Over 60 hours into Rise of the Ronin and I nonetheless haven’t found every little thing that Group Ninja’s newest open-world samurai journey recreation 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. Listed here are the main points, together with the place and easy 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. Properly, not precisely. Since Nioh takes place a whole lot 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 could be very a lot well worth the effort.
You’ll find him within the Shiba Prefecture in Edo, which is the second main metropolis in Rise of the Ronin. In the event 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 offers you silver cash to buy further Mind talent 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 way in which 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 take a look at him you should, 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, however it’s not a very troublesome battle, particularly in case you’ve performed Nioh. His moveset is an identical to the usual assault sample you see when wielding a katana in Group Ninja’s 2017 Japan-set Soulslike, in order that familiarity ought to make the battle simpler to handle. Anyway, go forward and lay him out.
After the battle, 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 glorious Netflix anime. Then there’s the true prize, the Nioh-ryu fight fashion. It’s the identical sword approach that the Blue-Eyed Samurai, and Nioh’s William Adams, use, and it’s nice. See, there are 4 overarching fight fashion varieties that the myriad fight types in Rise of the Ronin fall beneath: Ten, Chi, Jin, and Shinobi. Every of those 4 is robust towards sure weapon varieties 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 at all times do extra harm. Positive, 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 might nonetheless lower by way of even the heaviest of weaponry, equivalent to golf equipment and odachi.
I really like little particulars like this, non-obligatory targets that join a studio’s video games collectively in attention-grabbing and fully missable methods in case you don’t know the place to look. The good factor about Rise of the Ronin is that in case you occur to overlook something within the recreation, there’s a characteristic that allows you to replay entire areas and full missions for completely totally different outcomes. So, in case you needed to see what would occur in case you saved an anti-Shogunate official as a substitute of killing them, you might bend time to see what occurs. Sadly, when you murk the Blue-Eyed Samurai, he’s useless for good.
