Nioh

You play as Weeaboo Geralt and travel to Japan to rescue your waifu. I'm not even joking. That's the plot. 10/10

me: "hell yeah I combo this enemy with so many combos/hits, now for the final strike"
KO'd you in one or two hits
me: "wtfajdbauiwdbiaw"

basically what is like playing Nioh

Dark Souls design/game mechanics mixed with Devil May Cry's combat mixed with Diablo's loot system set in dark fantasy version of 1600s Japan

The game's difficulty is like gradual slaps to the nuts. They increase in force slap by slap. It may be uncomfortable, but you soon grow accustomed to them.
This is the game prepping you for the sledgehammer.

Pretty fun all things considered.

Overally a great game held back by awful dlc
It's hard to say wether or not I recommend this game because I loved the base game from start to end. But then the DLC and bonus content became avaliable and absolutely destroyed everything.
What made Nioh fun , also made it awful. Ridiclous damage pool , dual bosses that are not intended to be together , difficulty curve that jumps from normal to a level where you need a ridicilous and I mean RIDICILOUS knowledge to actually be able to win. It's pure agony and nightmare what they thought was a ''good challenge''
And no I'm not coping because I suck. Some of these things mechanically do not work together and most people will agree that you are either a turbo nerd or need a cheese build.
Base game is great and challenging , story is cool and awesome to look at , levels and enemies are cool and bosses are great.
It's just that damn DLC.

I was close on thumbing it down because of it. Because you get so invested and want to play more until you realise that the game gatekeeps you 30-40 levels away from the recommended level mission so you get 2 shotted by average mobs. The boss fights in the DLC are fast-paced to the point where it's super annoying having to heal every 2 seconds because of how many attacks and HOW punishing they are for something like this. Truly an awful design. It sucks because I wanted to know what happens next but I also didn't want to start hating the game. Play base game until the dlc content unlocks then uninstall it unless you really want to torture yourself.

The difficulty in base game is great
The difficulty past base game is artificial.
Get it on sale

A true heir and successor to both Dark Souls and Onimusha

★★★★★★★★☆☆

Nioh is one of the few games who managed to completely re-define the ever-elusive "souls-like" genre. Much like FromSoftware themselves have done later, in 2019, Team Ninja have taken by that point in time a long-running concept of "die-respawn" cycle in dark action RPGs and completely flipped it on its head. A result? A stunningly exceptional piece of gaming history that combines expertly crafted newfangled unrelenting gameplay with genuinely interesting premise rooted in one of Japanese most prolific historical periods; and let me tell you - once it sinks its hooks in you, it's hard to let go.

“I was born from your prayers. Death is an entry to life. You will be reborn. In tears, in water. Life and death form a circle. You can die and be reborn as long as I exist. You are free from death.

Saoirse. That is my name. I will exist as long as you believe in me.”

The first Nioh has nowadays been (somewhat unfairly) overshadowed by the no less stellar Nioh 2 to the point where many people skip it altogether in favor of its more polished successor - much to their detriment. While Nioh 2 perfected practically everything Nioh has done, there is simply something about the original that you can only find here. To name one obvious thing, you are not playing as a customized nobody, but rather as a fictionalized version of one history's most interesting actors: English (or, well, Irish, as he is depicted and characterized in Nioh) sailor William Adams, one of the very few foreigners granted full-fledged samurai status in Japan. Again, the game very clearly takes a lot of liberties about how it plays out historical events, what with the demon yokai playing a significant part in the story, however, I do think they have done a great job at characterizing him. Despite William not talking much, I absolutely adore Team Ninja's creative decision to always have him speaking English when he does, while everyone else keeps speaking Japanese, with the communication being facilitated by a supernatural translation layer from Williams demon friend. It shows that the very basis of this game is founded on a care for authenticity, which is further shown by the period appropriate real historical aspects such as buildings, weapons, or, most importantly, the primary influential figures such as Tokugawa Ieyasu, Hattori Hanzo, or Oda Nobunaga. This all plays into Nioh being a game that takes liberties from authenticity and historical realism only where it serves the gameplay, the demonic narrative, and the overall theme.

