Alpha Impressions, Tips, & Questions!

Hi, all. Just a reminder that the PS4 Alpha demo runs through the 5th, & unlocks an exclusive item in the full game if you beat the first boss, so get cracking while you can!

Been playing for about 45 minutes, & so far the game is just brutal. I think I have a handle on most of the systems at this point, but am still pretty confused about the Ki Pulse. It sometimes procs during stance changes or dodges, but I struggle to do it consistently & am not really sure what it actually does...

Don't know how I feel about the extreme weapon/armor degradation. I'm finding new gear & repair items regularly, so it's not a game-breaking issue, but it adds a layer of micromanagement that I'm not very fond of.

I also have mixed feelings about the non-strafing lockon camera. I openly disliked it at first, but have come to find it pretty helpful in group fights. Would love to maybe see an options menu toggle in the future.

Sound off below, & maybe join me for some coop! God knows I need the help...

Ki pulse instantly restores a portion of the stamina you just spent attacking. When you attack, part of your ki bar turns white. So long as you don't go beyond three or so hits in a combo, you can stop attacking and that white bar will fill back up. Pressing R1 at any time instantly restores an amount of ki based on how long you wait. However, if you attack too much, dodge, or just let it sit too long, you lose the ki and have to wait for it to recharge like normal. In low stance, dodging can also activate ki pulse.

I haven't found item degradation to be a problem. Enemies drop so many weapons and armor pieces that I've never had to worry about being able to replace them as they wear out. I do agree that maybe they degrade a little too quickly. I think the idea is that they want you to be constantly upgrading your equipment and selling your old stuff at the shrines for amrita.

I'm actually enjoying the Nioh alpha quite a bit. It has it's problems, being early and all, but I find myself going to it far more often than Dark Souls 3. It's gonna sound like blasphemy to some I'm sure, but the Souls games always felt "cheap" to me. Like the game was intentionally stacking the deck against you in ways you can't know about until you're already screwed over by it. Nioh does the same thing to an extent, but it seems to flow better and be more open about it's difficulty rather than browbeating you just because it can.

Some of that is skewed, however, since I really enjoy the setting of the alpha. It feels bleak and beautiful at the same time for some reason. Not sure why I'm a tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed white man in feudal Japan, but, eh, maybe that's just down to the lack of a character creator for the alpha.

I think the item degrading can be an issue for unlucky people at the very start. Especially if they are having a hard time getting a handle on the combat. I actually ran out of durability on that first Katana they give you because no enemies or revenants would drop a weapon and there were no whetstones to be found. If it wasn't for that spear they give you I would have seriously had to restart the game.

That's why as crazy as it sounds I really think people just getting started in this game should look up a video of how to get to the second shrine. It's super early in(takes like 2 minutes to run to if you know where you're going), takes practically no effort and it's the point at which enemies really start dropping a lot of new gear for you to use.

First off I'll say, this is absolutely nothing like a Souls game in how it plays. On face value it certainly is (similar stat screen, gold phantom coop, blood stains, checkpoint and healing system) but that's where it stops. The actual act of playing the game is entirely different. The biggest mistake you can make playing this game is going in expecting things to work like the Souls games do.

I liked this game at first but had reservations on some of the design decisions. I went through the first zone fumbling about with the combat trying to work out what I was missing and how to properly utilize the lock on system it has. Once i worked out that it's ideal to slow walk while locked-on and how the different stances varied how Ki-Pulsing and finishers worked it started to click.

This game's combat is fantastic, I've been wanting a brutally slow paced game but with high lethality for a long time. A game that creates a sense of dueling, one that makes every action you take require thought. Enemies will behave different, animate different and have varying weak spots that all encourage you to mix up your stance, pace and approach. You simply cannot get by by spamming attacks, taking damage and healing through it. The sheer amount of damage that enemies do and how easily you can become overwhelmed does a fantastic job in enforcing the games rules and teaching you how you should be approaching each area.

When I saw this game revived at TGS I was so excited, a game that looked to have been influenced by the Souls franchise but set in mythical Feudal Japan (a setting that hasn't had a worthy game since Wrath of Heaven) with it's roots in Ninja Gaiden pedigree it had a good chance to be a game I was going to be into. When I first booted it up I thought what was there was cool, but I thought the lock on and stamina system just initially appeared a bit janky. Once I worked out the games systems and stopped expecting it to be a Souls game though, it instantly became a very enjoyable experience.

Initially I was saw this as a game I'd get on sale, but the more I played it the more it pushed me to a release day purchase. The demo is fantastic and I'd encourage anyone who likes a good challenge to play it, just don't play it expecting it to work like a Souls game if you do you're gonna have a bad time.

