Nioh

Nioh has been in development for over 12 years at Team Ninja, starting in 2004. Supposedly, the direction the game should take was constantly in question. Eventually, Nioh was able to settle on a variety of genre's, taking very direct inspiration from notable games. At its gameplay core, it is a Souls game. Deliberate animations, stamina management and a combat system designed for focusing on one target at a time. As such, your approach to combat in Nioh will benefit greatly from Souls experience. In fact, probably a little too much so. While every game of this type requires a 'get to know it' period, Nioh not excluded, it does not pose an incredibly challenge on the player as Souls games usually do. This is where Nioh branches off from the Souls formula and takes it in a different direction, for its benefit, but also its detriment.

Nioh features mission design in an overworld map similar to Diablo III. Each mission is a self contained area and does not interact with the area's of other missions unlike most Souls games. It does have many shortcuts to open up within each mission so progress is consistent. The overall level design of these missions is quite good at baseline, but exceeds that to reach fantastic mission design for several missions across its lengthy campaign. The overall design of the levels is very reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden and I swear I have seen some sections that were basically lifted from Ninja Gaiden II. Especially aesthetically. The campaign which will easily last you 30-40 hours depending on your skill level if you main-line it. This number can be doubled without much effort if you interact with the optional side missions, which do not feature their own maps but re-use one of the main mission area's. I found these side-missions to quickly wear thin as part of the fun in this type of game is exploring a new environment and tackling certain environments when you please. Traditionally, you can leave the 'fire section' of such a game until you're ready to face it, or early on at your leisure. Nioh does not allow you to do that and the side missions open up relative to the main missions you have done, which means I found myself spending too much time rehashing the same area's in a short timespan, which really offered nothing new outside of rewards. Any 'boss' of side missions that I thought was really cool, turned out to be a sub-boss that you fight no less than 15 to 20 more times over the course of the game which drew all that made that optional mission so special away from it.

Nioh features mission design in an overworld map similar to Diablo III.

Rewards which are also styled a la Diablo III. There is loot in the game based on rarity, going from common, uncommon and rare to exotic. You can grind out missions for upgrade materials and gear, including two daily chosen Twilight Missions, which are harder versions of the regular missions, which award mostly more or better gear. Twilight Missions feature more and more challenging enemy spawns, increased mission level and a red hue that overlays the area. There are armor pieces to collect, all with weight associated to them determining the amount of ki (stamina) you use for actions, as well as several types of weapons. Fast, slow, powerful, rapid hits, there is gear to please all kinds of playstyles. The final boss drops a new rarity, divine gear when killed, after which a New Game Plus opens up that promises more divine gear. This appears to be the way to play Nioh: you don't create multiple characters, you have the one (William) and are supposed to engage with its content as you would a Diablo. That means upon completing the game, you keep grinding for more gear to perfect your build.

All seemingly in service of completing the NG+ Twilight Missions, then becoming more proficient at it to clear them quicker. It is a good loop, but I can't help but feel there is some part of content missing here where you would really need this level and gear for. As discussed earlier, at some point I stopped doing all side-content. This caused me from being 3-5 levels under the current recommended mission level, all the way to being 50 levels underleveled when I finished the game. It seems Nioh really expects you to run its Twilight Missions and side content to keep up. My damage output dropped significantly over the course of the game, which led to somewhat tedious bossfights that I clearly had down, but the execution took longer than was fun to play. The problem is, the grind in Nioh is pointless unless you reach NG+.

Twilight Missions feature more and more challenging enemy spawns, increased mission level and a red hue that overlays the area.

Take forging. You can create weapons and armor based off blueprints at the Blacksmith. She will have a chance to forge any rarity type of that weapon depending on the rarity of materials you use to forge the weapon. Use all common materials and the result will have a very tiny chance of being something more than common. Use all rare materials and you have a decent chance to get a rare item, a small chance to get an exotic but also reasonable chance to get uncommon or even a common item. Put enough materials in and essentially keep forging until you get that exotic you want. But 2 missions later, that exotic is going to deal insignificant damage because it is low level. You can bring it up in level, but that costs gold. A small amount at first, but it increases exponentially to the point that I had 150.000 gold and bringing up my weapon of choice cost 5 million. No matter what you forge in your first playthrough, you will have to leave it behind, it's as simple as that. In addition, other player bloodstains can be interacted with to summon an AI of that player into your world. If you defeat it, you get the loot it had equipped when it died, which is often a better score than straight up forging something, especially since these Revenants as they are called, are extremely easy to kill.

