The Rise of the Ronin kill or spare Gonzo choice in The Bridge to Yokohama is the game's first big moment where your actions have consequences, given the chance to spare or kill the Bandit Leader who stole the permits into the city (among other things). When the choice is offered to you, there's no clear sense of what the consequences might be - will Gonzo turn on you? Is there a reward? Will sparing the life of a bandit chief come back to bite you?
Well, there's a mix of consequences - I've actually used a reloaded save to play both paths and map out the results of either sparing or killing Gonzo, so you know what will happen either way and what the better choice is - as well as the second time you'll be given the choice. Read on for more details regarding the first major choice of Rise of the Ronin: should you kill or spare Gonzo?
Is it better to spare or kill Gonzo in Rise of the Ronin?
Having played both options, I can say firmly that it's better to spare Gonzo rather than kill him. We'll go into more details below, but here's the spoiler-free version: if you spare Gonzo, you get more rewards than if you kill him, it just takes longer to get them - a matter of deferred gratification. If you kill him, you immediately get some rewards, but your overall prize is less than if you let him live and just wait for events to unfold.
Spare Gonzo
If you spare Gonzo, he runs off, thankful for the chance, and you immediately get the following (rather unremarkable) rewards.
- Oban x1
- Power Remedy x6
- Red Nuts x2
- Sulphur x3
- Storehouse Key
You'll still get the Permit into Yokohama even if you let him live, don't worry - that's kept in the Storehouse, and you get into there no matter what you choose.
However, later on after progressing through the story and completing a quest in the Pleasure District, an optional mission will appear called The Bad Bunch in the region of Yoshida-Shinden (Southwest of Yokohama), where an NPC asks you to help take out a crook who cheated them out of money. That crook turns out to be Gonzo - and you get the same choice again; to kill him, or let him live?
If you kill him, you unlock the Jigen-Ryu stance for Nodachi weapons, one of the Rise of the Ronin Combat Styles, as well as another Oban and some equipment and Longhouse gear from your quest giver. But if you let him live again, you and Gonzo work together to kill the quest-giver and his cronies, the "Suspicious Looking Men" - and then get the exact same reward you would've got for killing Gonzo anyway. Plus, at this point, Gonzo becomes a permanent ally! He joins your team and can be called in for missions.
This is where the delayed gratification comes in - if you spend time building your bond with Gonzo, you'll get the Jigen-Ryu combat style and Bandit Chief's Odachi. You can get both of those things by killing him, but obviously you'll never get the chance to have him as an ally.
Kill Gonzo
If you kill Gonzo the first time you encounter him, you immediately get the following rewards:
- Bandit Chief's Odachi
- Jigen-Ryu combat style for your Nodachi
- "Merciless" title
- Oban x1
- Power Remedy x6
- Red Nuts x2
- Sulphur x3
- Storehouse Key
- Assorted equipment (appears to be random)
However, of all these things, only the Merciless title is unique to this path, and it's far less good than having a full-fledged ally - which you can't get if you kill Gonzo. If you kill him here, you also still get to do The Bad Bunch mission, but in this timeline Gonzo is replaced by a nameless NPC goon that you can't work with.
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