The age of the samurai is coming to an end. The chaos of the Warring States period bleeds into the stagnancy of the Edo period, and an age of peace has no room for warriors. You take on the role of samurai retainers Jiro or Taro as various pressures try to destroy them.
AUTHOR
Nicola Kapron
VOICE ACTOR
Nate Barham
SUITED FOR
Teens, Adults
PLAYING TIME
15 min
CHOICES
15
ENDINGS
4
Game Flow
Medium
ATTENTION LEVEL
Medium
It is 1637, Japan. After 100 years of samurai dominance, the land has no more wars to fight in, and thus no need for a heavily-armed, highly-respected warrior class. The Tokugawa Shogunate has begun cutting dead weight.
Once fired, a samurai becomes a ronin and loses his position, his home, and his purpose. Ronin have a very short life-expectancy and a tendency to self-destruct.
The player takes on the role of Jiro or Taro, two samurai serving under Lord Arita, as political, interpersonal, and economic pressures try to destroy the Arita Clan. Obstinate, righteous Jiro discovers an assassination attempt against Lord Arita. Meanwhile, resourceful and Taro puts his charisma to work looking into the conspiracy behind the assassin.
In Tale of Ronin, an RPG roguelike currently in development, the fall of the Arita Clan forms the background of the tutorial. This audio story will provide an inside look at how the clan fell. Jiro and Taro’s fates are up to the player, and the decisions they make before and after the clan’s destruction could lead them to a new form of happiness… or straight into the depths of despair.
4,5 von 5 Sternen (basierend auf 15 Bewertungen)
As someone who loves stories that take place in Asia, I adore the premise of the story. The idea that you can choose who to play and that both get quite the different story beats is interesting as well. It uses the strengths of this format by doing so and enables for good replayability.
The only two things I can really complain about is that, for me at least, the endings all seemed fairly similar, I like to have a good difference to highlight the choices matter aspect. Otherwise the voice acting, especially during some of the dialogues, felt a bit too monotone for me, I applaud the actor for the work and I don’t want to talk them out of the profession! I prefer to give honest feedback that they can improve on.
The introduction to the historical setting was very well done. Even if you are not very familiar with this time period, you quickly get a feeling for where you are.
I really liked that you could choose between Jiro and Taro. Both have their own personalities, which come through in the way they approach problems.
Unfortunately, towards the end, it did not feel very much like you could influence the ending.
Otherwise, it is a very well-written and gripping story.
What I really liked about this story, was the immersive establishment of the world of Tale of Ronin. Every little thing in the story mattered and contributed to describing the setting and the atmosphere.
The choices I made naturally connected into one story, yet left me wondering how I could achieve a different ending in a different playthrough. Even choosing between two protagonists still gave me the opportunity to get to know both through their interactions.
The voice over was great, different characters portrayed with memorable voices and subtle hints to the emotional weight of a decision really contributed to the whole experience.
Tale of Ronin — The Fall actually made me really curious about the game itself, and I would definitely recommend checking it out after playing this story.
This is an amazing short story that I came across. The beginning of the story let me hooks in for the whole story and keeps rehearing it for couple time to choose a different choice and what will happen to the story.
This was a fun short story. The descriptions were well-written, though I would have hoped for a bit more excitement or depth to the characters, their histories and motivations. There also were two characters with very similar names which caused a bit of confusion and with the limited cast, I would suggest renaming the non-playable one.
