First Impressions: "Rise of Rebellion" - A blade yet to be sharpened!

A new 3D medieval fantasy action RPG game from developer Hytacka and published by Kodansha Creators' Lab that has the potential for a great souls-like experience, but needs a lot of polish to get there.

Epic combat with evolving weapon skill trees will let you choose your battles in the playstyle you prefer.

My history with Souls and soulslike games is a long one, I have completed nearly all of the mainstream ones and consider myself decently skilled at them. When I saw the chance to jump into this game and experience what Hytacka has created, I was very excited. However, I quickly realized that the current state of the game highlights its potential, but has yet to reach it fully.

The Visuals and the Atmosphere

Rise of Rebellion looks absolutely gorgeous on Epic graphic settings... until I try to move the camera. My rig is one of the top of the line setups (Pre-RTX 50 Series) and any camera movement with the settings above High would turn the game into a slideshow. The game needs optimization to be able to fully immerse yourself in the way that it claims you can.

The world feels like a canvas only beginning to be filled in.

The world feels very silent though, there is often no background noise to be heard beyond the thunderous footsteps of your character, and often no soundtrack unless you have engaged a boss in combat. What sound there is also bugs out of existence whenever you use a ladder.

Gameplay - An Ongoing Battle

The demo really didn't do this game justice, as for me it wasn't until unlocking more weapons and the various abilities in the skill trees that Rise of Rebellion started to feel like it was starting to show its own identity. At that time it seemed to shift from feeling reminiscent of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, to being closer to the Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order/Survivor games. The game heavily recommends using a controller, but the inputs seem more consistent on mouse and keyboard when I tested both (note, I was using a not so great controller).

What I really appreciated as something that feels unique to Rise of Rebellion, is that for a perfect dodge or parry, instead of simply timing a button press, you must ALSO push the movement input (left stick or WASD) in the direction that the attack is coming from (150° margin of error according to the game) to be able to pull it off. A fantastically cool concept, but it seems to work very inconsistently. Sometimes I would get the perfect dodge off, and suddenly my character would clip back to where I was and I took the hit. Often it feels like I am fighting the controls more than fighting the enemies.

The boss battles are challenging and will require tactics and understanding to overcome them!

On the topic of enemies, there is a large number of variants with different attack patterns and skills, many of which are unlockable for the player in the skill trees. There are so many great ideas here that can be made into a fantastic game if given more time to cook. I frequently noticed enemies would lose tracking on me if I walked through a door way and then they would just stand off to the side with seemingly no idea how to react. In these situations, you could easily just walk up to the enemy and instakill them from behind, allowing the game to be cheesed.

Beginner Tips

• Unlike most soulslike games, there is no corpse-running. So when you die, nothing is lost. So explore and see what is hidden around, death is not the end and thus nothing to be feared!

• Once you have saved up some glitterstones (slow heal over time consumables), don't be afraid to use them. I saved way more than I ever needed while playing the game.

• There is no dependence on i-frames here, precision is needed!

• Getting backed into a corner is never ideal, but Rise of Rebellion has the feature of a pass-through camera when you are up against the wall, meaning your visibility won't be impacted as heavily.

• The game launched with the menu predominantly in Japanese, you will need to navigate to the settings to shift it to English.

• A follow-up to the previous point, some of the translations seem a bit wonky, and as a result some of the tutorials are a bit unclear or don't paint the full picture of how the mechanics function. If you are into trial and error to figure out mechanics, then maybe this can be a collateral benefit.

Closing Thoughts on Rise of Rebellion

This game has a lot to enjoy once you get into it, but there are some glaring problems with bugs and gameplay. The love that Hytacka has put into building this game is very evident. One needs only look at their social media to see it. However, I don't know if I would be able to confidently say that the game is ready for release. I would love to see more time spent on Quality Assurance and especially that early game experience to make it more optimized and playable without the immersion shattering bugs. The foundation of an amazing game is here, and I will probably play more of it once some bug fixes or patches come through.

Official Pixigonal Rating: C+

Rise of Rebellion could easily reach B+ or higher with some TLC.

Pixigonal was given a free copy of Rise of Rebellion in exchange for an honest review.