Is Nioh Very Souls-y?

[happyninja42]

Fairly quick, I hate From Soft games. But I like samurai/ninja/Asian-esque games a lot. But again, hate From Soft games. I played Jedi: Fallen Order, and it was....tolerable is about the best as I can put it. Granted, some of that was due to the metroidvania style of unlocking travel abilities and backtracking, but I also wasn't a HUGE fan of the combat. It was serviceable, because I was a Jedi, so I had fun Jedi tricks to use, but the basic combat style, is not really my liking.

But, then I see images of Nioh and think "Hmm, that looks cool, as far as the design and stuff, but everyone says it's Like Souls But" so I'm curious, how much of it is "like souls" and how much of it is "but" ? Because my dilemma is whether or not I can enjoy all the rest of the game enough to counter the combat style of From Soft. Though if it's considered "Souls Lite" or something, like how Fallen Order is considered, I might enjoy it.

So, thoughts?

 

[CriticalGaming]

It has much much faster and much more complex combat than Souls. It doesn't have a large interconnected world, instead each level is mission based. It has a shitload of loot and crafting options on the scale of a Diablo-type game.

It's hard as fuck, and you have to manage a "stamina" meter.

Is that too much like Souls for you?

 

[happyninja42]

when you say "hard as fuck" when comparing to Souls, I assume that translates to "you will slam your head into the brick wall that is the various bosses 50+ times until you finally figure out the one way to kill them" And if so, then yeah it's probably too Souls-y for me.

 

[bluegate]

It's probably too Dark Soulsy for your tastes.

The game is mission based with rather disjointed storytelling, there's not much to enjoy aside from the combat and the maps they take place in.

If you're having troubles then there's a slow motion spell that nerfs anything in the game, but you'd have to get to mid game to get it.

 

[CriticalGaming]

when you say "hard as fuck" when comparing to Souls, I assume that translates to "you will slam your head into the brick wall that is the various bosses 50+ times until you finally figure out the one way to kill them" And if so, then yeah it's probably too Souls-y for me.

No. you will die to the basic enemies 50 times until you figure out the combat system. The bosses are the least of your worries.

The combat is very deep, and very rewarding, but very very difficult to master and the enemies will 2 or 3 shot you until you learn how to avoid attacks and dish out punishment. Until later in the game where you have enough gear that you are less about avoiding damage and more about mastering your combo's and using your build to the best advantage.

The loot here is very much a deep RPG system. You could specialize in depleting your enemie's stamina so you can grapple themfor massive damage. Or you can focus on debuffing them with magic, making them weak to your damage and slowing them down by 75%. Oruse ninja skills to lay a bunch of traps so that they fuck themselves up before they even get to you.

The depth is incredibly vast.

 

[CriticalGaming]

It's probably too Dark Soulsy for your tastes.

The game is mission based with rather disjointed storytelling, there's not much to enjoy aside from the combat and the maps they take place in.

If you're having troubles then there's a slow motion spell that nerfs anything in the game, but you'd have to get to mid game to get it.

You can literally unlock that spell after the second main mission. In Nioh 1 at least. It's a bit later in Nioh 2 depending on how much magic you focus on.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm playing it right now.
It's Soulsy in that you traverse these labyrinthine gauntlets, activating shortcuts and checkpoints, while (most) enemies respawn upon death. Combat is based around managing stamina, blocking and dodging, and you get one shot at getting back any unspent XP you lose upon death. But it's mission-based, so areas are self-contained and don't connect. And combat is generally more aggressive than the Souls games. You can get your stamina back by timing a button rather than waiting for it, for example.

It seems way more complicated than the Souls games too. There's a skll tree for every weapon type in the game, as well as a ninja tree and a magic tree, and you can level up every weapon by using it, there're three stances you can take (each with its own skill tree as well) and there's a forging/refashioning angle for weapons, and the enemies disgorge a ridiculous number of items and weapons and armor to the point I'm changing my loadout every minute.

If you're a min/max nut this is your game. Me I feel a bit overwhelmed so I'm only paying attention to some of the features the game has to offer. It's overly convoluted but so far I get by just by sticking to what I know about the Souls games.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I’m wondering myself, if the difficulty is more intuitive-based or memorize these charts of unlockables to do well, or a mix of both?

 

[CriticalGaming]

I’m wondering myself, if the difficulty is more intuitive-based or memorize these charts of unlockables to do well, or a mix of both?

Neither. Really it's just not be careless of enemies. Because most attacks will deal at LEAST 40% of your health per hit.

But none of the enemies have complex attack patterns or anything, in fact most only have two or three attacks. The challenge comes from knowing when to strike with openings, knowing how to create a build using the gear that drops, and knowing the combat system in terms of your special attacks, combos, stances, and how to flow it all together in a way that kills enemies before they can even touch you.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Neither. Really it's just not be careless of enemies. Because most attacks will deal at LEAST 40% of your health per hit.

But none of the enemies have complex attack patterns or anything, in fact most only have two or three attacks. The challenge comes from knowing when to strike with openings, knowing how to create a build using the gear that drops, and knowing the combat system in terms of your special attacks, combos, stances, and how to flow it all together in a way that kills enemies before they can even touch you.

