Unless you like half the game being cutscenes to a bad story that you couldn't care less about and the other half being one big quick time event, don't bother with this.

Saw this game when it released but it didn't look interesting and was criticized for it's gameplay, but then lately i've started seeing all these positive reviews and decided to give it a shot.
And i have to say that i'm amazed at the amount of people that thought this game is worth your time, let alone your money.


It's ~5 hours long and out of those 5 hours you're going to get maybe 3 hours of gameplay, the rest being cutscenes. And out of these 3 hours of gameplay 2 hours is going to be you doing the QTEs.

Which means that, as you can guess, the gameplay is barebones. Outside of QTEs you only have a single attack while the other "attack" is there just to break enemy blocks. So you'd think "hm, well maybe they did something really good with the QTEs to make up for the paper thin combat". No, not really, it's the standard QTE system with only 2 buttons that you have to press, and even though there's quite a bit of different QTE animations it doesn't really matter. Because even if you have 40 different animations they won't entertain you if you have to endure them ~500 times. And you can't even fail at them, even if you don't press anything or press a wrong button, you'll still successfully execute it, you'll just get less points for your upgrade system.
The QTEs in something like God Of War were spread apart far enough and looked incredible, which made them work well, in Ryse there's so many of them that the whole gameplay loop just fall flat on it's face.

Except swordplay and QTEs, the only other things you do are:

1."Command" your troops, which consists of you pressing 1 button (obviously, only when you get told to) and your troops group around you/focus a target...all in all extremely basic.
2. Use ballistas to shoot enemies (the ballistas have 0.3 seconds reload so using them feels more like using a semi automatic rifle than a ballista :) ).

So what else does Ryse have?

Oh, yes, it has an upgrade system, which is (just like the rest of the game) extremely shallow and they really should've just thrown it out the window. Upgrades consist of you upgrading your hp and your focus bar(resource which you fill by fighting) and unlocking even more animations for the QTEs.

It also has story and characters that are there to put you to sleep, while you recover from the suffering you've endured through combat.

The only enjoyment you can honestly get is the slowmotion mode which you use when you've got enough focus.

Ryse also has multiplayer, although i haven't bothered with the multiplayer so i can't give an opinion on it.

A few more things i've noticed.

There was a lot of stuttering in the 4th chapter, even though neither gpu nor cpu usage was maxed.
As with most games, on first boot you get asked to setup your brightness, well, this game is no different, but it doesn't let you change the brightness, it just shows you a brightness window and expects you to change your monitor brightness instead.


So yeah, all in all Ryse doesn't deserve all the positive reviews it's got. Skip it and play other more competent games. While there might not be a lot of hack and slash games set in this time period, suffering through this just for the sake of seing a game set in Roman Empire isn't worth it.

Unless you like half the game being cutscenes to a bad story that you couldn't care less about and the other half being one big quick time event, don't bother with this. Saw this game when it released but it didn't look interesting and was criticized for it's gameplay, but then lately i've started seeing all these positive reviews and decided to give it a shot. And i have to say that i'm amazed at the amount of people that thought this game is worth your time, let alone your money. It's ~5 hours long and out of those 5 hours you're going to get [b]maybe[/b] 3 hours of gameplay, the rest being cutscenes. And out of these 3 hours of gameplay 2 hours is going to be you doing the QTEs. Which means that, as you can guess, [b]the gameplay is barebones[/b]. Outside of QTEs you only have a single attack while the other "attack" is there just to break enemy blocks. So you'd think "hm, well maybe they did something really good with the QTEs to make up for the paper thin combat". No, not really, it's the standard QTE system with only 2 buttons that you have to press, and even though there's quite a bit of different QTE animations it doesn't really matter. Because even if you have 40 different animations they won't entertain you if you have to endure them ~500 times. And you can't even fail at them, [b]even[/b] if you don't press anything or press a wrong button, you'll still successfully execute it, you'll just get less points for your upgrade system. The QTEs in something like God Of War were spread apart far enough and looked incredible, which made them work well, in Ryse there's so many of them that the whole gameplay loop just fall flat on it's face. Except swordplay and QTEs, the only other things you do are: 1."Command" your troops, which consists of you pressing 1 button (obviously, only when you get told to) and your troops group around you/focus a target...all in all extremely basic. 2. Use ballistas to shoot enemies (the ballistas have 0.3 seconds reload so using them feels more like using a semi automatic rifle than a ballista :) ). So what else does Ryse have? Oh, yes, it has an upgrade system, which is (just like the rest of the game) extremely shallow and they really should've just thrown it out the window. Upgrades consist of you upgrading your hp and your focus bar(resource which you fill by fighting) and unlocking even more animations for the QTEs. It also has story and characters that are there to put you to sleep, while you recover from the suffering you've endured through combat. The only enjoyment you can honestly get is the slowmotion mode which you use when you've got enough focus. Ryse also has multiplayer, although i haven't bothered with the multiplayer so i can't give an opinion on it. A few more things i've noticed. There was a lot of stuttering in the 4th chapter, even though neither gpu nor cpu usage was maxed. As with most games, on first boot you get asked to setup your brightness, well, this game is no different, but it doesn't let you change the brightness, it just shows you a brightness window and expects you to change your monitor brightness instead. So yeah, all in all Ryse doesn't deserve all the positive reviews it's got. Skip it and play other more competent games. While there might not be a lot of hack and slash games set in this time period, suffering through this just for the sake of seing a game set in Roman Empire isn't worth it.