I am having a blast with Rise of the Ronin, and I think you would too! It has a lot of lightly-implemented RPG elements and I feel addicted to the open world the same way I did with FF7 Rebirth earlier this year. It does not have much to say about its story/characters, and I somehow doubt it will get much deeper on it. Instead it’s all about really fluid action combat with a good variety of different weapons. The combat is deep and challenging. I switched to “story mode” to start with and learn the basics, and switched back to “normal” mode once I got the hang of it. The mission structure is good too - when you’re done exploring the open world you can enter an instanced linear mission.
My favorite thing is that there is a TON of loot and outfits for customization, plus you can bond with some of the other travelers and companions you encounter by talking at rest stops and giving them gifts. They can also join you on missions. The open world design has a pretty wide variety of stuff, and I’m having fun just 100%ing each area as I move along. There’s also factions and you can align with different groups. I don’t know how much choices actually matter (I get the feeling it’s a little superficial) but I like that all this RPG stuff is here at all.
The open world traversal is quite nice too, you get these weird wings and have a grapple hook so it feels very vertical.
And if you really want you can ignore all the quests and just go explore the open world taking pics and looking for hidden kitties!