@neozeon From the Wiki

The game follows the story of William, loosely based upon William Adams, a blond-haired Samurai and son of a Japanese lord and a Western woman.

I'm really enjoying it for an alpha. Completed the first area on the map and have been helping out others in co-op. Game could use some tightening in the controls (finding myself constantly parrying long after I let go of block) but for an alpha it seems pretty good.

Enjoying it more than Dark Souls 3 right now.

So you only need to beat the first boss to unlock whatever in the real game? That the guy protecting the residence key, or is he just a tough normal enemy?

@vortextk: That guy is just a tougher normal enemy. After you beat the Boss on the ship the game prompts you to go to the Playstation Store to claim your reward or allows you to go to the Store from the main menu.

The Boss is a guy/demon (Yokai?) in a boat. After you work your way through the burning village you'll reach him.

I've enjoyed what I played quite a bit. I was bit worried Team Ninja had just given up making intricate action games (outside of DOA which is still pretty solid) and had just become Omega Forces sidekick but it's nice to see them trying something familiar yet new. I'm not sure a new Ninja Gaiden would sell well these days. Making it more soulsy definitely helps.

Ok. Just beat the same type of enemy in the burning village so I'm probably close to the real boss. Game has so much intricacy going on in the combat that I feel like I'm not using enough skills and options; different than dark souls where you really only have several moves that matter. Love the combat engine in this but the game still frustrates the hell out of me like any souls game when I run into too much at once.

Those samurai like enemies, the harder human like guys, sometimes I look like a master fighting one, sometimes I use most of my healing items on one. Lot of learning to do.

How am I getting more healing items per "run"? Finding shrines? Rescuing Kodamas? I have more than 3 now but haven't noticed how. For coming out of nowhere with a damn good sized demo, I'm loving this. Makes me feel bad that I only FINALLY got a little into dark souls 2(but just barely) after buying it at launch on pc forever ago.

@vortextk: The best advice I can give for the game is fighting enemies is as much about depleting their stamina as it is their health. When enemies exhaust their stamina they become easier to stagger making them super susceptible to combos and grapple moves.

Also you get more Elixirs from making offerings (selling items) at the shrines.

Can you deplete stamina on the big yokai enemies? It seems like they have two stamina bars, like a boss health bar that has multiple layers, but then nothing seemingly happened when it hit red after a kick or combo from me.

@vortextk said:

The Yokai enemies are kinda weird. The big Oni guys yeah you can definitely deplete their Ki and even get a critical hit/grapple on them(maybe you need to be in heavy stance or use an axe/hammer to do it but I know it's possible), but the small zombie like enemies seem completely immune to the Ki break or whatever that status is called. You can get them down to a red bar but nothing further happens from there.

I think the small hopping Cyclops dudes from the second level are also immune to the break but it's so hard to hit them continuously that I'm not sure and also they die really fast when you do actually get your hands on em so it may not matter.

If you rescue certain Kodamas you can ask for their blessing to increase the drop rate of elixers, but what you're likely noticing is the extras you sometimes get when you offer gear at the shrine. If you pay attention you'll notice that you also receive small spirit stones, blessed water, etc. on occasion.

Hopefully they take a balance pass look at Sloth, as that negates almost all of the challenge of fighting any enemy (even both bosses) before the game ships. I don't mind cheesing in games but Sloth is pretty much the ultimate version of cheese.

I messed around with it again, and there is definitely something there but it's real rough around the edges.

Boss 1 down, not sure how much more I'll play. Love the game, messed with matchmaking some. Seems to be laggy at times, but hard to tell. Like the other player will move seemingly smoothly, and then we go to fight an enemy and it can get pretty glitchy. Not every round was like that. My first go around I walked a dude through the second half up to that first demon enemy holding the key. He had obviously been through it before, death pile at that guy, but I pretty much did every bit of work. Oh well, fun to see how far I've come. Couple of other rounds where the other players died to falling in a roof and being overwhelmed or similar such.

I love the ambience of the game and the combat is more engaging. I enjoy getting "through" a souls game, fighting bosses, making progress and all that but I don't have a ton of fun using my character against another enemy. It's definitely ok. They've been enhancing that in bloodborne and DS3 with moves and more speed that I've seen, played neither, but this is taken much further.

I think there's something really interesting about the combat in this game, but at the same time I wish it'd have tried to pave its own road, so to speak, rather than taking so much from the Souls games. I guess an Onimusha-like Souls game isn't exactly the worst thing in the world, but still, it feels like a missed opportunity to be something truly unique.

That said, I'm not totally in love with it. The camera is often a real shitshow, and it's even worse than Souls games in how much you get hung up on the environments while trying to dodge enemies, and Souls games are already pretty notorious for that?

I also think the weapon degradation stuff is absolute garbage and the antithesis of fun.