Nioh (Team Ninja's Return to Form)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

There was once a time when anything released by Team Ninja was associated with a level of proficiency and polish that few other developers could boast (in this regard, it's similar to how people tend to think of most of Platinum Games' releases). Whether you cared for their output or not, it could not be denied that the products that they released did anything and everything to cater to their specific fanbase, and while this is one of those developers notorious for re-releasing their games too many times, it's important to note that even the vanilla versions of any release felt like complete packages with no lack of content. The pinnacle of their acclaim came with the XBOX Ninja Gaiden reboot and it's subsequent re-releases, Black and Sigma. It's a masterpiece of the genre and to this day stands as one of the best action games ever made.

That said, this era of an Itagaki-lead Team Ninja did come to an end in 2008 with his departure (along with at least a quarter of the original team), and while you can make arguments whether or not he really contributed that much to the team's success up to that point, it can't be denied that things almost immediately took a turn for the worse after the head position was shifted to Itagaki's former protege, Yosuke Hayashi. The decisions being made were now less about Team Ninja making the games that they wanted to make and that their fans wanted to play, and more about how to cater to a larger demographic and bring in more income. No doubt this also had a lot to do with Tecmo (and later on KoeiTecmo after the merger) meddling with the developers, and having researched a bit about the subject in the past, it would be wrong of me to put all of the blame on Hayashi since it has since become apparent that he didn't outright agree with all of the things that he was instructed to do by his higher-ups. But the fact remains that Itagaki never would have budged on any of his positions or stances on how he wanted to develop games. Hayashi was more of a yes-man and would not fight what the studio demanded. Thus, we got an era of poor to mediocre releases, namely with titles like Metroid: Other M (which to be fair, isn't all Team Ninja's fault, and could have been even worse if Nintendo's original vision for the game was realized as just a rail shooter) and Ninja Gaiden 3 being colossal disappointments and some of the shallowest, most lifeless and hollow experiences that the developer has ever put out, all in the name of trying to appeal to a wider audience rather than focusing on what they did best. This was a reflection of the changing times in gaming (changes that were mostly for the worse, IMO), and Team Ninja were buckling under the pressure to conform to what everyone else was doing.

However, along the path of disappointment after disappointment, something interesting was happening in one niche of the gaming world. FromSoftware had been releasing a string of major hits with the Souls series. These were games that defiantly spat in the face of modern gaming conventions and crafted an experience that was simultaneously challenging yet undeniably captivating. Against all odds, these were titles that managed to call back to the challenge of games like Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry (despite not quite being an action game like those two), yet also managed to sell incredibly well and garner much critical favor without having to compromise the developers' vision in order to cater to a market that was now largely used to hand-holding cinematic gaming experiences that were hell-bent on taking as much control away from the player as possible.

Before any of this had happened, though, going way back to an E3 show of 2005, Koei (before their merger with Tecmo) had unveiled their newest Dynasty Warriors-style game. It was called Ni-Oh, and it was to be a major project that of all things, was actually going to be a movie tie-in to a feature directed by Akira Kurosawa's son, about the exploits of the real life William Adams and his time in Japan around the time of the "Warring States" period of Japan. Unfortunately, the plans for the film fell through, and while the game had already been in development in-house at Koei, it was shelved early on, and would be revisited at a later time due to its producer Kou Shibusawa really wanting to eventually have the game fully realized.

Early on in 2009, it was announced that Koei and Tecmo would be merging as companies, and somewhere around 2010, it was announced that Nioh was back on the tables as a future game for the company, however development would shift over to Team Ninja, which were then working on Dead or Alive 5 and Ninja Gaiden 3, with development presumably starting sometime after the completion of each of those games (which both released in 2012). It wouldn't be until a few years after that until the game was finally unveiled to the public, but what was shown at that point instantly got my attention, and my hopes were renewed for a new Team Ninja game that might actually be good for the first time in nearly a decade.

Taking clear inspiration from the aforementioned FromSoftware's Souls series and its spiritual contemporary, BloodBorne, Nioh was altered from being a Dynasty Warriors clone and instead was developed as more of an action game with RPG elements, playing on Team Ninja's strengths at crafting intense and deep combat against challenging enemies like in the Ninja Gaiden series. However the general formula of the level design and base mechanics were pretty heavily lifted from the palette laid out by the now legendary Dark Souls series, what with shrines taking place of that series' iconic bonfires, a Ki meter as a stand-in for the stamina gauge in those games, a very similar system of shortcuts in the levels, and tons of other similar aspects that made the comparisons between those two franchises all too apparent.

