Over 60 hours into Rise of the Ronin and I nonetheless haven’t found every part that Staff 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 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. Listed below are the main points, together with the place and methods 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 referred to as the “Blue-Eyed Samurai” right here, paying homage to the superb Netflix anime with the very comparable identify. Anyway, William—I imply, the Blue-Eyed Samurai—performs a small position 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 could find him within the Shiba Prefecture in Edo, which is the second main metropolis in Rise of the Ronin. When you pop open your mini-map and head towards Shiba’s bay, you’ll discover a photograph goal referred to 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 little bit 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 brief, slim pathway, and William—dammit, the Blue-Eyed Samurai—might be standing there, simply ready so that you can strive him. And check out him you should, 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, however it’s not a very tough combat, particularly should you’ve performed Nioh. His moveset is similar to the usual assault sample you see when wielding a katana in Staff 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 actual prize, the Nioh-ryu fight type. 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 type sorts that the myriad fight kinds in Rise of the Ronin fall below: Ten, Chi, Jin, and Shinobi. Every of those 4 is powerful in opposition to sure weapon sorts and weak in opposition to others, however Jin is probably the most well-rounded fight type of the bunch as a result of it’s efficient in opposition to sabers and different light-weight weapons. The Nioh-ryu is a Jin-based fight type, which implies, since most enemies in Rise of the Ronin use both katanas or sabers, you’ll primarily at all times do extra injury. Positive, there are a handful of enemies that use different fight kinds which may successfully counter a Jin-based one, however even then, as a result of Jin is a jack-of-all-trades, it might probably nonetheless minimize by even the heaviest of weaponry, corresponding to golf equipment and odachi.
I really like little particulars like this, elective targets that join a studio’s video games collectively in fascinating and fully missable methods should you don’t know the place to look. The good factor about Rise of the Ronin is that should you occur to overlook something within the recreation, there’s a function that permits you to replay complete areas and full missions for completely completely different outcomes. So, should you needed to see what would occur should you saved an anti-Shogunate official as a substitute of killing them, you could possibly bend time to see what occurs. Sadly, when you murk the Blue-Eyed Samurai, he’s lifeless for good.
