This review contains no story spoilers.
Ronin: Two Souls (RO:TS) is a beautiful and highly atmospheric RPG that's in a very early state, with little content or polish to speak of. While the basic technical aspects of the game, such as optimisation, are in a decent state, the quality of the quests, characters, combat and the English translation are greatly lacking at this point in time. Though I can forgive much of this considering the very early state of the game, some aspects are just too rough.

In the few hours I played, I explored the game's single available island quite thoroughly, spoke to all the NPCs and progressed the main quests a much as I could, before bugs and/or overly obscure design halted my progress.

🖱🎮RO:TS works well with both keyboard & mouse and controller, but controls cannot be re-bound, and the Y axis cannot be inverted.🎮🖱

This section may now be outdated due to updates.

All of the game's combat takes place in duels; one-on-one showdowns viewed from a side-on perspective, similar to many fighting games. Access to three different combat stances and a parry ability suggests a complex combat system, but in practice I found duels incredibly easy to win by simply jabbing the enemy as they come into range. Said enemies can typically only block attacks from one specific stance, so players can simply switch to another and merrily jab away. This may simply be due to the available enemies being “starter” foes at the beginning of the game, but only time and content updates will tell.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2401747226
Various equipment items such as swords and armour can be looted from enemies and locations. These all offer various stat buffs and debuffs which work well, most of the time. Items that reduce the player's stamina, however, can be overly detrimental to gameplay. Too much reduction, and the protagonist cannot sprint at all when out of combat, as they immediately become exhausted. Similarly, attacks in some stances are rendered impossible due to their stamina cost.

RO:TS features only a handful of quests at present, and distinguishes between story content and fetch quests. Unfortunately, my experience of these is one of bugs, confusion and tedium. Despite spending more than half of my playtime poking around RO:TS' relatively small island, I was unable to complete either of the two main quests provided. One had me on a scavenger hunt, using hand-drawn maps to locate loot boxes; I found two of them within a minute, but the third, I could swear, does not exist. I do not know whether it was missing due to a bug or whether I was gravely misled by the map, but either way, an hour-and-a-half later, I'm done looking.

The second quest was much the same. I don't need a Skyrim-esque objective marker to show me every little thing, and I like exploring, but this is rather excessive – or bugged.

The protagonist's journey begins on a small island populated by a few poor villagers, pirates looking for plunder, and other, less transparent individuals. With distinctive areas like a forest of red-leaved trees and another of bamboo, RO:TS' first area is a beautiful and atmospheric one that's a pleasure to explore. The invisible walls preventing entry to the ocean are a bit jarring, but I can forgive the game that.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2401749851
Filling the shoes of Kenji, a young man trained in the ways of a Samurai, the player is immediately left to explore RO:TS' world and act as they please, while Kenji comments on his player-guided actions and encounters. His character is displayed and decided through conversations with both allies and enemies alike – as mentioned previously, no enemy will attack Kenji without first entering dialogue, giving enemies more depth than a generic bandit, or similar.

The limited number of interactions, characters and quests currently featured in RO:TS (or at least, the limited number I could experience) make it hard to grasp the quality of the story writing or what calibre of character arc Kenji will have. As it stands, there's promise, but little substance.

This game was played with the following PC specs:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
16GB RAM
GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4GB
1680x1050 resolution
Windows 10
Game installed on HDD

Clearly, the game's environments are beautiful, though there are some less appealing aspects, as well. Shadows are quite grainy, even when set to epic, and there seems to be a grainy effect to the graphics as a whole, most noticeable when moving the camera quickly or looking at objects closely. In addition, character models are relatively simple and very few in number – there's only one model for a male villager, for example. These flaws are overshadowed, however, by the stunning views and vibrant colour the game regularly displays.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2401747916
Using a mixture of high and epic settings, the game ran at a consistent 60fps in open areas, with dips of 5-10 in areas with very dense flora.

The soundtrack of RO:TS is a nice one, with pleasant music that fits the game's atmosphere well. Sound effects are decent, and while only the protagonist's dialogue is voiced, the audio quality is similarly adequate, though I cannot speak to the quality of the acting itself, as it is not spoken in English.