Yet, you would be completely wrong to think of Nioh as a mere carbon copy of the Souls formula. Team Ninja is a team that isn't necessarily known for being highly original, but rather integrating original and well-executed concepts out of a combination of stuff taken from other games. In this regard, Dead or Alive was clearly heavily influenced by Sega's Virtua Fighter, whereas Ninja Gaiden borrowed very liberally from Devil May Cry, yet both games still felt distinctly different when compared to their inspiration/competition. Nioh is no different in this regard, in how it clearly takes a lot from Dark Souls, yet still ultimately feels different from either that or Team Ninja's previous Ninja Gaiden games.

There is a Ki meter to act as a form of stamina for the player, but there are new interesting mechanics designed around that concept, such as enemies also having a stamina meter which allows you to exploit them as much as they can exploit you, making confrontations feel challenging but fair. Likewise, the game has plenty of traps and ambushes that can happen at a moment's notice, yet aside from a rare few exceptions, almost all of these can be completely avoided by clearly using the game's level design to your advantage to either sneak past enemies, or be observant and see traps waiting for you in the distance as they all have visual cues to warn careful players of what's coming.

What really makes Nioh stand out, though, is it's intricate and nuance stance-based combat system. There are five main weapons, and each of them has three stances (high, medium, and low) and while that concept sounds simple enough, it changes the game drastically when you realize the different uses for each of these against specific enemy types. And the enemies and bosses are another strong point of this game. While the enemy variety may feel a bit lacking for a game of this length, it's important to note that almost each and every one of them is incredibly well designed to the point in which it doesn't ever really get tiring to fight them, as they always have enough up their sleeve to keep any confrontation with them interesting. Additionally, the game's insane amount of options at hand what with its extensive set of moves for each weapon, and incredible amount of Ninjutsu and Magic, allows you to tackle every single situation in a multitude of different ways that best suits your playstyle. In fact, that's the biggest selling point that I'd give to anyone worried about this game being too difficult for them to complete. There is almost always a very handy strategic way to get past any encounter without having to be a master of timing attacks properly or being at the mercy of an imminent death by having to get in close to enemies for risky attacks. In fact, one of these features is a magic scroll called Sloth, which drastically slows down enemies and can completely trivialize most boss fights, to the point in which I actually recommend not using it on your first play-through of any section of the game as it could drastically ruin the experience with how outright overpowered it is.

What really works about this game, though, beyond the technically proficient mechanics and incredibly deep and interesting gameplay mechanics that encourage experimentation over simply just mastering everything, is how you can clearly tell that it deals with a subject matter that Team Ninja has always been highly passionate about. The imagery of Sengoku Era Japan can be seen in all of Team Ninja's previous games, and this was them finally getting to make an entire game about it, and you can tell that every single member of that team was extremely excited to do so as this game doesn't shy away from incorporating every little detail possible to pay tribute to that period of Japan's history, including with the fantastical fictional elements of the Yoki, all of which are based off of real Japanese mythological creatures from its extensive folklore. Team Ninja is a team that is admittedly not very good at telling a story, yet the passion that they have put into this project makes it apparent that you don't absolutely need great story-telling in a game to be invested in exploring the world that you are presented with, and that's what Nioh is. On the one had I don't necessarily care that much about William as a character or the real-life political figures that he gets involved with, yet I still feel a strange fascination with all of them as they each clearly represent something in the grand scheme of the game that embody different aspects of Team Ninja's overall philosophy as a developer.

Keeping all of these things in mind, Nioh makes it apparent both why Team Ninja was struggling for so long and why this game is not only a step in the right direction, but a complete return to form for the developer and their best game released since Ninja Gaiden Black. It's quite simply because it is a project that they clearly loved to work on and had the freedom to really develop it according to what they wanted to make, rather than trying to cater to a mass market that doesn't even care that much about Japanese games in the first place. Team Ninja always had the talent to make great games, they just wasted it on trying to make games that they clearly weren't meant to make in the first place, and Nioh is the first time in a long time that they've really gone back to their roots, and it has paid off tremendously in my eyes.

On that note, if this game or its subject matter interests any of you even in the slightest, I highly implore you to give it a look. This is my favorite game in a long time, and while I love what I've played of the Souls games and plan to play BloodBorne before long (and I know that I'll love that game), I can't stress enough that this is still a different beast altogether, and shouldn't just be compared to those modern classics but also viewed as its own thing entirely. I have been massively annoyed at any of the criticisms of this game that solely focus on how it doesn't conform to every single thing that Souls games do, and how many fans of that community have badmouthed this simply for that reason, rather than opening themselves up to something new and enjoying this experience for what it does differently, but still exceptionally well.

