You play as Marius Titus, a Roman Soldier on a journey for revenge after his entire family was murdered by Barbarians. You’ll play through his life, primarily in flashback form, beginning with the murder of his family then following his battles across the Roman Empire before finally getting the revenge he seeks, all while slicing and dicing the bodies of barbarians, Britons and lead your troops into a few large battles and overcome your enemies.
Lets face facts here, Ryse looks absolutely gorgeous. Regardless of where you console allegiance lie, there’s no doubt this is one of the best looking next-gen titles and this is shown off greatly in the plentiful cut-scenes that are achieved with the help of the stunning motion capture work provided by Andy Serkis’s Imaginarium studio. The cast are wonderfully voiced and help to keep the narrative flowing and coupled with the graphics they truly showcase the high production values Crytek has put into their Xbox One exclusive. Ryse may look pretty but that’s really its biggest positive. Ryse is an incredibly shallow game that is skirting by on its looks alone and shows far too many shadows of its former self.
Ryse started life as a Kinect title for the Xbox 360 and boy does it show. Levels seem to all have the same basic design leading you down small corridors before opening into small areas to battle in, before leading you down yet more corridors. It’s very repetitive and shows that there was a time in the games life where navigation was done for you before allowing you to take control in battles. But the action hasn’t escaped the Kinects ghost either.
The fighting system is fairly typical for this genre. Marius really only has two types of attacks, a quick but weak attack and a slow but stronger attack. He also has a block and a dodge roll that can be effective to parry certain enemy attacks. Enemies all have basic attack patterns for you to learn and counter before delivering combos with a few simple button presses. After beating up an enemy enough, a skull will appear above their head. You can now execute them with a quick press of the right trigger. An execution will play out regardless of weather or not you match the coloured aura representing which button to press. If you match them you’ll get better bonuses and the animation will play out smoother, but it feels like this was once an animation where your movements via Kinect would control how the execution plays out, but now is simply a cheap way to a provide a quick gruesome execution. Plunging swords through stomachs and slashing necks in a gore-filled arena, but the system lacks the style and timing that makes combat in the Batman Arkham games so satisfying.
That said though the executions do look fantastic and incredibly brutal, but I wish there were more of a positive and negative to the QTE events that you’re given. Your only real reward is to set up what perk you’ll receive by using the D-Pad. Perks to choose from are health boosts, more experience points, a strength buff or ‘Focus’, a quick power that allows Marius to slow time. This is a nice idea but one I rarely found using, unless I was close to death and needed health. Ryse is so simple and linear that none of these feel well fleshed out. It wasn’t until I had gotten very far into the game before I decided to spend any experience on upgrades and even then I could barely notice any difference to the gameplay.
If you do find yourself struggling for experience points, players have the the option to upgrade their skills with gold. You can’t earn gold. This is currency purchased through the Xbox Store. While I found no reason to use these micro-transactions it’s certainly an odd choice considering Ryse is a full-priced, launch title, but unfortunately I can see this becoming the norm in years to come. I have no issue with micro-transactions as long as they aren’t forced onto the player to continue their progression and in Ryse they really don’t force it on you, it’s just a background mechanic that I didn’t even notice until halfway through the campaign.
Ryse does try to mix up the gameplay by giving you control of your troops and deploying them to attack one section of enemies while you take on the other, while using turrets or throwing spears. Unfortunately this falls flat. The turrets are boring to use as are the throwing spears and usually play out too slowly to be any real use. More often than not I would simply order my soldiers to attack using voice commands or holding a button as prompted on screen. It’s a shame as controlling a group of soldiers could have added a nice layer of strategy, albeit thin, but it just doesn’t seem to work.
Once you’ve finished the eight-chapter single-player campaign you may be wondering what else Ryse has to offer. Well…not much, but there is the online co-op gladiator mode. Limited to just 2 players this sees you partnering up with other gamers to take on against increasingly deadly waves of enemies in an ever changing arena filled with traps. It’s actually quite a lot of fun, for a while as least. It’s incredibly satisfying when you successfully lure foes into deathtraps and you can also level up your warriors skills and armor. I enjoyed the multiplayer but it doesn’t have the depth to keep me coming back and after I’d levelled up a few times, I felt no need to play again.
For all the above negatives you may be surprised when I tell you Ryse is actually quite enjoyable. The combat is simple and reasonably satisfying especially when surrounded by growing numbers of enemies who are ultimately slaughtered in terrifically violent and bloody fashion. It’s one of those games that is incredibly flawed, but somehow has that extra something that stops Ryse from being a bad game and instead is just an mediocre title. The Roman Empire setting is certainly refreshing among the usual modern day shooters or sci-fi settings that overload the modern gaming world, but I just wish that I was able to explore more of it. Ryse is beautiful to look at and really must be experienced to truly appreciate it. Your armour rattles and sways independently as you walk, run and climb in the linear world and the levels and backgrounds are also suitably stunning.
Ryse doesn’t have the brains to match its looks. If you want a visually impressive game to show off to your mates or to realise that the next-gen has arrived then this is the game for you. However if you want a deep, long lasting game to entertain you then I’m afraid you may want to give Ryse a miss. I can’t see a sequel being on the cards, but I can only hope that this is a shape of things to come from Crytek because if they can match the gameplay to the graphics then they’ll really have a fantastic title on their hands.