Nioh: Review
Nioh is what you get when you take something that someone else has done well and you perfect it. It is downright amazing. As a big fan of the Soul’s games and the hard-core gaming genre, this game is a healthy and good alternative. It feels like a blend of Demon Souls and Bloodborne but, most important of all, it does end up feeling like something that is very much on its own.
The game has you put into the shoes of William Adams, the first Englishman to travel over to Japan and who became a samurai ‒and that is pretty much the only historic correctness you will get from this game, considering the game puts you in the battle of demons and such.
The story does well in establishing the scene and setting perfectly fine and that is all that you really will care about, the story isn’t amazing but it is good and it keeps you entertained and interested the whole way through. It can be a little cheesy and feel like a cartoon at times, but never in a bad way. If you are playing this game for the story I would recommend you go for something more in the veins of Dark Souls and not Ni-Oh as this is mostly all about that gameplay and not the story.
You begin in a prison in London, where you quickly escape, fighting guards off, finding loot, learning everything from controlling your character to equipping gear in a not very “in your face” tutorial style, which I appreciated very much since I have danced this dance before, and we all know how bothersome long boring tutorials can be.
Already at the beginning of the game, you can tell you have a challenging journey ahead of you ‒I never found the game that difficult, but most newcomers of the genre and the game on its own will probably feel the difficulty off-putting at times, which is why the addition of loot to the game mechanics is a nice touch and helps you feel positive even in the times when you just want to throw your controller, because you know you can always even the odds with better gear, or you can find a co-op partner, yes, the game has co-op at something called Tori Gate in the shrine’s menu.
After the London section, William starts his journey over to Japan, landing in Kuroshima, a tiny island off the coast of Usuki. The game finally places you in the scenario you have been waiting for. As the game gradually opens up, it will give you a world map of the Kyushu’s Bungo province, where you can pick main missions, secondary missions. You also have a homestead where you can train your skills in a dojo, talk to the blacksmith to buy/sell gear, forge gear ‒you can even soul match two pieces of gear to up the level of your equipped weapon or armour or refashion your gear, There isn’t much customization with the avatar, but at one point you can use patronage levels to unlock barbershop at the blacksmith which will allow you to change your beard and hair style. Later on in the game it will open up even more, letting you travel to another province which opens up the world map even more.
You have a “hidden teahouse” where you can spend glory points to buy cool stuff like gestures, skins, rare crafting materials and even unidentified gear, just like diablo.
When hidden teahouse opens up you will also get the chance to join a clan, you can choose which clan to join depending on what stat boost you want.
The game has so much content and customization to it, that I’m still jumping in excitement just thinking about it. And best of all is the way the game gradually opens it up to you, instead of just handing it over and saying “here you go” it all feels like a progression to it that is at your own pace.
Earlier in the review I compared Nioh a lot to Bloodborne, but as a Team Ninja game you can also see resemblance to Ninja Gaiden especially in the combat. When it comes to combat, it really is a thinking man’s game. There are 3 different weapon stances you can choose from, low, mid and high. They have different purposes to them from fast moving stance for attack and retreat tactics to slow hard hitting stance for high offense and slow defence. The fun part of combat is your enemy and the variety in animations and enemy designs, you have to read their animations to be at your most efficient in combat. Knowing when to keep your distance and when to strike is a key component of the game. The bosses in the game can be really difficult but it always comes down to what you do wrong and never the game ****ing it up for you.
Nioh is both fun and difficult, but it never broke me down, the amount of content you have to play with and explore is immense. Learning the combat in the game and beating the different variations of Demons and Bosses, is an extreme challenge, but definitely one worth taking. There is serious depth to this game and I highly recommend it to both newcomers to the genre and hard-core gamers looking for more challenge after their time with Dark Souls or who have a hole they need to fill after the last Ninja Gaiden.
Verdict: 8.5/10
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Check out the trailer below!
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