Hi there everyone hope you're doing well, welcome to my review of Nioh! In the first half of 2017 Playstation was releasing a string of amazing games one after another, Nioh was one of them and it was definitely one that stood out to me. Now I hear that later this year there will be a complete edition released, with all the DLC and add-on's in one complete package. So I thought this might be a good time to talk about my experience with the game. When I first got a look at Nioh I wasn't sure if I would like it or not. I've become a huge fan of Dark Souls after playing through them the past two years and I could tell that this borrowed heavily from that style. Some games that you would call a "Dark Souls clone" are just lesser versions of the original, but I was happy to see that with Nioh, while obviously taking inspiration from that style, elevates itself and does it's own thing very well. This genre still doesn't have an official name yet, but Nioh has helped to solidify these kinds of games and shows that there is a vast amount of potential here for future games of this kind.
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Nioh is an action RPG, developed by Team Ninja, the company that made the Dead Or Alive series as well as Ninja Gaiden 1, 2, and 3. Development began back in 2004 and went through many revisions, until finally being given to Team Ninja in 2012. You play as the real life historic Western Samurai, William Adams, but a fictionalized version of him of course. The game takes place in Japan in the 1600's when the country was going through a brutal civil war. In this version of that time period William Adams is chasing down a dangerous man that leads him to the bloody war torn villages of Japan, where there are demons, or Yokai as they're called in Nioh, ravaging the land. The people of Japan enlist the help of William to combat the evil forces that are overtaking the country. This leads our protagonist all over Japan defeating countless Yokai trying to help save the country, all the while one step behind the evil man that brought him here in the first place, Edward Kelley.
One of the best parts about Nioh is it's intricate stamina based combat system, or Ki as it's called here. As you fight various enemies every time you attack, block, dodge, or take damage it drains Ki from your bar. But the added twist here is the mechanic that allows you to regain a chunk of it back, called a Ki pulse. With a well timed press of a button you can get back a portion of your Ki mid fight, the better your timing is the more you earn back. This mechanic also has other uses as you progress through the game, evening out the playing field when fighting larger Yokai. At first it can be challenging to get the timing just right, but luckily there are a bunch of training dojos where you can perfect the technique.
You get five different types of weapons to choose from, with many variations within them. You can find them in hidden chests around the many levels you go through, or they often drop from enemies that you kill. There are swords, duel swords, spears, axes, and kusarigamas, which is a long chain with a blade or spiked ball of some kind at the end. All of these are fun and effective to use, but certain situations might call for one type over the other. Really though it comes down to personal preference, and the more you use a specific weapon the more effective it becomes. Another unique aspect of Nioh is that you get three combat stances for every melee weapon, high, mid, and low. You can change them on the fly with the press of a button, each one giving you advantages for different kinds of battles. In addition to the melee combat you also get projectile weapons to use, longbows, rifles, and hand cannons.
As you progress through Nioh you will earn skill points that can be used to upgrade your character, as well as unlock different stance specific special abilities for all five weapon types. This can give you that extra edge in combat that you need, and can be completely tailored to your favorite fighting style. Skill points can also be used to unlock usable items that can be very helpful at certain times. Items such as elemental rubs you can put on your weapon, giving it those properties for a short while. Making your sword light on fire, or giving your ax the ability to poison enemies. As well as bombs that you can toss, or various small throwing daggers, there's a lot of freedom given to you on what to choose. All of these can be mapped to specific item buttons for quick use.
One of my favorite aspects of Nioh are the Guardian Spirits. As you go from place to place you will acquire many different Guardian Spirits in the form of various animals. Each one can be equipped, only one at a time, that give you different stat buffs, as well as the ability called Living Weapon. Living Weapon makes you extra powerful and lets you unload with much stronger attacks, but only for a short time. You can only perform the Living Weapon ability after you fill the power bar by fighting enemies, and it takes a while to fill back up so you can't just spam this move over and over. But it does become very helpful when fighting large groups or tough bosses. This is a really cool idea, and just another one of the ways that Nioh distinguishes itself from other games of this style.
There's not a huge amount of common enemy types in Nioh, you'll often be seeing a lot of the same Yokai over again in each level. It's not too bad, but I wish there were more. There are a lot of levels though and each one is pretty unique, so this kind of makes up for it. Levels are well done and full of secrets to find, rewarding you for exploring as much as you can. Nioh is not an open world game where everything is connected. Instead there is an overworld map with different levels to choose from. You do have a little bit of freedom in where you want to go, but some stages suggest you to be higher leveled, and you will probably die very easily. You will probably die a lot regardless, but that's to be expected in a game like this. That's part of the fun though, the high level of difficulty and challenge.
Another high point of Nioh is it's excellent boss battles. Not only are they very challenging and require you to learn the best way to take them down, what weapon, what stance. But they are also very unique looking and intimidating. The art style in general is awesome in this game, the whole atmosphere is dark and tense. But it all builds up until you get to each subsequent boss battle, where you get to see some really well done creatures. This is certainly a hard game, at times it can be pretty unforgiving. I've seen people that love it and would give it perfect scores, and I've seen people that it just didn't resonate with. Although this is a well crafted game and a lot of fun to play through, it didn't pull me in as much as the Soulsborne series did. That didn't stop me from having a great time with it though and I would certainly recommend it to anyone who likes this genre. I give Nioh a score of............................................
80
Thank you for reading my review of Nioh, I hope you enjoyed it!
Man this game was so aggravating. I only made it to the third boss and then I rage quit. Aside from the bosses I really liked the game play. The stances and different weapons were so much fun and it was hard but manageable. The bosses... so frustrating... now if I could die and just go right back to the boss instantly without having to clear out a bunch of trash I may have kept trying even in the midst of such aggravation. I wish games like this and the SOuls game had an easy mode.. link it to trophys so you get a gold or two for killing beating the game on regular... but noobs like me could forego the trophies and still experience the game. Now I like the difficulty as is on all the trash so it would only need to tone down boss fights and I'd be happy. This game makes me yearn for a new Tenchu game.
I started playing this again because of this review, we'll see how far I get this time..
Loads of information. Many thanks. Love it. @jameslashomb Followed
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it!
Did you seriously just rephrase someone else's review of this game?