Combat does not chain

I am surprised the combat doesn't chain like i thought it would. I imagined that there could be interesting combos that could be done by for example, doing three mid stance light attacks, change to high stance, and finish with a combo high stance heavy attack. It doesn't quite work that way since the high stance heavy will not turn into the combo skill since the attack count resets after the stance change.

Similarly, I was disappointed to see that the skill that allows for a quick attack after doing a ki pulse+weapon change isnt as much of a game changer as i thought it would be. The time between weapon change quick attack to doing a light attack with a weapon is wide enough that most enemies recover their guard.

I dont know. But the combat seems closer to dark souls than what I thought. Its weird. The mechanics just doesnt seem to gel together like I thought it would. Am I wrong?

I don't really think the combat is as close to dark souls as you're alluding to but its also not as though you're playing Ninja Gaiden either. I find the combat and how it controls to be much better than Dark Souls, but that's just me.

No, not wrong. It isn't Ninja Gaiden. You don't combo chains together. You can still increase the number of hits over time and Ki recovered by combo-ing stuff though and certain skills do allow you to do a combo of sorts, it's just not something you chain yourself creatively. The combat system is definitely its own thing, but it is more Dark Souls than a Ninja Gaiden in terms of mechanics and applicability for sure. That's not a bad thing at all, the combat is pretty great, but all the people going around saying this is nothing like Dark Souls and more like Ninja Gaiden aren't doing anyone any favors. It's just not what it is.

I think it is Team Ninja's best game since Ninja Gaiden Black, quite easily. I hope they will make another Ninja Gaiden game in the future that is actually good. Nioh is a good reminder of what that team is actually capable of even with the departures.

Don't get me wrong, the feel of the combat is very different. Dark souls is a lot more weighty. But the mechanics of the combat are very similar because it has such a heavy emphasis on positioning and stamina or in nioh's case, ki management. Its just that in nioh's case, the ki management has an active component to it.

Ah I see. I was wondering if i was just sucking at the game. Yea, I think its a great game regardless of what my expectations were kind of half way through playing-- I thought it was going to be dark souls, than thought it was going to be more combo based, than now thinking its more like dark souls again with other systems.

My first time playing Team Ninja game. I am impressed with them. Hope they make another Ninja Gaiden game

I vaguely remember being able to do that in the first alpha but maybe i am wrong or they took it out. Could also be weapon specific but i only use two and haven't maxed them out yet.

I don't think the combat is like dark souls at all, its way more ninja gaiden(obviously not to the extent that you wanted). Ki pulses do allow for slight combo chaining though. Nioh is its own beast, it took bits from different genres and mashed them together to make a refreshing new game imo.

I don't really get that. I think the combat is very much like a Souls game. It's a bit faster, but so was Bloodborne and that is also basically a different take on the Souls series. The approach to combat, playing footsies with your opponent, throwing in pokes and trying to maneuver around them for an opening is all very much in the spirit and execution of a Souls game. Simply having a few extra moves at your disposal doesn't make the moment to moment gameplay that radically different to me.

It does have animation cancels which, for a game of this type, is interesting.

@tjk: The Ninja Gaiden games are amazing, but in my opinion Nioh is not especially indicative of them. They are far, far faster paced (I suppose frenetic action is what we expect of Character Action Games, and that's what NG is to me), with a laser-like focus on combos and execution in group enemy settings. Levels are strictly linear and character progression entirely though magic / weapons. They are kind of the ultimate arcade beat-em-up, to some extent, so, expect to walk in to a room then fight waves and waves of Ninjas who spring out from revolving doors. Ninja Gaiden Black (or whatever more recent version of that game) is absolutely worth playing / trying. It was the high water mark for that genre before the rise of Platinum Games.

You used to be able to do things like Low Stance Light > Light > Ki-Pulse High Stance > Morning Moon. Morning Moon is a High Stance only combo ender but in the Alpha you could use it as a ender to Low Stance combos with stance change Ki-Pulses. It was incredibly strong which is probably the reason they removed it. It's a bummer that they did though.

I really hope this game did well enough to become a franchise, because I can see so much potential for future iterations of the mechanics and improvements in areas like Level Design and locale choices (seriously too many caves).

@geraltitude: I'd argue Platinum hasn't made a game better than NGB, I think the closest they got was Bayonetta 2. It's not that Platinum isn't doing amazing things, but NGB is what I'd consider the perfect action game. I've played almost every single character action game ever made, and I would still consider NGB to be my favourite. Nioh is fantastic and as soon as I am done, I'm breaking out the 360 and playing through NGB and NG2. It really made me want to play through those again.

