Ryse: Son of Rome is a 3rd person hack and slash game. You play as Marius who defends Rome from a Barbarian attack. The game is told in flashback form, and shows Marius' quest for revenge when his family is killed by the barbarians, but there’s a twist along the way.
The visuals and dialogue often seem to take homage from blockbuster films. It isn’t that historically accurate though. There’s a beach assault like the Normandy landing (Saving Private Ryan), a siege which looks like it’s from Lord of the Rings, and the dialogue sounds like it’s from The Gladiator.
There’s enough variety of locales, from city, castles, coast, and woodlands. Although you are normally taking down soldiers, one woodland section sees you fighting against tribal warriors as you head to a large Wickerman.
I liked the combat system, but the game doesn't introduce many variations so once you master the mechanics, you can just take the same approach throughout the game. The main controls are to slash, shield bash, block and dodge. Basic enemies can just be attacked, some enemies have to be countered, but the shielded enemies need to be staggered with a shield bash, then the more aggressive ones have an unblockable attack shown when they flash red, so you roll out of the way.
When enemies are near death, a skull icon indicates they can be finished off with an execution move. There are single executions as well as double ones if you have 2 close enemies that can be finished. Once triggered there's around 3 button presses of X or Y as a simple quick time event system. Although weirdly, you don't even need to press the correct buttons. These executions feature gory brutality with limbs being eviscerated or the sword ploughed straight through the body. Once finished, you are rewarded with a bonus which you can switch with the D-Pad; health restoration, damage, focus, xp which adds another layer of strategy.
Focus is a special attack which slows down time, and allows you to quickly pound enemies in an agile fashion which makes it feel like Batman Arkham series.
Occasionally you can pick up a few pilum (javelin) as a ranged attack. Marius can throw incredibly far and with amazing accuracy. I didn't really understand the combat because it sometimes failed to lock on, whereas other times it was fine. But when enemies are launching pilum or arrows at you, you don't seem to have time to attack and then dodge, so I wasn't sure of the strategy to use. Trying to pick up pilum can be imprecise too, leading to Marius smashing his sword against his shield as a taunt.
The other way the game can vary gameplay is with some "turret" sections but using ballistae/scorpios. These can fire really fast and also have aim assist. Sometimes there's a choice of where to position your troops.
Some sections have you working with your troops in different ways. One common thing is where you walk in formation, and have to command your troops to raise shields in order to block incoming arrows, then sometimes request to attack back.
In between the action there’s small walking sections, either with dialogue or just allowing you to take into scenery. There’s moments of the modern squeezing through small gaps which is often a technique to hide sections loading in. Sections are also shown by small ledges/obstacles which commonly act as a checkpoint too.
There’s a few collectables to look out for, which are highlighted green when you are fairly close.
There’s quite a lot of upgrades and you do get plenty of points so need to return to the menu frequently. You get more points based on your combo kill streak. Many of the unlocks are execution moves, although I wasn’t sure how the different ones trigger though. I think some are positional like approaching from the back, whereas others may have been randomly chosen.
There is a multiplayer mode, which can be played solo. I only briefly played it and it seemed to be based on the battles in the colosseum.
On release, I think the game was often deemed a visual spectacle, and it still looks great now. It can feel a little repetitive and linear, but I often like action games like that. I think the problem is the auto-aim scorpios and the inconsistent pilum combat was often how it tried to vary the gameplay; and these ideas were a little boring or frustrating. I did like the main combat system and liked how you can switch your reward.