It looked like most of that was an onslaught of the spin move with the split staff being tanked by the boss, an occasional dodge, and one wrong reaction which ended the fight instantly.

Was there a way he could’ve ended the fight much earlier, say using a different tactic? If not that seems like a special kind of masochism.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

when you say "hard as fuck" when comparing to Souls, I assume that translates to "you will slam your head into the brick wall that is the various bosses 50+ times until you finally figure out the one way to kill them" And if so, then yeah it's probably too Souls-y for me.

Actually I found the bosses in the original Nioh to mostly be easier than Souls bosses, with some exceptions.

Nioh gives you a lot more tools than the souls games do, and I found the levels to overall be more difficult than Souls games, but bosses to overall be easier.

That said, I only got about 2/3 of the way through Nioh before I stopped playing. I thought the combat was great, but I really didn't enjoy the loot system or the inventory, and didn't really like any of the level design.

 

[happyninja42]

Neither. Really it's just not be careless of enemies. Because most attacks will deal at LEAST 40% of your health per hit.

But none of the enemies have complex attack patterns or anything, in fact most only have two or three attacks. The challenge comes from knowing when to strike with openings, knowing how to create a build using the gear that drops, and knowing the combat system in terms of your special attacks, combos, stances, and how to flow it all together in a way that kills enemies before they can even touch you.

That guy died to a shot that did 2112 damage to him. My RUSH soul just smiled in quiet joy at that.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Nioh is the Dark Souls of games that are like Dark Souls.

 

[Dreiko]

Nioh is kinda the game for people who wanted Sekiro to be more like dark souls and less of an action game. It's still more actiony than dark souls but it also has a huge emphasis on stats and gear and you can build your char a million different ways unlike sekiro where it's more about just getting really good at the mechanics and being easily able to beat everything even with almost no upgrades once you do.


Oh and Jedi Lost Order was the game people who wanted Sekiro to have an easy mode wanted. Fun game but even on Jedi Master I didn't die at all for like the first 5 hours in the game lol.

 

[Gergar12]

I couldn't get past the first boss, but I also needed help with the monster hunter world with beating the hardest starter boss(fucking Nergigante), but I said i am an average player I suck at games when given a bad hand, do an okay job with an okay hand, and excel when given a good hand.

For example, given better weapons I wrecked Nergigante, but those weapons were locked behind beating it.

I hate PVP, but given meta weapons, I get good win-rates, and K/D rates in Destiny, and War Thunder(at the beginning where I got regularly 8 kill-games)

But if you are really interested in Nioh 2, you could google youtube how-to guides, and google each boss, and do batman like prep. I was too lazy and impatient to do it.

 

[stroopwafel]

Beyond surface similarities the Nioh games aren't really anything like Souls. The combat is much more nuanced and complex with different stances, ki pulses(stamina regen) and numerous amounts of weapon combos. With Nioh it's really the more you put into it the more you get. The feel of the combat is simply divine. The Souls combat is still a ton of fun ofcourse but once you have played a lot of it the structure can get a bit repetitive, in particular b/c the movesets stay the same and the different weapons don't really feel that different in practice. In Souls you memorize an enemy's moveset and then you bait those attacks and wait for their openings. It's good, but a bit simplistic. Nioh builds on the methodical foundation of Souls but expands on it tenfold. Every weapon feels different(I don't know how much work they must have put into this) and the combat somehow stays fresh even after 100+ hours with a near infinite amount of playstyles. The game is also as difficult as you want it to be. Boss fights are easy to cheese with things like sloth and living weapon but can also be very challenging.

Nioh should really be played on it's own terms and not as 'Souls-like'(which it really isn't). Team Ninja are absolute masters of their craft when it comes to combat but in terms of atmosphere, enemy and level design ofcourse nothing can beat From Software. The loot can also get a bit overbearing but if you make a habit of cleaning your inventory after every mission it's not that bad. The item descriptions actually come with a ton of very interesting sengoku history and era apppropriate lore. Nioh 2 builds on everything that made Nioh 1 such a classic but adds more enemy variety, more interesting stages, character creation and burst counters that really change the dynamic of many encounters.

Both Nioh's are in my top 10 of all time now and I can't recommend them enough. Absolutely stellar games.

 

[CriticalGaming]

It looked like most of that was an onslaught of the spin move with the split staff being tanked by the boss, an occasional dodge, and one wrong reaction which ended the fight instantly.

Was there a way he could’ve ended the fight much earlier, say using a different tactic? If not that seems like a special kind of masochism.

Depends on their gear. That spin move was probably the most reliable tactic they had access to at that point. The staff is good against human enemies because it breaks the enemies stamina, (thus the boss falling over or out of breath for those grapple moves). There are three stances with each weapon, 8 weapons in total, and each stance and weapon combo has different move sets and special move sets all designed to do different thing based on what you've geared for.

Remember this game is very diablo like so you have items that have a range of stats on them. For example:

So much like an ARPG you will be doing farming to look for the pieces you need. There is a blacksmith that will also let you reroll the stats on the items to get what you want as well but there is a price for that and you'll not be doing it too much until late game.

