Rise of the Ronin’s overseas critic reviews booed in Japan - AUTOMATON WEST
The PS5-exclusive Rise of the Ronin has earned a Metascore of 76, which Japanese users consider to be unfairly low.
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Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja’s Rise of the Ronin released to generally positive yet lukewarm reception from overseas critics, with a number of reviews describing the historical RPG as “forgettable” or “unremarkable.” On the other hand, the game has been received with a lot more excitement domestically, and Japanese users are expressing an increasing distrust of video game Metacritic scores.
Rise of the Ronin was one of 2024’s highly anticipated releases, brought by the developers of Ninja Gaiden, Nioh and Wo Long: Fallen Dinasty. The open-world RPG reimagining of Japan’s turbulent Edo period had users worldwide hyped up for another Ghost of Tsushima-level samurai game. Ronin’s first critic review fueled this excitement further – as the Japanese game magazine Famitsu scored it at 37 out of 40, with critics praising the story, combat mechanics, immersive world and difficulty levels, albeit pointing out the slightly bland visuals.
On the other hand, Rise of the Ronin has a Metascore of 76 based on 112 critic reviews as of this writing, and while this is not a dramatically low score, it places the game in the 55th place among video games released this year, which is quite underwhelming. Japanese players have been voicing complaints about this score, commenting, “76 is way too low,” and “the Metascore is not to be trusted, anything under 80 for this level of game is absurd.” One player close to clearing the game remarked, “even when I subtract points for the complaints I have I’d still give the game around 90, I can’t agree with a Metascore of 76 after all.”
As opposed to its critic score, Rise of the Ronin’s aggregate user score is significantly higher at 8.5. Furthermore, this score has been showing an upward trend in the past few days, indicating that the game’s reception is improving as more players pick it up. This fact has inevitably drawn comparisons to Dragon’s Dogma 2, which released on the same day as Ronin. Dragon’s Dogma 2 is currently in the opposite situation, with a strong Metascore of 85 and a weaker user score of 6.2. While the game does deserve the praise it received from critics (although its release was followed by some microtransaction– and graphics- related controversy), some players believe that it was scored unfairly high in comparison to Ronin. One user who enjoyed both titles commented, “This has made me painfully aware of how unreliable Metascores are.”
Japanese players have also proposed that the real thrill of Rise of the Ronin may be somewhat lost on a player not informed about its historical and cultural context, as one user commented, “It’s kind of a shame that this game kind of ‘picks its players’ because it’s set in the Bakumatsu period. If it had been a common fantasy game, it would have sold a lot more.”
For Japanese players, Ronin is the equivalent of a French Revolution RPG, with personalities as impactful as Bonaparte making an appearance. But for an overseas audience, the magic may get lost in translation. Many Japanese users think this may be part of why Rise of the Ronin’s Metascore is as low as it is, as one user remarked, “The games Japanese people like and the games foreigners like are actually quite divided (…) so complaining about the low Metascore is kind of meaningless.”
Post translation: A video that makes you want to buy Dragon’s Dogma 2 in 5 seconds
As an aside, Rise of the Ronin sold 64,646 physical copies in Japan in its first week, following closely after Dragon’s Dogma 2, which sold 68,592 units during the same period.
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