However, you can survive this mission with enough skill and perseverance, but the "happy ending" you get instead is... nothing. The game's reward for your dedication in clearing the whole stage without dying and avoid a cliché "but at what cost?" conclusion is a big ol' middle finger. It's been a while since I've seen a game end this poorly - not since UnEpic and Mass Effect 3.

The Verdict: All right, so I won't deny that there's some sour grapes here. But the game's brisk, cool as heck and you can overlook a lot of its problems by taking them into account and working around them. The jump line doesn't account for your head, allowing it to get clipped by a bullet? Well, you can learn from that death and adjust for next time. Shurikens won't stun the sword dudes, and neither does throwing a sword at them? That's something else you know not to try the following attempt. The checkpointing is (mostly) generous, and you're free to take on a room of enemies in any manner you choose - it could end up looking like the most Inspector Clouseau assassination ever, as long as everyone is dead except you. For those reasons, I'd give this game a light recommend. Hell, Vinny seems to love it, and who could ever disagree with that guy? (I could. Three stars.)

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