I was able to play Nioh yesterday on my Japanese PSN account so I've had a good amount of time with it. Nioh is quite a pleasant surprise. I was playing Dark Souls III when I saw that the demo was out. And to be honest, I wanted to play Nioh more. It's very clearly inspired by the Souls series. Nearly all of its mechanics can be traced back to Souls, with a few varied differences that make it different enough to stand on its own. Here are some of the details I have noticed so far:

Shared Features:

• You gain Amrita (Souls) from killing enemies, which can then be used to level up, and are lost upon death but can be recovered.

• Stamina is used to dodge and attack. There is a bonfire equivalent where you level up, and the map resets upon use.

• There is some sort of summoning feature that will allow players to come as spirits to help you.

• There are bloodstains where other players died.

• Some item uses are straight from Dark Souls, including rocks that are only good for throwing, and one time use items that give you Amrita (Souls)

• The HUD is very close to a Souls game. Health bar, stamina bar, an icon for your Guardian Spirit where the Covenant icon usually is. Weapons can be swapped with the d-pad, and the item shortcut menu is similar in look but is used differently.

• There is more than one type of weapons, starting with a katana you also get weapons like spears and even a giant hammer. Each weapon type has its own skill tree.

Differences:

• When you level up you also gain skill points which are used to gain passive skills and learn new attacks. There is even an attack which is done with a half circle analog motion + an attack, much like a fighting game.

• Unlike in Souls where Souls are used to buy items, there is currency that is separate from Amrita.

• Not only are there light and heavy attacks, there are three different stances: Low, Mid, and High. Which do as they imply, Low is for fast, less staggering attacks. Mid for normal attacks. High for slower but stronger attacks. Stances can be changed mid combo, which allows for some crazy stuff. Stances are changed by holding R1 and pressing X, Square, Triangle, or Circle. Circle is not really a stance, but a way to sheathe your sword. This function can be upgraded to give you a charging attack which is hard to time. There may be more skills for the sheathing feature that I have not noticed yet.

• Blocking at the moment an attack connects with you stuns the enemy and severely punishes their Stamina. This is the equivalent of a Souls parry. More skills can be unlocked which add to this system, one I learned allowed me to redirect the enemy behind me.

• Examining Bloodstains (called Blood Pools) allows you to see the name of the person who died, the rarity of the armor/weapons they had, and how they died. If you activate the Blood Pool, NPC version of the player will spawn and duel you These NPCs are much smarter than normal enemies. Defeating a "Revenant" will give you loot, and an occasionally an item that is used to summon players. Blood Pools are a good, but risky way to farm Amrita and get loot.

• Loot is very different from Souls, more like Diablo-like games. You can have multiple of the same weapon or armor but it will have different modifier stats. Such as increased damage in certain stances, decreases to stamina costs, increased item find, etc.

• There are several quirks to the Stamina system. If you try to do anything while you are out of a stamina, your character will be stunned until your stamina recharges halfway. When locked onto an enemy, you can see their stamina bar, which enables to player to see when the opponent can't block or dodge. When an enemy has zero stamina (or is recharging from zero) you can critical them by using a charge attack, much like a Souls parry/backstab.

• You can have a Guardian Spirit. The default is a dog that somehow assists me, I haven't been able to do much with this feature yet so I don't know what he actually does. When you die the HUD icon that signifies which Spirit you have disappears, but will return when you retrieve your Amrita (Souls) where the Spirit is actually seen waiting for you. If you die before retrieving your Amrita, the Spirit comes back regardless.

So the game doesn't seem to be focused on upgrading weapons the way the Souls games are?

I'm downloading the demo now, can't wait to try it now that I've finished NG Dark Souls 3!

@lastbesthope: Circle and Triangle when the icon in the upper left is flashing in a circular pattern, also there's 4 companions in the game.

Bow Headshots on unhelmeted enemies are a one hit kill, naturally it also decapitates them.

@artisanbreads: Haven't found a way to upgrade weapons. However, this is only a demo/alpha so that feature could be in the full game.

Saw a video of it. It doesn't look great. Maybe the final game will be more appealing. That said, Team Ninja made me think of another challenging game: Ninja Gaiden.

I'm watching 10 min of this. Looks pretty enjoyable.

Downloading this right now. Gonna try as soon as I get home. Team Ninja hasn't had the best track record lately, but I know they can do good stuff when they feel like it.

Just noticed that the first sentence in the marketing blurb is "Ready to die?". That's cute.

I completed both stages available in the demo and had a blast. The game is pretty damn challenging, you die in like 2-4 hits from most mobs, and pretty much any mob can kill you with ease. I use to say the same about the Souls series, but their trash mobs are pretty petty compared to the enemies you encounter in this game.