@doctordonkey said:

I wouldn't disagree with you! Though, admittedly, not nearly as learned in this genre as you seem to be. My absolutely favourite character action game is still probably the original Devil May Cry, but there's a lot of nostalgia / time of my life wrapped around that as well. I didn't mean to paint the Platinum games as better (though I see now my post does mostly read like that), but just wanted to gesture at what I think is the start of a new, modern era of character action games. Maybe that doesn't make any sense but for me it seems to square out! NG, when I go back to it, now has a feel of "Old School" in a way.

@geraltitude: Not to raid on you, but Ninja Gaiden Black is still the king of that type of game. I would also not call it arcade, since that has the implication that there isn't a lot of depth, which that game has lots of. We're in agreement we are talking about two completely different games though.

@tjk: If you ask me the combat is very reminiscent of God of War. You have a bunch of different limited combo-strings, you have some special moves like grabs, hooks, parries, launchers etc and you have limited access to special magic spells. The only major difference is that you can't constantly spam, but with proper ki pulses you never really feel restricted by the ki mechanic. Hell, Nioh even has the "charge by killing" super mode.

Yeah I realize now my post up there not written out so well... like I said to Dr Donkey MD, I just wanted to draw a generational / time line of sorts where Platinum kicks off. Didn't mean to say Platinum Games > NG. No apologies needed!

That said, I don't agree with that definition of the word "arcade" as fighting games have long been arcade games and are, if anything, famous for depth. Arcade to me implies a very serious focus on mechanics above all else, that's all. Different arcade games may be simple or complex, but they all focus on mechanics rather than say tone or atmosphere or story or whatever else. In the 90s we would have just called them all "action" games (Mario) but that's a really confusing term in 2017. Funny enough, to tie back to that other topic we ran into each other in, I'd say Resogun is a beautiful, modern arcade game. In that case, it does not have a lot of mechanical depth, but still a massive skill curve to reach mastery. But OlliOlli2 is also an arcade game to me, and that is a mechanically deeper game. We've all got our own ways to describe these things, so, hope that makes some sense, though the terms may not.

And the fact that it's fun and doesn't feel like garbage.

I dunno... through the entire last region I played I beat 90+% of my opponents by walking up to them and mashing a single button. Sure, it's probably my own fault for making it boring, but the allure of experimenting with the combat fades away more and more for every yoki and oni I have to deal with yet again.

@humanity: When was the last time you checked out ninja gaiden? Sure nioh has a bit in common with dark souls but to me it leans way more towards ninja gaiden. Ninja gaiden is faster with more juggles and air dashes, but the combat was very timing based that punished button mashing with brutal difficulty. Don't forget it was the dark souls (in terms of difficulty) of it's time, which i think makes it a great marriage of the two types of games. Nioh is a combo of the two but I barely worry about over swinging or getting caught in an animation like i do with dark souls. Ninja gaiden also had some great, huge boss fights that i think people are starting to think is somehow exclusive to dark souls.

edit: Granted if i play with heavy weapons maybe my gameplay will be a bit different experience.

@oursin_360: My counter to that would be "have you played a Souls game recently?" I see way more similarities in both the cadence and approach to each enemy encounter to a Souls game than to any Gaiden release. Nioh is faster paced sure, but you still can't exactly play it like an action game because you have stamina. I constantly run out of ki if I get too frantic in a fight. Also I dunno what anyone is talking about in regards to blocking because I can block about 3-4 attacks from stronger enemies before I'm forced to back off as my ki gets completely depleted. My mindset and approach is way different when playing a Gaiden game than it is when playing Nioh or Bloodborne.

@oursin_360: Ninja Gaiden Black is fantastic. It's one of my favorite games of all time. Arguing whether Nioh is more like that or like Dark Souls is praise in and of itself. However, while you can make an argument about the setting, weapons and such to be more like NG, if it isn't clear the actual approach to combat itself is more like Souls then this hypothesis should make it clear: If you approach Nioh as you would a Souls game, you're going to have a reasonably easy time with it and emerge victorious. If you're approaching it as a Ninja Gaiden game, you'll be destroyed. At its core, that's what it is.

I'm trying to be clear here that I love both series and I also don't think either is necessarily harder/better than the other: they are just different. What I said just there doesn't mean I'm implying NG is easier than Souls. Make no mistake, if you approach Ninja Gaiden like a Souls game, you would also get demolished.