Which meant none of the rewards were necessarily worth it. You would find something better in 1-2 missions anyway that you did not have to pay for. Which meant the only reason to do side content was meaningless. Which meant at some point I was just pressed to finish the game so I could get started in NG+ to actually start tricking out my character. That is where Nioh has a problem, it overstays its welcome. Nioh is an incredibly long game with little enemy variety. There are some visual differences for the Yokai (traditional Japanese demons) you see in the first few missions compared to the last few missions, but they essentially attack and behave identical apart from increased health pools and damage output.

Yokai enemies are tougher than human enemies and can summon Yokai realms that slow down your Ki regeneration.

Nioh also puts increasingly uninteresting bosses in your way that are more often than not easily defeated by copying your strategy for the last boss you fought. While there are definitely a couple of bosses in here that are supremely fun and challenging to fight, the majority of its boss design does not do the Souls-boss expectations justice. In such a game extreme challenge is not necessarily the point. In fact, once you get a boss down, you should be able to defeat it with relative ease. But they must be figured out more often than not. They surprise you, they have moves you haven't seen before and require movements from the player that you previously have not needed to use. While all bosses may be defeated by dodging their attacks, the dodging of said attacks should require some amount of practice. In Nioh, for the majority of bosses, none of this is true. I found myself defeating 9 bosses in a row using the same exact dodge to the same exact side after which I performed the same exact move that allowed me to perform the same exact flurry of moves and back out again. Even worse, most bosses are fought multiple times over the course of the game similar to Ninja Gaiden II. Unlike Ninja Gaiden II unfortunately, the repeats just feature increased health and damage, not new moves or interesting arena's. Some boss fights are straight up copies from Ninja Gaiden as well, feature near-identical movesets even with the exact same increments in their attacks. It was pretty jarring and frustrated me because I would have preferred it if the game was just shorter and cut from all this type of stuff to make it much more unique and solid.

Remember these guys? You fight a boss late in Nioh's campaign that has, literally, the exact same moveset.

One reason why most boss fights are so disappointing is because the core combat system in Nioh is a leap forward over that of a traditional Souls game. Each weapon has three different stances, high, medium and low all having their own movesets. You can switch on the fly in between stances though it does not quite get as great to switch stances during combo's. It is very much 'combo x is for stance y, period'. If you time it correctly, each combo can be ended with a Ki Pulse, which means you'll get some of your stamina back. It is very much an 'active reload' type situation from Gears of War and it fits the game very well. If you gather Amrita (Souls) your Living Weapon gauge will start to fill up. When full, you can unleash your Living Weapon, essentially gaining immortality and increased damage for a short time, though taking damage drastically reduces the time you have left. There are several Guardians to collect that inhabit your weapon, mostly by defeating bosses. They each have a certain elemental damage and decrease the damage you receive, among other beneficial properties. Dying leaves not only your gathered Amrita, but also your Guardian at your bloodstain, effectively reducing your stats and removing the ability to use your Living Weapon until you reclaim it. Dying before collecting your bloodstain will simply return your Guardian to you, though your Amrita will be lost. The Guardians are an interesting system that prove to reach a certain depth of character building not found in traditional Souls games.

The Guardians are an interesting system that prove to reach a certain depth of character building not found in traditional Souls games.

Final Feelings

In the end, Nioh will let you create your character, or William rather, with gear that certainly would fit your playstyle. The combat is very fun to engage with, though it doesn't often really require you to reach the depths of the possibilities it has to offer but accepts superficial play just as well. There are 2 or 3 fantastic bossfights in the game and with the mission structure, you can practically replay them any time you want which is an advantage of such a system. The vast majority of them are uninteresting and easily bested however, but their respective area designs are usually constructed pretty well. Nioh makes a statement that not only are Souls games here to stay, they still have so much potential for growth and added depth. It will forever go into the history books as the game that showed Souls games can be even more. It misses the mark here and there with its unbalanced progression, lack of enemy variety and uninteresting boss design, but there is no denying there is a lot of game here, though it would have benefited from being cut down some to form a more solid cohesive experience.