FF7 Remake and Yakuza: Like a Dragon have been a welcome respite for my overworked hands, but if I was gonna return to action games it was worth the pain to enjoy Rise of the Ronin. More-so than Yakuza Kiwami, it looks like a 7th gen escapee built on the conventional wisdom of mid 2010s design. In spite of this Ronin’s moment-to-moment is blissful. Foregoing the stodgy mo-cap of its contemporaries, the action is immediate, cartoonish even, in a way reminiscent of 6th gen action titles. Very flexible too with character builds and difficulty options & branching narrative paths recalling the dormant Way of the Samurai. Can’t say I would’ve picked it up without that $40 gift card, but thats more about inflation than interest.