My Five Annoyances: Ryse Son of Rome

First off, yay reviews! Second off, you ever realize that reviews take a really long time. There’s analyzing, playing, replaying, paying attention to both large and small details. Truth be told, while it’s a wonderful process…it’s very time consuming. So time consuming, there’s simply no way for me to do in depth game reviews with my schedule the way it is. So I said to myself “What about five little things”. This lead me to pick out five things I liked about games. However, I know the human psyche. We don’t want to hear about the good, we want to hear about the bad…or in this case annoying.

So with that intro out of the way, let’s talk about the five annoyances of Xbox One’s “Ryse: Son of Rome”…after a quick intro.

“Ryse Son of Rome” was released on November 22nd, 2013 as a launch title for the One. It was developed by Crytek and published by Microsoft. The game is described as a “third person action adventure hack-and-slash” according to most sites where you control Marius. Marius is a fictional Centurion of the Roman Empire-

NO NOT THAT ROMAN EMPIRE

The HISTORICAL Roman Empire! Anyways, Marius uses his skills to help defend Rome, kill his enemies and avenge his fallen allies. Understand? Great, let’s get on to the list.

5: Why Is It Called “Ryse” And Not “Rise”? 

Now to be fair, this one does have an answer. That answer: Crytek. Apparently Crytek just substitutes the “I” for a “Y” (as shown in their other series “Crysis”). Not much more to say here and I have a feeling most people didn’t really care but still, I guess it just…caught my “I”…sorry.

4: So Wait, Does A Real Damocles Exist?

In the second to last chapter, we find out that Marius becomes “Damocles”. In the game, Damocles is a powerful warrior abandoned by his Generals during a war. The Goddess of Vengeance saw this act of cowardice and gave Damocles a chance to exact his revenge on his Generals. Marius, having fallen under similar circumstances, would also become Damocles so he may get his revenge on the people who betrayed Rome.

One..problem..Does this mean Damocles isn’t really a warrior as much as it is a title? It’s shown that Marius (presumably) dies after being knocked into the sea by Barbarians. Does Marius just…become this all powerful warrior but still retain who he is? It’s a bit vague, maybe even intentionally so, but it doesn’t change the awesome revenge scenes we get to see towards the finale. 

3: Was Boudica Falling Off The Elephant In The Grand Finale Suppose To Be Funny?

The final fight pits you against Boudica whom, again, is based off a real life person. I won’t get into that but I will talk about this final fight. You see Boudica storming the main palace on an elephant when Marius gets a great idea to use the scorpio to take it down. The scene is pretty cool except for one problem..Boudica made the same mistake about 10 minutes ago.

See, when Boudica first enters the battle, she takes on Vitalion (Marius’ Commander). Vitalion also kills the elephant, but he uses a spear and stabs it into the eye with one throw. This causes Boudica to fall out and proceed to fight hand to hand. She, ultimately, wins the fight but…seriously? SHE TRIES THE EXACT SAME TECHNIQUE AGAIN!

I mean, with Vitalion, maybe she didn’t realize he could be that capable since they never fought but with Marius, she’s already fought and lost to him. Now, in defense of the game, Marius’ scorpio attack is a surprise attack but given we’ve already seen our main villain fall off an elephant once, it just seems silly to watch it happen again. All I could hear was the “wah, wah, wah, waaaaaah”.

2: Those Damn Formation Parts

So, if you ever decide to look up ancient battle techniques, you may find yourself seeing a shield technique used by the Romans called “The Roman Tortoise”. Again, won’t go into too many details, but the technique is used to cover all warriors from arrows and swords using Roman Shields.

Obviously, a game about Roman legionnaires would use such a famous technique. Obviously, a game about Roman legionnaires would over-use this technique…

Don’t get me wrong, the first time you do it, it’s pretty cool. You have to switch between hiding behind the shields, moving forward, or throwing spears (which are actually called Pilums). However, you do it quite a few times and every time just gets more boring. It never changes from the pattern or seems any harder than the last time. You would rather just be fighting with your sword and shield. I’m sure someone out there really enjoyed these parts but I can honestly say, I did not. If anything, it felt like it broke me out of the flow of the game.

1: Why Would Marius Tell Nero His Entire Story? 

The obvious answer here is “because we wouldn’t have a game otherwise” but in the continuity of the game, why would he do this. See, after Marius is left for dead at the hands of the Barbarians, he is brought back as Damocles. Marius then goes on a rampage to find Nero’s sons and kill them. However, after killing one of the sons, a prophet tells Marius that Nero can only die by his own sword. The implication is that Nero must kill himself via suicide with a dagger. The reality? Nero falls onto the sword of a giant statue. That giant statue is of, you guessed it, Nero. It’s pretty climatic and definitely a “OH SH-” moment.

With one problem…if that’s all that was needed to be done, why would Marius tell Nero the whole story knowing full well Nero was going to die. In telling Nero the story, the Roman legionnaires arrive as back up only to betray Marius on Nero’s command. This leads you having to have a QTE fight against multiple Romans as Nero tries to make his escape.

Now your argument maybe that the story is needed so Nero understood how screwed he was when the Barbarians show up and would choose suicide when given the choice..EXCEPT THAT MARIUS TELLS NERO THAT THE BARBARIANS ARE DEFEATED.

Yeah, when Nero hears the weaponry of soldiers, he first thinks it’s the Barbarians which is why he opts for suicide, but then Marius decides to mention the whole “Boudica is dead and we won lol” thing and Nero realizes that he really doesn’t have to kill himself anymore. Even if Marius did want to go through the whole story, he could have just out that one little part. Oh well, thank the Roman Gods a convenient giant sword wielding statue of Nero just happened to be nearby for a quick kill. We should all be so lucky…

And that’s my list. Do you agree with my annoyances. Did “Ryse: Son of Rome” rise any concerns out of you. Well, if it did, feel free to comment or share my article with friends, family, neighbors, dogs or any other living creature you find. Until next time my friends.