English translation.
It's pretty bad. Typos and grammatical errors are rife, and some lines of dialogue, descriptions and even quest objectives are not translated at all.

Dialogue cannot be skipped.

Key bindings cannot be changed.

While I encountered few minor bugs while playing RO:TS, there were several major ones, which should make my reluctance to persevere with the quests more understandable.

Game locking completely:
Entering one specific area caused my game to completely lock out all input, forcing me to Alt-F4. I believe this was caused by a bad event trigger. Two attempts at loading the autosave after restarting the game caused it to attempt to both load the save and start a new game simultaneously. The first time this happened, the game had a complete meltdown, breaking all visuals and audio. The second time, the game loaded successfully but had reset the world and all its quests and NPCs, loading me into a sort of unintentional new game+ mode. Thankfully, I had been making manual saves regularly. If I hadn't, I would have been forced to start over.

Flickering visuals:
Certain anti-aliasing settings cause the ocean to flicker constantly.

NPCs forgetting where they are:
At one point, I attempted to talk to an NPC who was previously amicable (I had become friendly with his faction) only for him to be openly hostile without explanation. This culminated in a fight which teleported us to the other side of the island, where the NPC was located earlier in the quest.

Ronin: Two Souls is undoubtedly a game with potential, but it has a long way to go, and I cannot recommend it in its current state. Episodic content is planned for the game, and I will be keeping an eye on its progress. With luck, I will soon be able to progress further and will update this review as necessary.

If you like long, detailed reviews, check out our curator page, Devils in the Detail.