There are two primary reasons that it is important for me that people support this game. For one, it's good positive feedback to Team Ninja that this is in fact the kinds of games that we want to see from them in the future. If we ever get a Ninja Gaiden 4, I want them to make it fair and challenging with lots of interesting design features much like this and the first two Ninja Gaiden games as opposed to Ninja Gaiden 3's bare-bones and neutered offerings. If this sells better than games like that, then this is more than likely the kinds of games that we'll get from them in the future, and that would be excellent in my book. The other reason that it's important to support this game, though, is that it's also clear proof to other developers out there that you can make games that aren't afraid to stick to a developers vision rather than having to cater to whatever seems like it will sell more with a general gaming audience. Much like Dark Souls and BloodBorne, if the core game is good, people will buy it.

Judging by how the game's sales have already gone past a million (if you include digital downloads), I don't believe that should be a problem, especially considering how well this game has reportedly done in the west for a title that is 90% in Japanese with subtitles (with no English dub option, since William and only a few other characters in this story speak English, and the voice-work is meant to be authentic to the game's Japanese setting).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Logged into my PS4 today and saw that my status on collecting trophies for Nioh went down from 65% to 54%, most likely because the Dragon of the North DLC has some new ones that were just added in there. And it comes out tomorrow. New missions, enemies, and bosses, plus a brand new weapon with the Odachi. So hyped!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just started the Dragon of the North DLC. It's super hard. Like, not hard in the sense that you need to level up really high to stand a chance (though that would undoubtedly make it a bit easier), but hard in that the new enemies are legit tough and have varied move-sets making it harder to predict their attacks, the older enemies feel more aggressive, and everything can pretty much one or two-shot me at this point. I love it. This puts all grind-heavy Japanese RPGs to shame, IMO. Skill and smart use of the game's mechanics always makes up for being under leveled.

The new weapon, the Odachi, is really cool, but I'd need to practice with it more on easier missions before I feel comfortable using it here, where it's better to stick with what I'm more comfortable with.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finally got back to playing Nioh after taking a hiatus for a few weeks.

So, yeah, that Dragon of the North DLC still hasn't gotten any easier. And honestly, while I could try and level up some more, I just find that the balance of the game's difficulty works the best when most things can kill me in two-or-three hits, with the strongest enemy attacks being able to one-shot me. I'm not the type of player who likes to play super dangerously and try and take no damage, but Nioh does an excellent job of telegraphing enemy attacks for the most part, and whether you've had problems with the camera in Ninja Gaiden games or not, the camera in Nioh is as perfect as it can possibly be for any action game. I don't think that I've ever once had a problem with dying from something taking me out from off-screen throughout my hundred plus hours spent with the game to date.

As for these new missions, though, I do think that they new enemy types are particularly well designed in a way that makes them fair to fight but still incredibly lethal. However, I suppose just like the main game's enemies, they will become much easier to deal with the more that I get used to fighting them.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, the second Nioh DLC expansion is coming out later this month, and the new weapon being introduced is apparently the Tonfas....my hype for this game still refuses to die.

To be perfectly honest I still haven't finished DOTN, but it's not due to a lack of quality but rather a lack of time to juggle so many games at once. This has convinced me to put something on hold right now, though, and get back into Nioh.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, apparently the new Tonya weapons in the Nioh DLC releasing today aren't ordinary tonfas. They also double as mini cannons that shoot out an explosive blast of gunpowder which you blast enemies in the face with during portions of combos or as finishers.

That is simultaneously the dumbest and most amazingly awesome thing that I've ever heard in my life. I can't wait....

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Getting a PC port: https://kotaku.com/nioh-is-coming-to-pc-1819051862

[Mustang]

So what's your build like? I've seen quite a few now and they were all going for some 1-hit KO OP type of build and to me that just seems boring and taking the fun out of it, whereas I'm trying to follow XLH Gladiators (I can watch him play this game all day) type of build although, considering this is still my first run I do want to and will try out using magic. I think he was saying that magic/ninjutsu would've made his build too op or something of that nature.

I know for sure I want to be using the single sword, but not entirely sure about my 2nd weapon. Because this is still my first run I might go for the spear just to feel safe, and then when I get comfortable I'll switch to maybe the dual katana or kusugari.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The OP builds come from farming Revnants for better gear on higher level NG+ modes and/or playing through Abyss mode, neither of which I care to do, myself. You don't have to worry about it on your first run though as you won't unlock Divine Gear until you beat the game once and Ethereal Gear doesn't become available until you make it to Way of the Wise mode.

