Nioh (2017)

I realized I never wrote any final thoughts for this game, so I'll go ahead and put together a little review. Nioh is an action-adventure game I never expected to get into this much -- but it's really one of those games where the more time you put into it, the more you get out of it.

"Souls-likes" had never been my thing, but I felt drawn to Nioh anyways thanks to its setting. Sometimes that's really all it takes to make a game stand out, but in this case I really dig the samurai era and its fantasy spin full of memorable yokai creatures. The story itself is nothing to write home about, but for me it was always much more about the setting than the plot or characters.

I had a hard time getting into this one at first. I died many, many, many times in the first levels. I had to set the game down for a while -- but when I finally got back to it, I was determined to defeat that boss I was stuck on, no matter how many times I had to fight it. Eventually, I did beat it... but it wasn't just from memorizing its attack patterns and making full use of my own abilities. I had to think outside the box a little, and work with the menus to adjust my armor, weapons, items, and skills. Finally, the game clicked with me. I outsmarted the impossible boss, and it felt amazing. So this is what they all mean, when they say "get gud." It's not just your reflexes in the heat of the battle; it's using your head to prepare for each confrontation accordingly.

The game of course only gets harder as it goes along, but the sheer number of options it provides you to work with is staggering. There are many ways to approach each enemy, and the fun comes from experimenting. Try out different weapons, different skills, different stances, different items, different combos, different approaches, different ninja or onmyodo abilities. I enjoyed messing with all these different things. I also had a good time playing through portions of the game with a friend -- co-op Nioh is really a blast if you're both really getting into it.

The game isn't perfect. I felt there was way too much loot to deal with -- and the menus are cumbersome at best, thoroughly intimidating at worst. (I tried my hardest, but I don't think I ever really got how to use the blacksmith to full effect.) People have remarked that there isn't enough level or enemy variety, which I think is a valid criticism too. I thought there was perhaps just barely enough (especially in regards to the bosses), but it seems this is something that's been improved upon for the sequel. I will note there are DLC campaigns for Nioh, and I did end up playing through all of those too. It gets extremely tough, but playing co-op made it manageable for me. Post-game Nioh brings its own new fun experiences by the way, in that you're more free to try out new "builds" for your character. It was crazy how I could put so many hours into a game, and then suddenly it feels fresh again just by tweaking my stats a bit.

Suffice to say, I 100% never expected to get the platinum trophy for a game as intimidating as this. But I did, and it was a blast. I look forward to playing through the sequel, which I've already picked up. I intend to wait a bit before diving in fully though, in order to avoid genre fatigue. If the setting of Nioh interests you, it's well-worth checking out (especially considering how cheap the game has become). Just remember that it does not play the exact same as other "Souls-likes" -- Nioh has its own feel to it, and needs to be approached in its own way.

Can't believe I'm still playing this, lol. I've done two of the three DLC campaigns -- mainly just been messing around with different builds, experimenting with weapons and stats and armor sets and stuff. There's so much to this game...

I'm also one trophy away from getting the platinum, which I never expected to ever do in my life for a Souls type of game.

Hooray! After three years of half-hearted attempts I've finally beaten this bloody game!

I got to see the credits roll, though admittedly there's a HUGE amount of optional content I haven't looked at yet.

I'm totally burnt out on this game though, for now I'm going to give it a rest. I'll come back at some point and mop up the DLC and the other hardmode stuff. I've been smashing through titles the last few months. Whelp, I'm done with Nioh, now it's time to tackle Diablo 2 and Resident Evil 2. Then Pathologic 2 and Bloodstained. 🙌

This game is way better than I remembered. Really enjoying it.

I'm playing with basic katana and spear. Maybe I should experiment with some of the weird weapons. If anyone has played this I'd love to hear some suggestions!

It's especially nice to be playing the PC version at 60fps. Really love the depth of the combat. Even though a lot of the enemies look pretty boring and lack variety, they kinda make up for it with the amount of detail and layers in the fighting system.

I also noted there's this massive in-game menu full of stories and lore and glossary and character bios and stuff. Was this in the original PS4 version? Maybe I just completely missed it. I've been reading it in depth and now I'm actually following the story., it's making the whole thing way more immersive and engaging.

I have been playing Nioh the past week, slowly learning to git gud. I had tried playing this game a year ago, and got stuck on the second boss (the onryoki). When I picked the game back up again, I started over in order to relearn how to play, and then got stuck on that same accursed boss. It took about fifty tries, but I finally worked out a strategy. First, I had to get naked. ;) The armor was hardly any help anyways, so losing it allowed me to move quickly enough to (barely) avoid the monster's ridiculously huge and deadly attacks.

I've gone on to finish the main missions and side quests for the first region (Kyushu). My main weapons are the sword and spear, and I'm experimenting with some of the ninja and onmyo skills. It's a fun game, but what I like most is the setting. I love Sengoku-era Japan, with its samurai and ninja, and the imaginative yokai monsters are great too (and are fittingly ferocious for October spooky times). It's this setting that got me to finally play a Souls-like, and I now have a better understanding for the appeal of this genre. It's frustrating, dying again and again, but then it feels great to finally pull through -- not simply by learning enemy attack patterns and timing all your moves just right, but by experimenting with your own weapons, armor, items, skills, and so on. You don't just fight hard; you fight smart too. And then, of course, you feel all the more powerful when you can go back and swiftly own enemies that gave you so much trouble earlier on in the game.

There's no mistaking it - Nioh is a Souls game to the core. It may not be by the same developer, but the experience point system, the treacherous exploration, the tough as nails bosses... it's pure Souls.

Including the frustrating parts. Nioh spares no expense in ripping the player to shreds as they take part in a journey to reclaim a foreigner's guardian spirit in 17th century Japan. The character in question, William, is adept with a handful of weapons and can level up stats to get better with each one. Where the real interesting part comes in is that William can adapt to three different stances (low, mid, high) for each weapon, emphasizing evasion, blocking, and damage. Along with that, the stamina bar is now a mystical gauge called Ki, which can be pulsed with a timed button press to regain stamina at a quicker pace and dispel stamina-draining pools called yokai realms. Enemies have their own Ki as well, with the player aggressively (optionally, but aggressive is the way to go) hitting stamina out of their enemies to get grapples and finishing moves in.

A special powerup mode (think Devil Trigger or Rage of the Gods) is also available, a Guardian Spirit that charges the player for a short time. This mode is powered by how many souls (cough Amrita cough) the player obtains, and can be key to get out of tricky situations.

The story is pretty laid-out, completely unlike the Souls games. This can be a bit of a bother, as it's no longer a rich mystery and is rife with cliche. The world is also a set of missions instead of a connected set of areas, with sub-quests to pepper amongst the main quests. Herein lies Nioh's ultimate weakness - a large amount of its content amounts to repetitive fights with enemies you'll be seeing way too many times. The bosses are intense (mostly) the first time you encounter them, but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th times lessen that magic. Playing these quests is also akin to grinding, and with the gigantic amount of weapons and armor that are dropped Diablo-style (especially from enemies born from online player deaths called Revenants), the player will feel overpowered in the endgame, making many a fight later on trivial.

However, the game is gorgeous. It doesn't quite pull off the ruined world that the Souls games do so well, but it looks rich with detail and echoes fantastic audio and visual design.

If you can stomach the lack of balance, cliched story, and content so boringly repetitive you'd poke your eyes out (or just be a BOSS and skip it), Nioh is surprisingly solid, and not only manages to prove itself as a Souls-like but even provide satisfyingly good combat that makes it better than a few of the actual Souls games. You know the ones...