Ryse is a melee combat action game, set in a fantasized Roman empire around the 60s AD, with famous figures and Roman gods appearing as part of the story. While it is not historically accurate, the choices were clearly deliberate, and the story, while fairly simple, is engaging - the characters, good or evil, are rich in personality, and the range of locations makes for a varied experience. The story pacing is good throughout the eight-hour campaign, which manages to offer a range of settings without any one of them overstaying its welcome.
The story is buoyed in large part by the phenomenal voice acting and motion capture - among the talented cast of voice actors, the clear star of the show is John Hopkins, playing the main character Marius; from tender scenes with family and jokes with comrades, to barking commands in the heat of battle and roaring with anger and grief, he lands every line with perfect confidence. Faces and the actors' expressions are captured brilliantly, with realistic and believable performances reflecting the quality of the voice acting.
The world around the actors is beautiful even 12 years later - armour glints under the sun; forests are lush and verdant; nights are dark and moody; fire crackles and flickers brightly. The graphics are complemented by a well-made soundscape, with the sounds of woodlands and cities providing a natural backdrop during the quieter moments, and the clashes and shouts of battle crashing all around during fights. The soundtrack, despite not sticking in your head long after you stop playing, fits the game well, containing a variety of themes to enhance the emotion of each scene throughout the game.
Clearly the game was made with a high budget and a competent set of developers across all disciplines, but unfortunately, the game's biggest shortcoming is in its most important area - the gameplay is much too simple, and despite Crytek's attempts to add variety, it too often boils down to simply bashing an enemy with your shield, slashing twice with your sword, and repeating until a skull appears above the enemy - this triggers an execution move, in which you must press the bash and slash buttons at the correct time to perform a dramatic kill - mistiming your button presses, or even pressing the wrong button entirely, does not have a major downside however, as the execution will still take place, but you will lose your 'point streak'.
The gameplay is intended to revolve around this streak, with well-timed hits and properly-performed executions increasing your streak multiplier, and giving bonuses to things like health regeneration and damage, but ultimately it is too easy to gain a good streak without having to vary your gameplay. Games like this tend to reward variety and punish repetition (think Tony Hawk's Pro Skater multiplying higher for using different moves, or Batman: Arkham Asylum rewarding the use of different gadgets) but Ryse does not contain the variety required for this, forcing it to allow you to endlessly repeat the same two moves you learn within the first minute of gameplay.
Finally, let's talk about replayability. Ryse's campaign does not offer a great deal of variety, with one playthrough being essentially identical to the next. The hardest difficulty, Legendary, is only unlocked by completing the campaign on one of the three easier modes, so to experience that (and unlock its corresponding achievements) you must play through the story twice. There is an arena multiplayer mode, which allows you and another player to enter the Colosseum as gladiators, taking on various missions such as rescuing citizens from barbarians or capturing and holding zones - these days, you're unlikely to find another random player online, so finding a friend to play with is probably the best way to experience this. The game has a substantial set of unlockable achievements set across singleplayer and multiplayer modes, most of which can be unlocked solo, and the campaign includes collectibles which unlock additional story and art which can be viewed from the main menu.
Ultimately, your enjoyment of Ryse will hinge on how satisfying you find the gameplay - if the simplicity doesn't bother you, you will find a high quality and enjoyable game. If you are used to more complex action games, you may find Ryse's combat too lacking to engage you. However, this many years after release, the price should have lowered enough that you'll more than likely find Ryse to be an entertaining and quality game.