@zevvion: @humanity: It's a marriage of the two, i think the stamina meter is what really separates it from ninja gaiden as it forces you to slow down a bit. But unlike souls it's not as animation heavy so you're not just spamming the same 2 attacks over and over and waiting to counter attack after an enemy over exerts itself. I think the ninja gaiden influence really shines when you fight revenants and human based bosses, this is wildly different from any type of combat in souls (pvp or otherwise). Nioh also gives more ability to crowd control than dark souls, in souls games it's really a bad idea to agro more than one enemy but in nioh i often fight 2-4 enemies at a time with a good chance of victory most times. To me ninja gaiden was a third person action game with fighting game mechanics, you aren't 100% forced to carry out an attack animation and can cancel out of combo's which i feel you can do more so in nioh than dark souls. I think without the ki pules mechanic the game would 100% be dark souls, but since i can string together my moves if i am good enough I don't typically get caught in a combo animation like i would in a souls game. I take way more risks in nioh than i would ever in any other souls game, which i think is what reminds me of ninja gaiden the most.

@oursin_360: Are you sure you have played Ninja Gaiden? I feel like you're wrong about most things here to be blunt. First, the PvP is 100% Dark Souls. I'm not sure why you think that part especially has NG influences. It so doesn't. It's stamina management and animation priority. I beat all the Revenants without taking damage simply because the AI is poor at managing Ki. I only have to use 1 attack to win, unlike NG where one combo can't win you anything, let alone one basic attack. It is not wildly different from Souls in the slightest. It's almost a complete copy.

If you can fight 2 enemies in Nioh you can do it in Dark Souls. It's not that hard, nor that much different. Also, when does NG even pit 2 enemies against you apart form the intro-level? It's 4-18 enemies at once, in waves more often than not. In Nioh you indeed have a 'good chance' at best. In Ninja Gaiden it is supposed to be a relentless slaughter. You cannot replicate that in Nioh at all; you can replicate Nioh totally in Dark Souls, almost exactly to the letter. If you're playing it correctly on a high level, you rarely even engage in ground combat for more than 3 seconds in NG. Nioh is all ground combat, like Souls.

You can't cancel out of animations in Nioh without proper skills. It totally has animation priority and not even every weapon can cancel out of things, not to mention it's not an instantaneous flip as it is in NG.

I feel like you're arguing my point since you say Nioh is 100% Dark Souls if it didn't have Ki Pulses. You think that one mechanic completely flips the core of the combat to an entirely different genre? I beg to differ. That sounds like an argument for, and is, Dark Souls with some interesting nuances.

@zevvion: Not sure we are really arguing anything other than what it is MORE like, I don't think you're saying its not a combination of the two so then we mostly agree.

And yes, one mechanic can absolutely make it more or less like one or the other. Adding stamina makes the game like dark souls, you take that out then you are forced to rely on parries and side steps like ninja gaiden you also get to combo and string more moves together as well. Take out the ki pulse, then it leans more towards dark souls as you are forced to account 100% for animation priority with no way to cancel out of combo's.

Maybe it depends on your playstyle, i hardly ever worry about enemy ki even when fighting revenants etc and with the ki pulse i hardly run out. Kusarigami has me doing dragon punches, sweeps, karate kid kicks, scorpion grabs etc with very little regard for stamina after i got around the ki pulse mechanic. Dark souls i pretty much let the enemy attack, dodged to the side for a 2 or 3 hit combo or back stab then rinsed and repeated. Big bosses do lead more into dark souls territory though. Weapon type might make a big difference as well, as i've only used 2 for most the game.

@oursin_360: If you take out the stamina bar, which is something Ki Pulses don't actually do, it still wouldn't be Ninja Gaiden though. But you're right, this is probably a silly argument to have anyway. Let's call it Nioh, and the game is pretty awesome (mostly).

@zevvion: I agree, in the end nioh should be taken as it's own thing and it's pretty damn good!

I did buy a ps3 recently. I will have to check out NG for sure at some point. But there's so many good games coming out right now! And thank god, that first year of new gen systems was so bad.

The lack of a jump button make it very unlike Ninja Gaiden/NG Black as well. I was jumping a hell of a lot through that game.

I'm just really amped on everyone remembering Ninja Gaiden Black so fondly. That game is incredible. Nioh looks fantastic, but all it does is make me want Ninja Gaiden Black, and perhaps Ninja Gaiden 2 on backwards compatibility. All of this has actually motivated me to clean up the leaky capacitors and re-solder the trace rot on my OG XBOX so I can play Ninja Gaiden Black again.

Ninja Gaiden Black is great