Nioh

Welcome back to another RPG review by yours truly, and oh what a hectic quarter it has been. So many games, so little time. This time we are reviewing the so called Dark Souls clone or maybe because the Souls games are so revolutionary they have become their own genre, Nioh counts a Souls game. For those that are unfamiliar, shame on you. And Nioh is as ridiculously challenging as any Dark Souls game is. I was also surprised it is developed by Team Ninja, the same company that got you the Devil May Cry reboot. I was surprised as well that Nioh's development started in 2004 so thats a long time ago and it is a high quality game

Taking place in the early 1600s during a fictionalized version of the Sengoku period, when Japan was in the midst of civil war prior to the ascension of the Tokugawa shogunate, Nioh places us as a sailor named William, in pursuit of an enemy, arrives in Japan and is enlisted by Hattori Hanzo, servant to Tokugawa Ieyasu, in defeating yōkai that are flourishing in the chaos of war. Yokai are basically the monsters you fight along the whole game. Nioh's story, to me at least is overly complex despite it being fictional, because I'm an ignorant when it comes to history. However, ironically, the game's strong point is its gameplay and it is solid beyond imagination. I have not seen a more enjoyable combat experience other than Nioh in a while. It is as fast paced as Bloodborne can get and challenging as any Dark Souls really is.

If you've played any Souls game you'd be right at home and I was immediately in the mood for that. To top more on that, William has three stances for every weapon: High Stance, Medium, and low. Personally, I used Medium stance most of the time since it didn't take much Ki (stamina) from my bar and it did moderate damage enough for me to regain it. Regaining stamina or Ki in Nioh is by pressing R1 and waiting for the used up stamina to reach to the maximum and therefore its called a Ki pulse. If you dont press it in the right time, it fails and your stamina is already used up. Your equipment load affects your movement, attacks and Ki pulses. When enemies block your attacks, you cant have a chance to regain your Ki. Low stance helps you dodge easily without consuming much of your Ki and it also helps you fight off small enemies like spiders. There is a lot of tension and intensity when you face off enemies in Nioh, fighting both humans and Monsters. Its the heaven of gameplay to me, filled with countless bosses and has way more side missions than I have ever imagined, to the point where I just focused on the campaign since it is lengthy enough for me.

Exploration in Nioh is not through an Open world, you select missions from a region map and you move from one region to another. Between missions, you can buy and sell items and forge weapons and armor at a blacksmith, or even go to the Dojo for extra missions and there are already plenty of side missions in the world map. The Torii gate is basically the multiplayer gateway to co oping with players to help them out in their missions. The shrine is where you can level up and assign stat points based on what you want your character to be built up to. Don't worry, there are shrines everywhere during missions but accessing them respawns all monsters in the vicinity and dont worry about your stat points as well, you can buy a book of reincarnation to reassign your character's points. There are a lot of similarities between Nioh and the souls games that its hard not to mention them. Some would call it cheap, I just accepted it as a genre and I really enjoyed it for what it is. The charms that you imbue your weapons with, the hidden walls you explore throughout the levels, or the hidden "gem" creatures that are easy to miss and easy to run away from you, summoning another player to help you out, traveling amulets that work like traveling between bonfires in Dark Souls, all of them are done well and perhaps done in an innovative fashion too.

There is a lot to do in Nioh and a lot to miss out even for me. There is even an Elemental system that I may have ignored but have experimented on by imbuing my weapons with the right element to counterattack the monsters or bosses. The way I have played Nioh may not have been the most ideal way but it sure as hell was fun for me. Summoning a player using an Ochoko cup. The only way to gett an Ochoko cup to summon a player is by defeating the revenants lying about on the field. Another addition that I liked are living weapons which are basically limit breaks the way I see them. Based on the guardian spirit I picked in the beginning, your guardian spirit affects your living weapon, whether you want its elemental components or want a spirit focused on strength or dodging, there is a spirit for that.

You get to use a primary and a secondary weapon of your choice when you start Nioh. I went with the sword and axes, one for moderate damage and the other is heavy oriented for less movement. You can learn skills using samurai skill points lying around the field or by increasing your reputation. Your reputation is based on the titles you receive, whether you kill a lot of demons or familiarize yourself with a weapon. Its basically the more flexible of a player you are with the game, the more you gain reputation points. Aside from weapon skill points, you can use ninja skills and magic so there is a lot of room to building your character, whether you want him to magic based or attack based.

Aesthetically, Nioh is a beautiful game but the soundtrack is unfortunately not very memorable to me. However, it is investing when I am playing it especially during boss fights. Due to a glitch where one of the boss's music stopped playing I noticed that the boss track foreshadows or overwhelms the player of danger, making me hesitant to fight and often makes me overly cautious but when the music stopped playing in that particular boss fight, I pounded him in less than 5 minutes and couldn't find it dangerous one bit. The boss designs are awesome though and the level design with its usual intricacies and shortcuts like any Dark Souls is enjoyable. You are in for a solid game if you want to enjoy a Souls experience. Nioh is available on PS4. I've been Ahmed Jadaa and I'll see you on my next review.