Nioh is the ”Dark Souls” like game by Team Ninja. Almost from the beginning you can see why it’s compared to Dark Souls and there are some aspects of the game that are similar, but Nioh is so much more than just a Dark Souls clone.
Before you begin the game you are asked one of the most important questions: play in Movie Mode – Higher graphics 30fps or Action Mode Lower Graphics 60fps. While both of the modes feel fine when playing, Action Mode just feels faster and smoother with 60fps and it allows you to react that millisecond faster which in this game can mean life and death.
Source: playstation.com
You take on a role of William, a British pirate, in pursuit of an enemy that takes you to Sengoku-Period Japan where you will need to battle Yokai (demons) that plague the lands amidst the chaos of civil war. If you played any Dark Souls games or Bloodborne the basic mechanics will be familiar to you. You collect amarita (souls) to level up, save at the shrines (bonfires) and if you die you will need to go collect your spirit. Unlike the Souls games Nioh is not an open world, each mission is it’s own instance with multiple pathways and hidden secrets. Beating mission opens the Twilight difficulty (which is similar to a nightmare difficulty) but you can’t choose it. Twilight missions are rotated daily and you have a choice of 2 missions for extra loot. Loot is everywhere in Nioh and it feels like a Diablo style loot system where every enemy can drop something. It can feel overwhelming at times when you just don’t know what to get rid of and end up filling your inventory often. I loved the loot system at first but after a while it was too much as it didn’t feel special to find that one sword or that one armor with optimal stats, instead you could just farm one side mission and get all the desired gear from it.
Source: playstation.com
Combat is fast paced and relies on combos and stamina management (if you get hit while you out of stamina it is Game Over 90% of the time). However brute force is not going to get you far, it will but it will make it much more difficult than it needs to be. You will be put into situations when using most of the items and magic at your disposal will mean beating the level or just hitting your head against the wall until it breaks. You have a choice between 5 types of melee weapons (spears, axes/hammers, swords, dual swords and kusarigama) and 3 types of ranged weapons (rifles, cannons and bows). All melee weapons come with their own sets of skill trees and combos which makes combat feel amazing when you get the hang of it. You change stances and weapons while doing different combos and it just feels so satisfying. Ranged weapons feel great are great, you can’t really use them for most fight but for taking out enemies from the distance and as they are dying their hands flying off, never gets old. Only problem with combat is a lack of different enemy types and after only a few missions you’ve seen most of them and know how to deal with them most of the time. There are moments when you feel like you know what you are doing and the game decides that you do not, you die to the simplest of enemies because you didn’t pay enough attention to them or to your stamina. Boss fights on the other hand are great and frustrating at the same time. They are tough and unforgiving, if you make one mistake you will be dead. With the bosses however I noticed that the difficulty was all over the place, I could one shot the main boss but spend an hour+ trying to beat the mid level boss as well as some of the side mission bosses. Most of that doesn’t matter much while you are playing, you so engrossed in the gameplay that most of the weak points in the story and in some aspects of gameplay are easily overlooked.
It has been a while since Team Ninja produced a truly good game and it’s great to see them coming back to their top form with Nioh. This game couldn’t have come out in a better time with the last installment in Dark Souls getting it’s last dlc Nioh can take over from “From Software”, they can even use the same slogan “Prepare To Die”. Nioh is a great blend of Ninja Gaiden and Dark Souls that makes it into something new and something different. Must try for all the Souls series fans.
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