There are rare cases where I hate most of my time with a game, yet somehow, whenever by using easy modes, cheats or just clenching teeth, I still finish it because there is something about the game that makes me interested. Nioh was that case – this is not a game I can enjoy, yet I can see how it can be extremely loved by a specific niche of people.
Nioh is an action RPG by Team NINJA, the developers best known for Dead or Alive and rebooted Ninja Gaiden series. And despite a huge influence from the From Software’s “Souls” games, said influence feels like an addition to the formula familiar to the developer, rather than the base set of mechanics of the game. For once, the game is mission-based, just like Ninja Gaiden reboot (or Onimusha and Devil May Cry that clearly influenced that title) and has a boss fight at the end of each more or less linear (but interconnected) main level. Fighting mechanics are the key, with several weapon types, 3 weapon stances, multitude of special attacks and ways to mix them up, and, also reminding of Ninja Gaiden, the fights are completely unforgiving. While it can be fine to get hit by normal-sized enemies once or twice, or maybe sometimes even by a combo, most bigger enemies and bosses just outright kill you with one or two hits, no matter how much health you are expected to have at that point. Here, “Souls”-inspired mechanics come into play, allowing you to revive at the nearest Shrine, with some enemies staying dead, some actions (like opened shortcuts) remaining as they were when you died and all your “amrita” (experience points, essentially) laying right where you died, waiting to be picked up again.
But that unforgiving nature of the game, that seeming drive for grind, that will still not help you if you make a mistake, is what made me not like the game much. What I always admired about the “Souls” was the fact that despite it’s difficulty, it usually gave you chances. You could be a glass canon, but you could also develop your character to be able to make mistakes and take hits in most cases and just survive through some parts that could be played much more elegantly, much more “perfect”, but don’t need to. Nioh wants you to play with not being hit and that didn’t work for me and will probably not work for a lot of other people. Especially since unlike something like Ninja Gaiden, the character is much “heavier”. There’s stamina (ki, in this case), lock on enemies isn’t particularly precise when attacking quick targets and for some reason, even when playing at stable above 60 FPS framerate, game seems to just ignore inputs at times, or do long press inputs instead of quick ones. Which, in case of this game, usually means death and restart from the shrine.
But again, that’s preferences. Some people were probably waiting for a game like that (minus weird input issues) and I’m just not one of them. Besides, despite a seemingly samey roster of enemies most of the time, there’s plenty of creativity with encounters and cool “gimmicks” for the levels. A level on fire where being doused in water helps shortcut through fires, a mansion full of one-way hidden doors, a more open battlefield or even a really smart take on the “swamp level”, where the swamp makes you smelly instead of poisoned (and that limits your ability to heal or use consumable items normally). The game does take way too long to be done (especially with the included story DLCs), but the developers weren’t lazy with making levels varied and at least occasionally introducing some interesting (at least to look at) enemies. Most of them are fun to fight and there’s a lot of human enemy types, which is fun for anyone who loves parrying (works on any human in this game and is extremely fun to pull off), but then there are types of enemies that you just want to avoid when you see them, because ugh.
Speaking of ugh, what makes the game feel especially long is the fact that the story is just terrible. It’s your usual “feudal Japan plot, oh hey Nobunaga will be somehow shoehorned here as well” type of thing, with ridiculous characters, ridiculous accents and, worst of all, messy storytelling. It’s never entertaining, it’s never fun, it’s usually hard to follow and sometimes the characters are shown with such dramatic flair as if you were supposed to know them from before, but that’s actually their first appearance and the only reason for the drama is probably to shock those who know Japanese history well. It’s as bad as Assassin’s Creed approach to historic characters, except even worse and harder to understand. At least, they all look good, because the game is visually quite pretty. Sounds nice too.
What is questionable and I find hard to believe is loved even by those, who like the core game mechanics, is the emphasis on loot. Neither action games like Ninja Gaiden or Onimusha, nor “Souls” throw a bunch of equipment at you all the time, usually instead focusing on less, but more unique in use, types of weapons and armor. Nioh instead follows the Diablo-like aRPG formula, with colour-coded rarity and things just falling from all around you for you to sit through, sort, sell, disassemble or what not between the missions. And it’s so tedious.
Oh and the PC port is rather decent. Usually runs well, but can randomly crash on loading screens or show a saving error if you have anything running backups for certain folders in the background from time to time. Has surprisingly long initial load times, but otherwise, feels like a rather good port.
And I can see people excusing the dumb plot and boredom of loot for the sake of mastering the brutally hard combat, finding the best ways to overcome each obstacle and not being afraid (or annoyed) to die over and over and over again. So if you are like that, Nioh might be the game for you. It was very much not for me.