During a PSN sale the better part of a year ago, I picked up Nioh for half price. Despite a growing feeling that these tough action RPGs weren’t for me anymore, I went for it.

Nioh is an excellent game. I spent my first ten or so hours with the game getting into the atmosphere, messing with different weapon types and stances, dying, learning to ki pulse. I was reading about the game and even just about William Adams himself (the real guy, not the hanging out with spectral pink dogs one). In other words: I was really enjoying my time with Nioh. It was the rare game where I was stoked to hear that I had dozens and dozens of hours ahead of me from where I was.

Then I got to the story mission “The Ocean Roars Again.”

For the most part I was having a lot of fun, just like usual. Nioh is generally tough but fair. It’s fast and brutal, but it has patterns that -- in that Team Ninja and Dark Souls-y way -- are rewarding to figure out and super satisfying to play off of. This level takes place in a flooded village, filled with precarious walkways and lots of yokai. It was a satisfying lesson in fighting what first feel like unwieldy enemies in very tight quarters. I was dying and learning and coming back stronger than ever. It was great.

Then I got to Umi-bozu. Despite the fact that he has a name that is very fun to say and spell, I fucking hate Umi-bozu.

For starters he has a bad, dumb body:

It’s just a jelly blob with some glowing orifices. Stupid! It’s not fun to lose to something like that; it’s like losing to a baby character in Mario Kart.

I also hate how my weapon does jack shit damage against Umi-bozu, the worst blob ever. I was holding my own just fine for the rest of the game until now, including the level leading up to this jerk, but against The Man Himself? I’m doing a fraction of a pittance per hit over here. I generally use axes and spears. I tried a couple kinds of each weapon type, and I tried fire paper for my weapon (helped, but didn’t get me there). Meanwhile he’s got a dumb mouth laser attack that isn’t the worst to dodge but takes about 90% of my health if it gets me, and all sorts of crazy twists when he jumps onto the dock later in the fight.

Where you fight Umi-bozo might be the worst part, actually: a dark, wet dock with some holes in it. It’s really tough for me to remember where these wet, soggy holes are, if you know what I mean. Sometimes I’m doing really well against Umi-bozo and then my camera jerks around because it’s trying to follow William into a watery pit, because he’s dead. These are, by a wide margin, the worst Umi deaths.

Eventually I started running out my Ochoko Cups and hoping for a strong visitor to just whup Umi’s ass for me. I probably popped ten cups, and results were unanimous: none of the people I summoned were hitting Umi-bozu very hard either! Solo I could usually run Umi down to 30% or so. A couple of my co-op attempts were tantalizingly close, probably less than 5%. But no dice.

After dozens upon dozens of attempts, I’m deflated. So: are there any Nioh fans out there that can tell me what I’m doing wrong? I would love to get past Umi-bozu and get on with what I’ve otherwise found to be an outstanding game! Is there something I’m missing? Even though the level itself I found fine, do I need to quit out and level more elsewhere? Have any game-stopping boss stories of your own to share?

Hmm. He was pretty insignificant to me. I didn't have much issue with most bosses in the game, but he was probably the easiest; you just have to know his weak point. Honestly, the most challenging thing in that game to me is when they throw a Raven Tengu at you. It was for me because I played the game all the way through with heavy weapons and heavy stance. If they threw five at you as a boss, that'd be a heck of a time probably.

There’s three lanterns (I believe) that you can light up and it’ll make the fight a lot easier. They’re scattered on the regular map before the boss fight. It makes him take a lot more damage.

I also don’t think he can spit out the smaller versions of himself once you do this.

I must have done this because this was sort of the start of Nioh really disappointing me with its boss fights after it came in swinging real hard.

I beat him like a week ago so maybe I can offer a couple of quick tips. If you light the three lanterns he won't spawn the little guys also you can light your weapons on fire in the boss area by going up to any of the three fire pits (If you use all the fire it does spawn a little guy).

There's pretty much two strats, one is to just run up to him and spam your attacks, there isn't much he can do to you in melee range but you do have to be careful not to fall off of the dock. The other strat is just to stay way back and attack his tentacle things after he attacks, this way is a lot easier and safer although more time consuming.

I didn't end up finishing this game, but this was one of the few later bosses that I was able to do by myself. Use the lanterns and any fire enchantments you have and he'll take a lot more damage. I believe he only took me a few tries and I consider him to one of the easier bosses of the game. There are many fights, earlier and later, that I found to be far more savage. Umi-bozu just requires a lot of patience and it's pretty easy to get cocky or lose your cool and begin attacking at the wrong time.

Can't remember specifics but I remember it being pretty straight forward.

Apart from his fire weakness, the nucleus at the center is his weak point, which isn't exposed for most of the fight. In the first phase I believe your only opportunity is after his beam attack, attack his open maw, it's a pretty short window, but should still help. In the later phase it is more obviously exposed after his jump attacks.

This, but also I would recommend If you just want to be done use the Hyotokko Mask. The start up is a bit long but is very high output fire damage. It's almost cheating with how much damage it does, but it'll put him down quick!

Don't feel too bad about struggling with this boss: although I found him pretty simple (fire and spear for me), I struggled with the second boss the most. It's the vampire woman from the cave.

You end up fighting her a couple more times later in the game and the amount of time it took me to kill her the first time made the later times sooo much easier.?

I struggled with that boss but what really helped me was to equip a guardian spirit with high water resistance. Also the strategy with the 3 lanterns worked well.

@ntm: Glad there’s at least one other person who thinks the Raven Tengu are real hardasses. Every time I would think “okay, I got them downloaded” I would mess up on them in a critical moment and feel like I hadn’t learned anything. Ugh.

Also, yeah Umi is a real puzzle type boss. At least insofar as he fits into the category “Fight him normally and he’s tough as nails, but DO THIS and he’s a little kitten.” Some people hate that and I can understand, but I thought he was kind of interesting once I stopped to consider why there were torches in the level for seemingly no reason (I had only lit one). I don’t know, definitely not the coolest boss design, strategy or fight, that’s for sure.

@poobumbutt: Although I beat it in my first try, there was one fight (I think it was a side op or whatever you call it) where it had you fighting two and Onryoki. I didn't really have an issue with Onryoki, but him mixed with the Raven's was tense. It was one of those moments where I thought 'What? How the heck am I going to beat this?'

Im trying so hard to play this game because i love it. The boss fights are just painful. Im no elite player by any means, but Ive played through all the souls borne games. The second boss raven lady is just destroying me. Ive even tried farming my way to out level her, but its just no use...

I ended up overall negative on Niohs boss fights but I love that second fight because it did a really good job of enforcing what was most important in that fight and it wasn't weird gimmicks or anything but just regular ol' Discipline. That boss attacks very methodically and demands that you do the same. If you flail you are punished, if you overextend you are severely punished. It was a lot of fun.

That game is at its best when you are fighting things that are similar to your character, and really falters when it gives you a straight up Dark Souls boss.