Over 60 hours into Rise of the Ronin and I nonetheless haven’t found all the pieces that Team Ninja’s newest open-world samurai journey sport has to supply. And now, outdoors of all of the cats to gather and fugitives to kill, there’s one other secret linked to Nioh that I solely simply got here throughout. That’s proper: William Adams, the protagonist of Nioh, is lurking in Rise of the Ronin. Here are the small print, together with the place and discover the “Blue-Eyed Samurai.”
On March 31, the PlayStation UK X/Twitter account revealed one thing I suspected was within the sport: William Adams, the protagonist of the primary Nioh and the primary non-Japanese samurai, is in Rise of the Ronin. Well, not precisely. Since Nioh takes place a whole bunch of years earlier than the occasions of Rise of the Ronin, he’s known as the “Blue-Eyed Samurai” right here, harking back to the superb Netflix anime with the very related title. Anyway, William—I imply, the Blue-Eyed Samurai—performs a small function right here, a mere sub-boss encounter as a part of the open-world images actions, however crossing swords with him could be very a lot well worth the effort.
You can discover him within the Shiba Prefecture in Edo, which is the second main metropolis in Rise of the Ronin. If you pop open your mini-map and head towards Shiba’s bay, you’ll discover a photograph goal known as “View of the Bay at Shiba.” You don’t have to finish this exercise, however snapping a fast pic of the waterfront gives you silver cash to buy additional Intellect talent factors. Just left of the place you’d take the image is slightly alcove with a dimly lit hearth illuminating the doorway. Saunter in there.
The remainder of the best way is blocked by a poorly constructed wood barricade, which you’ll be able to destroy by blowing up the fireplace barrel simply in entrance with both a bomb or a gun. Once you’re inside, take the one left on the finish of the brief, slender pathway, and William—dammit, the Blue-Eyed Samurai—might be standing there, simply ready so that you can attempt him. And attempt him you could, as a result of this isn’t a type of encounters the place there’s a little bit of dialogue earlier than the blades get inevitably soaked in blood. He aggros the second he spots you, nevertheless it’s not a very tough combat, particularly for those who’ve performed Nioh. His moveset is an identical to the usual assault sample you see when wielding a katana in Team Ninja’s 2017 Japan-set Soulslike, in order that familiarity ought to make the combat simpler to handle. Anyway, go forward and lay him out.
After the combat, you’ll earn some fairly candy rewards. The first is a set of armor themed round Yasuke, the primary Black samurai whose title is the title of one other wonderful Netflix anime. Then there’s the actual prize, the Nioh-ryu fight model. It’s the identical sword method that the Blue-Eyed Samurai, and Nioh’s William Adams, use, and it’s nice. See, there are 4 overarching fight model sorts that the myriad fight types in Rise of the Ronin fall below: Ten, Chi, Jin, and Shinobi. Each of those 4 is robust towards sure weapon sorts and weak towards others, however Jin is essentially the most well-rounded fight model of the bunch as a result of it’s efficient towards sabers and different light-weight weapons. The Nioh-ryu is a Jin-based fight model, which implies, since most enemies in Rise of the Ronin use both katanas or sabers, you’ll primarily at all times do extra harm. Sure, there are a handful of enemies that use different fight types which may successfully counter a Jin-based one, however even then, as a result of Jin is a jack-of-all-trades, it will possibly nonetheless reduce via even the heaviest of weaponry, reminiscent of golf equipment and odachi.
I like little particulars like this, elective targets that join a studio’s video games collectively in attention-grabbing and completely missable methods for those who don’t know the place to look. The good factor about Rise of the Ronin is that for those who occur to overlook something within the sport, there’s a function that allows you to replay complete areas and whole missions for completely completely different outcomes. So, for those who needed to see what would occur for those who saved an anti-Shogunate official as an alternative of killing them, you may bend time to see what occurs. Unfortunately, when you murk the Blue-Eyed Samurai, he’s lifeless for good.