Speaking of gameplay, there is no reason to beat around the bush - that is Nioh's selling feature. Whereas until 2017, the "souls-like" formula was almost always derivative of the original Dark/Demon's souls with the player having access to a variety of weapons that each felt a little different, Nioh has instead went for a system of multiple weapon types where each can be wielded in three vastly different ways, in stances. This effectively splits each weapon archetype in three distinct playstyles and makes the combat that much more complex. While simple in concept, this system makes the different combat encounters play out in limitless number of ways, which gets you that drug-induced euphoria-like feeling when you finally, after dozens of hours, manage to master it.

All that said, I don't want this to sound like my praising of the undoubtedly great combat system is unhindered. Nioh has quite a few problems that keep it being far from perfect, and one of the most prominent ones is its strange difficulty curve. The game has been built up from ground up as a unforgiving experience - that much is perfectly clear. However, unlike its influences, Nioh often strays into the realm of unfairness. Even after getting the hang of all of the systems, I struggled with pretty much every single boss before learning to effectively cheese it. That is how these bossess (and many enemy types) have been built - to need to be cheesed in some way. Whether it is finding a broken build relying on overpowered Onmyo spells, spamming specific Guardian spirits and their abilities, or giving up and summoning help from other players, many, if not most, bosses simply are a massive unfair pain in the rear. From one-kill almost impossible to dodge moves to strange move sets and difficult-to-predict abilities, each boss takes an ungodly amount of time to learn and master. So if you want to go and finish this game, just prepare to suffer more than you'd have in most other souls-likes...

Let's not drag this any longer - Nioh is an exceptional piece of art and gameplay design. Few games can offer Nioh's level of complexity and satisfaction packaged into gorgeous graphics and art style. Whether you are someone new to the series, or are Nioh 2 veteran eying the previous entry, Nioh is a tough mistress, but also one very willing to reward, if you've got the time and, most importantly, patience.

Positives & Negatives



Positives
Negatives


+ Even years after its release, Nioh's graphical style hasn't aged to any detrimental degree and looks gorgeous
- Unfairly steep difficulty curve that will prolong your gametime by dozens of hours spent learning each and every enemy's moveset, and not always in a good way


+ Tough, unforgiving, and, at times, miserable, but ultimately highly rewarding combat - when you get the hang of fighting system it turns into a beautiful symphony of skill and equipment - few things are as satisfying as feeling powerless in the beginning and then progressively honing your skills until it just clicks
- Poor quest structure - especially the side quests which are mostly just re-used main mission environments with little variation apart from the typical "go there, kill this"


+ Perfect weapon balance - each single weapon archetype is viable to complete the game with, provided you can master it
- Ninjustu and Onmyo magic balance is out of whack – most of the skills are close to useless unless you invest heavily in the appropriate attributes, while some specific spells or tools are outright broken in their effectiveness and can cheese almost anything


+ Unforgettable art style - from UI, to level design, to enemies, to weapons, to characters - it would be tough to find anything to properly raise complaints about
- The usual Japanese console ports technical shenanigans, except even worse: 60fps lock that you cant get rid of, and even more annoying 30fps lock in cutscenes


+ Fashion souls is in its full effect - the sheer number of possible pieces of clothing is staggering
- Some other minor technical issues related to the lazy work done on the PC port - no glyphs for PC key bindings and the fact that you might need to actually have a controller that you need to connect to your PC even if you don't want to use it as playing the game without it can cause annoying stutters


+ Excellent and memorable soundtrack and sound design



+ While somewhat convoluted, the main story is very intriguing and rewarding for those interested in the final years of Sengoku period in Japan



+ Decent characters with state-of-the-art voice acting



+ Great, if even tougher DLCs packaged as part of the Complete Edition

The game has an inverse difficulty curve for the most part. It starts rather challenging, then you slowly get access to more useful magic/ninjutsu, and then you overpower everything until it picks up at the end again.

Also don't try to play it with some other soulslike games, it's its own thing. For example builds don't come into play until the highest difficulty and your stats are best rather even until like 20 in everything basically.

Have fun!