Is Rise of Rebellion "the most interesting action RPG in the world" – the game that developer Hytacka, a former Dark Souls 3 DLC designer according to Automaton, hopes to create? No, definitely not. But it is an interesting action RPG, which is a pretty good start for this ambitious quest.
There's an updated demo for Rise of Rebellion in Steam Next Fest, and given its lead creator's apparent history (not to ignore co-developer Mitsunagi), I had to try it. It's janky as hell and nowhere near ready for launch – either this is a very old build or the game's 2025 release date is mighty optimistic – but I have a soft spot for weird Japanese action games and I think it's worth 30 minutes of your time. My focus with Steam Next Fest is usually highlighting standout indies, and we've got plenty of that elsewhere with more on the way, but somehow this month's demo blowout has become a good source of bizarre-o action RPGs like this Game of Thrones tie-in.
On YouTube, Hytacka firmly calls Rise of Rebellion a Soulslike action RPG, and that quickly shines through in the demo. After a prison opening shot straight out of Dark Souls 1, we're introduced to Estus Flask healing and bonfire checkpoint stand-ins, familiar controls and UI, and a focus on looping levels of levers and doors and ladders that sell the mechanical connection. The story of gods and dragons and heroes doesn't make a lick of sense either so far, but rather than classic Soulslike tactics, that's perhaps due to the rough Japanese-to-English translation and the demo's hasty setup.
That said, combat is noticeably pacier than your average Soulslike – a flurry of light-and-heavy combo strings, parries, perfect dodges, and magic special attacks that's genetically closer to something like Ys or, for a demo parallel, The First Berserker: Khazan. There's a focus on directional inputs altering attacks and parries that sounds cool but doesn't quite stick the landing. Timing a parry is already difficult when many enemies all but ignore windup frames on their attacks, so adding the analog stick to the mix just feels cruel. At most I'm parrying with a 33% success rate, with failed attempts usually ending in my character getting stunlocked for a few hits, which is another recurring issue.
Further differences are found in the skill tree, which replaces the usual Souls stats page with a web of new moves and miscellaneous upgrades. I unlocked some long-range thrusting attacks and an iaijutsu-style unsheathe hit as a new way to spend the mana-like energy you generate when landing and deflecting attacks. This fills out the attack first, defend later flow of combat which has gotten me up to but not through the first demo boss, but now we're getting to the jank that hangs over this game like a storm cloud.
Rise of Rebellion is floaty as all get-out. Your character slides around like they've got bricks of butter on their shoes, dodge and jump animations seem to buckle regularly, and enemies frequently leap or fly back what feels like 15 feet. It's like the whole game is a Mario ice level. Combine this with a camera that interprets directional inputs as mere suggestions, a lock-on that regularly drops your perspective to the floor, and intense motion blur that I couldn't disable, and you've got an action RPG that is physically difficult to play. The demo is also bizarrely quiet, level geometry regularly clips and crumbles, and environments have that blinding, default Unreal Engine lighting going on.
That said, I've played a lot of irredeemable garbage in 12 years of game journalism, and Rise of Rebellion is not that, even if it is closer than I'd hoped going in. The combat is poorly expressed and the presentation is downright ugly, but there is a kernel of something here – the same thing that won this game some backing from Kodansha's game creator program, I'd assume. Whether that something is enough to turn this rough and raw cobbling of ideas into a recommendable game remains to be seen.
