Critical Corner: Rise of the Ronin and Take Two

In this edition of Critical Corner, reviews of Team Ninja's new game Rise of the Ronin and Danielle Hawkins' new novel Take Two.

I know what you’re thinking. “Not another review that responds to both the new Team Ninja game set in 19th century Japan and the new Danielle Hawkins novel?” Sorry to be doing what everybody else is, I guess, but schedules and needs must.

In all seriousness, I’ve been thinking a lot about comfort in art. The phrase “art should comfort the disturb, disturb the comforted” or some variant thereof is trotted out fairly regularly, often without interrogation. One person’s comfort is another man’s disturbia. One person’s disturbed is another person’s comfort. Excellent art can be comforting, just as bad art can be disturbing, and vice-versa. Some things, like Rihanna’s “Disturbia”, can be both.

Alas, in a week where I’ve been engaging with more art than regular, I ended up spending some time with two pieces of art that managed to be a perfectly comfortable lob over the tennis net, and it felt appropriate to pair them together for a review. (Please, if you find anybody else reviewing these two together, link them with me because they may well be my long lost twin.)

After a strangely robust character creator, Rise of the Ronin throws you in the deep end. The player takes control of a character who ends up Forrest Gumping (an acceptable verb now, apparently) their way through the Boshin war between the Tokugawa Shogunate and various factions opposed to Western interference in Japan. Your protagonist, frustratingly mute, ends up splitting the difference between being extremely involved in events and being tangentially involved in events. The player does the bulk of the work, but history remains on the same trajectory regardless. 

Before long, the game settles into a comfortable open world rhythm, as pioneered and unfortunately driven into the ground by Ubisoft. The story separates Japan into regions, and within each of those regions are smaller territories with a checklist of things to do – fugitives to defeat, photos to somewhat anachronistically take, flags to raise for some reason. Not a single one of these things are unfun, and Rise of the Ronin at the very least makes the player feel like they are contributing meaningfully to Japan, even as the story marches to its inevitable, historical, end.

The combat is complex, somewhere on the spectrum between Dynasty Warriors and a Souls-like game; punishing before you learn it and disarmingly easy once you do. Traversing the world is a dream, whether it’s galloping on a horse, gliding from high point to high point, or just generally ambling across identical grassy knolls. Collectibles, whether they be cuddly cats or enemy bases, feel just a level above arbitrary. It all adds up to a package that is never less than fun, but never quite compelling.

It’s all very comfortable. It’s also a little bit flat. From your mute protagonist to the cavalcade of historical figures that drop in and out through the plot, there is never a sense of urgency.  Agency is nice, but it only really means something when the things you have to choose between want you to choose them. Rise of the Ronin spends most of its time shrugging your way, believing that because you’ve invested one hour, you might as well spend two. Nothing in the game is wrong, but nothing is excellent either.

I ended up spending close to 20 hours with Rise of the Ronin. It was fine, and very often fun, but more than that, it was nice. A soft lob across the tennis net, volleyed back and forth, until I decided to put the racquet down.

Take Two is, perhaps unsurprisingly, my first Danielle Hawkins novel. The bestselling Otorohanga author, whose titles include the likes of Dinner at Rose’s and Chocolate Cake for Breakfast, could be broadly called a “rural romance” novelist. That label might have turned me off – I barely get more rural than a pair of Doc Martens, and I am barely five steps along the 12-step journey of ridding myself of my romance novel stigma – but the raves from people like Catherine Woulfe should have convinced me otherwise.

I dived into Take Two with some trepidation, which was quickly thrown away. She sets up her plot very quickly: Laura, who is having a slight existential crisis in between contracts, ends up back home, and after some soft drama, she becomes a helping hand for her ex’s ailing father. The rekindling of friendship, family, and one unexpected romance, ensues.

Hawkins has a remarkable grasp on her milieu here. This is the real world with the crusts cut off, in the best way. If the soft colours of the cover didn’t convince you of that, the first chapters of Take Two do. This might be a world where people get sick, and have petty disagreements, but nothing in this book is going to traumatise or trigger the reader. People will end the story in a more enlightened place than where they start it, and the worst that will happen to them is something that can be resolved – usually by rallying the other people around them. (Although one character does an especially horrible thing that is quite rightly shot down.)

Take Two is a comfortable read, without sacrificing momentum, conflict, drama and frankly, authenticity. Characters react how you might expect they would in real life, although Hawkins is a skilled enough writer that everything sounds a bit better (she has a great ear for the New Zealand voice, a tricky thing to nail) and swims along more smoothly than real life does.

A story can be comfortable without losing its value, or without sacrificing greatness. There is, of course, a certain height, a certain excellence, that only risk-taking and disturbia can provide. I’ll always be chasing that. But every now and then, it’s rewarding to sit inside someone’s comfy box and watch them paint confidently inside it.

Rise of the Ronin is available on PS5 now. Take Two by Danielle Hawkins will be available March 26 from Allen & Unwin ($36.99) and where books are sold.

Other Things I’ve Consumed

• On Tuesday, I went to the preview of AIGA, which runs at Auckland Arts Festival until Sunday. You can read my interview with Lusi Faiva, the creator, and Jon Tamihere-Kemeys, the kaiwhakahaere of Touch Compass here: “After seeing an invite-only preview last night, the thing that sits with me most about AIGA, beyond the show, is that it felt like the first fully accessible show I had ever seen. In a week where the government is ruining the lives of disabled people for a sliver of savings, against the needs of that community, it was a sober reminder of what accessibility can be in a performing arts context.”
• I also saw Gravity & Grace, a loose adaptation of Chris Krauss’ Aliens & Anorexia, and enjoyed it. I won’t be reviewing it in full due to a conflict of interest, but I can recommend it. It is also on at Auckland Arts Festival until Sunday.
• The third season of Girls5Eva has dropped on Netflix and I love this show too much to ever review it properly. The joke density of this show is absolutely wild, and its frame of reference could not be more me if I had written it myself (there is an entire subplot that parodies this Jewel and Jessica Simpson duet). Renee Elise Goldsberry is doing Jane Krakowski level character work, and I've had this song in my brain for a week:

Things I’ve Read

• If you’re not signed up to Pot Luck, Metro Magazine’s dining newsletter written by Charlotte Muru-Lanning, you’re missing out on some excellent food writing (and if you’re in Auckland, some great food recs).
• This is a fascinating, and bleak, read about the gaming journalist to publicist pipeline by Nathan Grayson from Aftermath. The journalism to comms pipeline is very real in New Zealand, and it’s jarring to see the parallels.
• This Harper Bazaar profile of Regina King is excellent, especially the way she talks about grieving the death of her son.

Self-Promo

• A scant one that may be relevant to some of you: I will be teaching playwriting at the National Youth Drama School these school holidays. NYDS is a true institution, and I’m very excited to be involved. If you are a teenager who is interested in that, or have guardianship of a teenager who might be interested, you can read more about it here.
• If you’re in Auckland, I’m doing a development reading of my show White Wedding, a family drama set in the Waikato, on the night of April 5. If you want more information or want to attend, hit me up on my work email: smokelabours@gmail.com

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