[h1][i]There's potential, but it's not yet realised.[/i][/h1] [b]This review contains no story spoilers.[/b] [h2][i]-[u]Overview[/u]-[/i][/h2] [i]Ronin: Two Souls (RO:TS)[/i] is a beautiful and highly atmospheric RPG that's in a very early state, with little content or polish to speak of. While the basic technical aspects of the game, such as optimisation, are in a decent state, the quality of the quests, characters, combat and the English translation are greatly lacking at this point in time. Though I can forgive much of this considering the very early state of the game, some aspects are just too rough. In the few hours I played, I explored the game's single available island quite thoroughly, spoke to all the NPCs and progressed the main quests a much as I could, before bugs and/or overly obscure design halted my progress. [quote]🖱🎮[i]RO:TS works well with both keyboard & mouse and controller, but controls [b]cannot be re-bound, and the Y axis cannot be inverted[/b].[/i]🎮🖱[/quote] [h2][i]-[u]Gameplay[/u]-[/i][/h2] [h3]Combat:[/h3] [b]This section may now be outdated due to updates.[/b] All of the game's combat takes place in duels; one-on-one showdowns viewed from a side-on perspective, similar to many fighting games. Access to three different combat stances and a parry ability suggests a complex combat system, but in practice I found duels incredibly easy to win by simply jabbing the enemy as they come into range. Said enemies can typically only block attacks from one specific stance, so players can simply switch to another and merrily jab away. This may simply be due to the available enemies being “starter” foes at the beginning of the game, but only time and content updates will tell. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2401747226 Various equipment items such as swords and armour can be looted from enemies and locations. These all offer various stat buffs and debuffs which work well, most of the time. Items that reduce the player's stamina, however, can be overly detrimental to gameplay. Too much reduction, and the protagonist cannot sprint at all when out of combat, as they immediately become exhausted. Similarly, attacks in some stances are rendered impossible due to their stamina cost. [h3]Quests:[/h3] [i]RO:TS[/i] features only a handful of quests at present, and distinguishes between story content and fetch quests. Unfortunately, my experience of these is one of bugs, confusion and tedium. Despite spending more than half of my playtime poking around [i]RO:TS'[/i] relatively small island, I was unable to complete either of the two main quests provided. One had me on a scavenger hunt, using hand-drawn maps to locate loot boxes; I found two of them within a minute, but the third, I could swear, does not exist. I do not know whether it was missing due to a bug or whether I was gravely misled by the map, but either way, an hour-and-a-half later, I'm done looking. The second quest was much the same. I don't need a [i]Skyrim-esque[/i] objective marker to show me every little thing, and I like exploring, but this is rather excessive – or bugged. [h2][i]-[u]World Design[/u]-[/i][/h2] The protagonist's journey begins on a small island populated by a few poor villagers, pirates looking for plunder, and other, less transparent individuals. With distinctive areas like a forest of red-leaved trees and another of bamboo, [i]RO:TS'[/i] first area is a beautiful and atmospheric one that's a pleasure to explore. The invisible walls preventing entry to the ocean are a bit jarring, but I can forgive the game that. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2401749851 [h2][i]-[u]Story & Lore[/u]-[/i][/h2] Filling the shoes of Kenji, a young man trained in the ways of a Samurai, the player is immediately left to explore [i]RO:TS'[/i] world and act as they please, while Kenji comments on his player-guided actions and encounters. His character is displayed and decided through conversations with both allies and enemies alike – as mentioned previously, no enemy will attack Kenji without first entering dialogue, giving enemies more depth than a generic bandit, or similar. The limited number of interactions, characters and quests currently featured in [i]RO:TS[/i] (or at least, the limited number I could experience) make it hard to grasp the quality of the story writing or what calibre of character arc Kenji will have. As it stands, there's promise, but little substance. [h2][i]-[u]Technical[/u]-[/i][/h2] [quote][b]This game was played with the following PC specs:[/b] AMD Ryzen 5 3600 16GB RAM GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4GB 1680x1050 resolution Windows 10 Game installed on HDD[/quote] [h3]Visuals:[/h3] Clearly, the game's environments are beautiful, though there are some less appealing aspects, as well. Shadows are quite grainy, even when set to epic, and there seems to be a grainy effect to the graphics as a whole, most noticeable when moving the camera quickly or looking at objects closely. In addition, character models are relatively simple and very few in number – there's only one model for a male villager, for example. These flaws are overshadowed, however, by the stunning views and vibrant colour the game regularly displays. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2401747916 [h3]Performance:[/h3] Using a mixture of high and epic settings, the game ran at a consistent 60fps in open areas, with dips of 5-10 in areas with very dense flora. [h3]Audio:[/h3] The soundtrack of [i]RO:TS[/i] is a nice one, with pleasant music that fits the game's atmosphere well. Sound effects are decent, and while only the protagonist's dialogue is voiced, the audio quality is similarly adequate, though I cannot speak to the quality of the acting itself, as it is not spoken in English. [h3]Design Oversights:[/h3] [b]English translation.[/b] It's pretty bad. Typos and grammatical errors are rife, and some lines of dialogue, descriptions and even quest objectives are not translated at all. [b]Dialogue cannot be skipped.[/b] [b]Key bindings cannot be changed.[/b] [h3]Bugs:[/h3] While I encountered few minor bugs while playing [i]RO:TS[/i], there were several major ones, which should make my reluctance to persevere with the quests more understandable. [b]Game locking completely:[/b] Entering one specific area caused my game to completely lock out all input, forcing me to Alt-F4. I believe this was caused by a bad event trigger. Two attempts at loading the autosave after restarting the game caused it to attempt to both load the save and start a new game simultaneously. The first time this happened, the game had a complete meltdown, breaking all visuals and audio. The second time, the game loaded successfully but had reset the world and all its quests and NPCs, loading me into a sort of unintentional new game+ mode. Thankfully, I had been making manual saves regularly. If I hadn't, I would have been forced to start over. [b]Flickering visuals:[/b] Certain anti-aliasing settings cause the ocean to flicker constantly. [b]NPCs forgetting where they are:[/b] At one point, I attempted to talk to an NPC who was previously amicable (I had become friendly with his faction) only for him to be openly hostile without explanation. This culminated in a fight which teleported us to the other side of the island, where the NPC was located earlier in the quest. [h2][i]-[u]Summary[/u]-[/i][/h2] Ronin: Two Souls is undoubtedly a game with potential, but it has a long way to go, and I cannot recommend it in its current state. Episodic content is planned for the game, and I will be keeping an eye on its progress. With luck, I will soon be able to progress further and will update this review as necessary. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/37072886][quote]If you like long, detailed reviews, check out our curator page, [b]Devils in the Detail[/b].