Here is another video of a guy using stacking magic buffs and tonfas to beat the shit out of a pretty difficult boss otherwise.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Depends on their gear. That spin move was probably the most reliable tactic they had access to at that point. The staff is good against human enemies because it breaks the enemies stamina, (thus the boss falling over or out of breath for those grapple moves). There are three stances with each weapon, 8 weapons in total, and each stance and weapon combo has different move sets and special move sets all designed to do different thing based on what you've geared for.

Remember this game is very diablo like so you have items that have a range of stats on them. For example:

So much like an ARPG you will be doing farming to look for the pieces you need. There is a blacksmith that will also let you reroll the stats on the items to get what you want as well but there is a price for that and you'll not be doing it too much until late game.

Here is another video of a guy using stacking magic buffs and tonfas to beat the shit out of a pretty difficult boss otherwise.

So this intrigues me more, since it sounds like Diablo 3, but swapping isometric hack n slash with deeper combat mechanics in third person. It never felt like the looting there was a grind or pointless since it usually dished out interesting stuff *cough* dopamine *cough*, but here it also kinda sounds like there are base weapon classes that you can just get better attributes for, which would be much preferred since it’s more in line with how Souls handles upgrading. But of course with probably more customization for different play styles. I’d like to be able to keep that cool weapon I found early on and just trick it out into a powerhouse, vs having to constantly play musical weapons like in The Witcher 3.

I guess I should stop asking so many questions and just start playing the damn thing, but I’d like to finish Sekiro first. Like I said though, it’s intriguing and sitting in my PS library in the meantime (the first game at least).

 

[CriticalGaming]

I’d like to be able to keep that cool weapon I found early on and just trick it out into a powerhouse, vs having to constantly play musical weapons like in The Witcher 3.

There is a system where you can level up a low level weapon you found that you really like to match your current level. For example say you found a level 23 sword that has lightning damage and break damage (break is how you destroy someone's stamina) but by level 35+ it's obviously not going to have the damage. So you can go to the blacksmith and sacrifice some junk level 40 weapon to level the sword you like from 23 to 40.

However the more likely scenario is you are just going to use the newer more powerful swords that drop because they will have more and more stats on them. The game has huge levels of customization, and you'll like need to look up a guide or wiki to hunt of the gear you want and the stats you'll want it to have to do what you imagine yourself doing. Again there are a shitload of ways you can build your character up, and a shitload of ways you can kit yourself to deal with the combat. It is one of Nioh's biggest strengths because the sheer mountain of combat variety makes the grinding not get boring because you can always change they way you handle combat, effectively changing the way you play the game on the fly.

Since you have the first game it's a good place to start, but know that Nioh 2 adds a whole entire bucketlist of more things you can do. Honestly Nioh 2 is a much better game. So Play some of the first game to get a feel for how everything works, and if you like it go get Nioh 2 and play that instead because it's much much better.

 

[happyninja42]

Beyond surface similarities the Nioh games aren't really anything like Souls. The combat is much more nuanced and complex with different stances, ki pulses(stamina regen) and numerous amounts of weapon combos. With Nioh it's really the more you put into it the more you get. The feel of the combat is simply divine. The Souls combat is still a ton of fun ofcourse but once you have played a lot of it the structure can get a bit repetitive, in particular b/c the movesets stay the same and the different weapons don't really feel that different in practice. In Souls you memorize an enemy's moveset and then you bait those attacks and wait for their openings. It's good, but a bit simplistic. Nioh builds on the methodical foundation of Souls but expands on it tenfold. Every weapon feels different(I don't know how much work they must have put into this) and the combat somehow stays fresh even after 100+ hours with a near infinite amount of playstyles. The game is also as difficult as you want it to be. Boss fights are easy to cheese with things like sloth and living weapon but can also be very challenging.

Nioh should really be played on it's own terms and not as 'Souls-like'(which it really isn't). Team Ninja are absolute masters of their craft when it comes to combat but in terms of atmosphere, enemy and level design ofcourse nothing can beat From Software. The loot can also get a bit overbearing but if you make a habit of cleaning your inventory after every mission it's not that bad. The item descriptions actually come with a ton of very interesting sengoku history and era apppropriate lore. Nioh 2 builds on everything that made Nioh 1 such a classic but adds more enemy variety, more interesting stages, character creation and burst counters that really change the dynamic of many encounters.

Both Nioh's are in my top 10 of all time now and I can't recommend them enough. Absolutely stellar games.

See that's one of my biggest issues with the Souls games. Every bit of footage I see of the any of the games, for years, basically just boils down to "Dodge like crazy and hopefully get 1-2 smacks in before the monstrosity 1-shots me...wash, rinse, repeat." It seems incredibly dull and monotonous to me. And while the basic combat of Fallen Order was similar, I at least had things like force powers to mix it up, and make some variety to approaches for a lot of enemies. Nioh seems to be more along this angle of approach to the combat, allowing you lots of tricks and powers to tackle the enemies with different strategies. So I might actually check it out.