Over 60 hours into Rise of the Ronin and I nonetheless haven’t found every thing that Crew Ninja’s newest open-world samurai journey recreation has to supply. And now, exterior of all of the cats to gather and fugitives to kill, there’s one other secret related 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. Listed here are the main points, together with the place and tips on how to discover the “Blue-Eyed Samurai.”
On March 31, the PlayStation UK X/Twitter account revealed one thing I suspected was within the recreation: William Adams, the protagonist of the primary Nioh and the primary non-Japanese samurai, is in Rise of the Ronin. Effectively, not precisely. Since Nioh takes place tons of of years earlier than the occasions of Rise of the Ronin, he’s known as the “Blue-Eyed Samurai” right here, paying homage to the superb Netflix anime with the very related identify. 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 pictures actions, however crossing swords with him may be very a lot well worth the effort.
You will discover him within the Shiba Prefecture in Edo, which is the second main metropolis in Rise of the Ronin. Should 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 further Mind ability factors. Simply left of the place you’d take the image is a bit of alcove with a dimly lit hearth illuminating the doorway. Saunter in there.
The remainder of the best way is blocked by a poorly constructed picket barricade, which you’ll be able to destroy by blowing up the fireplace barrel simply in entrance with both a bomb or a gun. When you’re inside, take the one left on the finish of the quick, slender pathway, and William—dammit, the Blue-Eyed Samurai—might be standing there, simply ready so that you can attempt him. And take a look at him it’s essential to, as a result of this isn’t a kind 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 troublesome combat, particularly for those who’ve performed Nioh. His moveset is similar to the usual assault sample you see when wielding a katana in Crew 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 primary is a set of armor themed round Yasuke, the primary Black samurai whose identify is the title of one other wonderful Netflix anime. Then there’s the true prize, the Nioh-ryu fight fashion. 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 fashion sorts that the myriad fight types in Rise of the Ronin fall underneath: Ten, Chi, Jin, and Shinobi. Every of those 4 is robust towards sure weapon sorts and weak towards others, however Jin is essentially the most well-rounded fight fashion 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 fashion, which implies, since most enemies in Rise of the Ronin use both katanas or sabers, you’ll primarily all the time do extra harm. Positive, there are a handful of enemies that use different fight types which might successfully counter a Jin-based one, however even then, as a result of Jin is a jack-of-all-trades, it will probably nonetheless reduce by even the heaviest of weaponry, similar to golf equipment and odachi.
I like little particulars like this, optionally available targets that join a studio’s video games collectively in fascinating and completely missable methods for those who don’t know the place to look. The great factor about Rise of the Ronin is that for those who occur to overlook something within the recreation, there’s a function that allows you to replay complete areas and whole missions for completely totally different outcomes. So, for those who wished to see what would occur for those who saved an anti-Shogunate official as an alternative of killing them, you might bend time to see what occurs. Sadly, when you murk the Blue-Eyed Samurai, he’s lifeless for good.