Nioh

Nioh is Dark Souls for insane people, and that’s a compliment.
You play as Geralt the Witcher as he travels to the Dark Souls world for some real challenge as his world was too easy!
Jokes aside yeah, I originally got it because I couldn’t afford Sekiro, but Nioh has been the single greatest co-op experience I've ever had. My wife’s boyfriend and I spent so many evenings playing it; we eventually both got all the regular achievements, as well as all the DLC ones, and we STILL kept playing. Honestly, nothing has come close to it since. Don't try it if you are trying to quit smoking though.
Nioh is one of the most fun 3rd person action games I know. I have been a Dark Souls fan for years, and I went into Nioh thinking "Oh look, another attempt at poorly replicating Dark Souls." The second I jumped into it though I was completely surprised at how unique of a take on the game style it was. It is an amazing game all around! The combat is just so damn fun and the amount of tools that you can play around with is amazing. If you approach it more like an action game and try to screw around, it really shines. It’s just so fluid and allows you to play really aggressively letting you dominate enemies and bosses if you know what you're doing. There is nothing better after a stressfull work day than to chill out and slay some demons.
Now Nioh is one of my favorite game series but it's a bit particular, and there are probably as much haters of the game as there are lovers. So when determining whether to buy this you have to see if you fall under the category of a person who will love the game or hate it. What makes the game controversial for some is the fact that it resembles a Soulslike but it doesn't feel like a Soulslike game. It's a combination of Character action (DMC, Ninja Gaiden), Diablo, and Souls, with Souls arguably having the most superficial influence. So if you like Soulslike games, you might like it at first but start to hate it because it does things so differently.
Soulslike games are about exploration. The worlds are interconnected and it feels like you are in a living world, and enemies feel like they are in their habitat. Nioh has missions, so levels have a definitive start and an end. It also reuses the same levels a lot, as there are main missions and sub missions, where the sub missions use a small portion of the main mission level. If you like the feeling of adventure and exploration, Nioh will be jarring.
Nioh also uses Diablo style random loot. That impacts exploration, as you won't look into nooks and crannies to find a specific weapon. Rather, you are just hoping that the chest you open or boss you kill drops interesting stuff. It also affects the way you make builds. It follows Diablo style buildcrafting, which basically means upgrade your equipment with new stuff you pick up until late NG+s. You will also allocate stat points differently compared to Souls games. A lot of people are annoyed with the random loot because they don't like sifting through tons of loot. Thankfully, you don't actually have to look at every loot piece and Nioh gives you ways to mass/discard your loot for more useful things. But you'll have to learn a different way of dealing with loot and buildcrafting, which is a barrier for many.
Finally, Nioh's combat is way more complex than Souls. Souls games are usually very simple. You basically dodge, dodge, dodge, then attack, attack. It's all about finding the rhythm of the enemy's attacks and hitting them during their downtime. In Nioh, you have actual moves and a system to regain some of your lost stamina. Your combat potentially becomes more aggressive and more stylish. The skill ceiling rises tremendously but at the same time the skill floor rises too, as you need to get good with stick skills. If you like stylish, cool, challenging combat, the Nioh series is arguably one of the best, and many people regard it as having some of the best combat in all gaming. It might not be for you though.
Nonetheless, if you like skill based challenging combat and like or are okay with Diablo style loot and a mission based level design, this is the game for you. The combat for me is second to only Nioh 2. The game has a ton of depth and a ton of content, and it's fantastic. You just have to really be aware if it's for you or not from the start. Even if you’re in doubt though , on a sale I still think it's worth a shot. Give it a try, if you’re into these types of games you won’t regret it.
10/10

Amazing game.
Ignore the mixed reviews, if you like soulslike games and Japanese mythology in a warring states setting this game is for you.
The combat is satisfying, the art is beautiful.
Just get good

I did enjoy Nioh mostly but I have never, EVER gotten so angry at a game before in my life. Lots of things can one shot you, even the most basic enemy can, every boss has at least one way to one shot you and sometimes its super fast like, react to it in less than .8 of a second and you failed RIP go again, run 25 seconds to boss, maybe die on the way also, walk in room, 3 auto's stun locks you RIP, run again 25 seconds.... A lot of that. Oh also some bosses when they have no stamina/Ki and you hit them it staggers them it can sometimes resets their animation into an instant attack/one shot. Cant bring my self to start the DLC, too much rage/pain.

9/10
2100+ deaths later and I feel pretty done with this journey.
The negative reviews are mostly from salty bad players who give up way too easily or people who complain about the keyboard controls but even so if you just google a little bit or check the steam guides you can configure them if you want to so I really don't agree with most of them. There is also a 60 fps cap which I personally was very happy to find out that a software on Steam called Lossless Scaling helped with providing more frames very easily.
This game has been like crack to my brain and I am scared of how much I will enjoy Nioh 2 at this rate from what I have heard. I have tried all the weapons during my playthrough and went through all the difficulties and feel I am very satisfied for now even if I wish I actually 100% everything inside of the game but that I realised is an insane grind.
Story was kinda hard to follow and nothing special but it is not a very story heavy game like maybe the souls games are and kind of more like Warframe where you get missions and some dialogue and information, sometimes cutscenes.
The game is very punishing in the beginning especially for someones first soulslike game but mid game you kinda get the feel for it and your build starts doing work and then in the end game its basically one shot them or get 1-3 shot with very hard mechanics where you are punished for every mistake especially if you are going with light armour, in this regard I can agree that whilst I don't really want the game to only be one shots in the very end game unless you min max your tank setup I can still appreciate it for what it is.
The first difficulty is more like a soulslike and in the later difficulties becomes an ARPG where you just speedrun through missions/farm them for more loot or faster progression if you want to. The dopamine frying goes crazy with the amount of loot you can get in this game. It really reminds me of the way Borderlands works where you go through the game multiple times with better and better gear and tougher enemies.
There is a lot of build variety and min maxing you can do which probably made me spend way too much time on just figuring out different builds and then testing them out just because it was so much fun for me, the information you can find out about this game is also a little fragmented for an RPG, even the wiki is not completed, it may be because of it's age and console exclusiveness when it came out.
Still a very fun experience even if it made me rage many times but actually most of it was from my own mistakes, I actually think the boss mechanics are pretty fair once you get to know them better.
Can see that this isn't a game for everyone but if you played games like Borderlands 2 for example and didn't mind playing all the way to max level multiple times through the game you will enjoy it. The game is very hard but very rewarding and there is a lot to master and farm if you so wish. You will also be happy with just one playthrough but you won't experience quite all of the game and it's systems in that case since the end game is very long and you progress constantly.

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

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
EDIT : Completely finished all dlcs besides the last 4 side missions of the last dlc. Yeah it's bullshit and should only be played by 1- people who play dark souls and think it's the easiest shit of all time or 2- masochists. It's horribly designed. Only saving grace are a couple of bosses like Maria being the best boss in the entire game and some cutscenes but overall not worth it