I think Nioh is a really neat evolution of the souls format, and cannot wait for the full game release. This Alpha/demo 100% sold me.

Definitely going to give this a look. Though, although I know it's an actual word, I can't hear "Amrita" and not think of Persona.

Holy shit, this game is hard. A lot of blatant Souls influences, but at the same time this feels decidedly different, especially where the combat is concerned. Lords of The Fallen by comparison merely felt like a crappy Souls knockoff. Though in all honesty I don't think I enjoy the combat that much - a bit too slow and conservative for my liking.

They seem to be real serious about gathering feedback from this demo, which makes me optimistic that they are really using it.

We'll see how much changes in the beta phase I suppose.

Wow, I didn't realize it was THIS inspired by souls. Sounds fun the way you describe it. The only thing I dislike is that you see the enemy's stamina bar. That's part of what makes combat fun for me in Souls, having the intuition of knowing when to attack and when not to based on your experience with that enemy (whether you've seen them before or are figuring them out the first time).

Just loaded up the demo, and it has "Movie Mode" and "Action Mode" in the settings. Movie Mode "stabilizes resolution," whereas Action Mode "stabilizes frame rate." It defaults to Movie Mode.

@mooseymcman: what is even an "unstable resolution?"

@flashflood_29: Some games will dynamically change the resolution as you're playing in order to keep the framerate steady, or at least steadier. I think it's more common in Xbox One games? It's also possible it really just means the game runs at a lower resolution all the time but it was a translation error, but like I said, dynamic resolutions are fairly common.

I'll have to download this tonight and give it a try. Sounds interesting.

I applaud Team Ninja for releasing such a sizeable demo. It feels like they gave us the ' undead burg' of the game.

I really like the game. It's like a more complex dark souls game that's also more unpolished. Really hope they tweak the durability and UI of the game. And get the framerate smoothened out. Even on Action mode , i felt noticeable framerate differences.

The combat looked great and has potential to be extremely deep. Being able to bind new attacks to your weapons and change stances on the fly offers so many interesting things to think about. Do i want to use a high stance spear to battle these 4 guys , get rid of them fast 1 by 1? or do i want to use a low stance to keep my stamina up to dodge those guys, but instead deal less damage? Do i want to dodge and counter attack, or do i want to bash on their block to drain their stamina?

Also, this game is HARD.

I played a bit of the demo and man, I feel like I'm playing Dark Souls 1 for the first time again. It's extremely brutal to try to dodge an attack and discover that you're out of stamina, which basically means you're dead. I played around with the stances but honestly I've been playing so much of DS3 that I got tired of the demo very quickly. It's definitely something to keep an eye on though.

Played about three or four hours of the demo today. Man oh man do they punish you hard for mistakes. But since all the rules that apply to you apply to enemies as well, it still feels fair.

While there are only three weapon types, having the different stances really makes it feel like you've got immediate access to six different weapons at a time. Switching between stances mid-combo also feels good, although after so many years of souls games, holding R1 for anything but attacks has taken some getting used to.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the final game is like, because this demo is pretty great so far.

Pass. Didn't enjoy that at all. Don't like how the character feels. Don't like the controls. Didn't like the camera. I also had a delay in input, so that sucked hard. It just felt bad all around. I mean, I like jank. I loved me some Lords of the Fallen. But this game makes Lords look like a AAA title.

Just tried it. Not my cup of tea at all. I don't know what it is, but the controls feel.... Japanese? Or rather it feels like more Ninja Gaiden and less Dark Souls, not surprising since it's Team Ninja. Having played almost 80 hours of Dark Souls 3, coming into this feels so sluggish and slow. The camera is also too sensitive for my liking, but I also didn't try to tweak it in the settings.

I do like the fact that you can choose between better framerate or better resolution, if nothing else, I hope other games try to do something similar because I will always favour better framerate anyday.

I love this. I'm not a Souls fan and the changes here really make me love the style of game. Really excited for this!

Here's an easy way to beat the second boss (ordinarily absurdly difficult), dunno why it works exactly, meant to say "water beats lightning" naturally:

@fredchuckdave: The reason it zeros in on his head like that is because your friend hit his weak point (glowing stomach) and that opens him up to a flurry of attacks. That combined with spirit mode is pretty potent combo though. Does it feel like the bosses scale at all? Have yet to play co-op.

EDIT: Oh right, didnt notice your spirit mode was regenerating, nice find. I did notice it was filling my spirit guage whenever I attacked him after hitting his weak point so maby that has something to do with it.

I keep hearing about this game but I've seen no coverage of it.