I also don't care for OP builds, but having an under-powered one can be utterly frustrating, which is an issue that I didn't encounter in the main game but it did become a problem in the DLC along with several patches. One thing to note is that once you unlock Divine Gear, leveling up normally becomes almost completely irrelevant. My character is and has been at level 167 for several months (granted that I haven't played in quite a while, anyways), and I have no intentions of really bothering to level him up beyond that point. Instead, leveling up your gear is where it's at, and the Blacksmith is where you need to do that. In addition, stats in Nioh mean everything, so yes, magic that casts passive buffs on your character can be ridiculously OP once you set your character up with attack buffs that can all be stacked together (and if you also debuff your enemies' defense stats, then you can really wreck shop). If you want an excellent example of this, look no further than TheSeraphim17's Level 1 run Nioh videos. The guy does insanely good damage to enemies even on the highest NG+ setting whereas my level 167 character still does shit damage to the higher level DLC enemies and bosses from the standard game setting (the one that you're currently playing on) because I never really bothered to level up my gear that much until the final DLC in which I finally actually understood that my character was barely making a difference no matter how much I leveled up their normal stats. Had I started doing this earlier, I probably wouldn't have had such a frustrating time against so many of the DLC bosses from the first two expansion packs.

Personally, I use a lightweight build in order to be granted an Agility Ranking A which depletes minimal stamina with each move that I make. In addition to that, I have a lot of passive buffs to both increase my Ki gauge and also decrease my Ki consumption from performing dashes/dodges, attacks, and when blocking oncoming attacks, and I have buffs that boost my Ki recovery speed upon meeting certain pre-determined requirements/conditions. Due to this, I hardly ever have to worry about running out of stamina unless I get hit by a heavy attack that does massive Ki damage. Most of my gear is in the Ninja class, and no I don't bother to use much Ninjutsu (I personally find most of it rather useless, myself), and I never bothered putting that much into my Onmyo Magic stat other than to get it high enough to learn one of its two highest level techniques (the one that lets you cast it almost instantly). That said, using Ninjutsu or Onmyo mage gear is an excellent way to acquire passive buffs in those categories that can actually boost my Samurai build's overall efficiency.

Also keep in mind that your Guardian Spirit grants you passive buffs which differ depending on which spirit(s) you have equipped. Once you clear the game for the first time you are granted the ability to have two Guardian Spirits equipped at once. You can switch between both on the fly, and the one that you have as your primary will grant you all of its listed buffs whereas the one that's your secondary will only grant you one pre-selected buff. That said, if you use these wisely you can stack a passive buff that you find most useful to you. My current set-up is Kara-Jishi as my primary (which, in addition to other things give me +25 Ki), and Kato as my secondary (which grants me +15 Ki as its passive buff when placed as my secondary spirit). Of course, I have both maxed out at level thirty (you can level up your Guardian Spirits after clearing the game as well, so that's what I basically use all of my Amrita on now), so you won't have buffs that high when they are at level one. Also keep in mind that you won't be granted all of their listed passive buffs unless you meet the minimum Spirit stat requirement to activate them. So, for only that reason alone, I have leveled up Spirit for my character just enough to unlock all of the passive buffs for Kara-Jishi. Other than that, Spirit is a pretty useless stat to upgrade.

I get more passive Ki buffs (along with others) from my gear set-up, so all in all I have a character with over 200 Ki, some of which comes from leveling up the Heart stat, but a vast majority of which comes from my passive buffs from both gear and my Guardian Spirits.

The rest of my buffs are usually geared towards helping with direct melee combat and it varies by weapon. For example, my Katana does fire damage in addition to getting a damage bonus from my agility being at rank A (as I have it set to scale with agility), whereas my Dual Swords have a poison buff and an enhanced parry buff (and parrying is the main reason for why the Dual Swords are godly on human enemies after the patches fucked up the regular single Katana). Then there are the tonfas which are my favorite weapon in the game and do massive Ki damage making it ridiculously easy to guard-break and knock down enemies with how fast they are and how easily they wreck most enemies' stamina.

If you ever want recommendations on which kind of Onmyo Magic scrolls to spend points on to acquire as well as which strategies to use on specific enemies or bosses, don't hesitate to ask me, as I know quite a bit of useful stuff that can make quick work of most of them on the standard game setting, even if your character is at a significantly lower level than what the mission recommends (which as I've stated before, can be completely ignored).

As for wanting to do combos like XLH Gladiator, well....you're on on your own with that one, lol. I've tried my damndest to pull off even half of the shit that he does and I still fail miserably at it. The guy's just a machine when it comes to these sorts of games, and one that I am almost convinced is not humanly possible to replicate.