Nioh Review (PS4)

@andreoni79 It's not really new game plus as you'll traditionally understand it, unless I'm missing something. As you complete missions you'll unlock sub-missions and Twilight missions. Sub-missions are smaller - a mission that could be done in a few minutes rather than half an hour or longer - and will end in a mini-boss. Twilight missions are like nightmare versions of missions you've previously done. They're set in levels that you've been on already, but the enemies are way harder, and the loot is much better.

So I guess the downside is that you're not replaying the whole game on a higher difficulty level, but the up side is that you don't HAVE to play the whole game again on a higher difficulty just to get to the bit you want. You can jump around at will and do missions as you please.

The replay-ability comes from killing harder and harder monsters, if that's your jam, and aiming for better weapons and armour drops. It's like at the end of Borderlands when you want ridiculously powerful weapons so you fight certain enemies hoping they'll drop them. You don't need to do any of this stuff. You just can if you want to improve your character and get more out of the game. Personally, I prefer it to the Dark Souls/Bloodborne NG+ model. But people will have different opinions on this.

@LieutenantFatman The story is fairly unremarkable, hence why I dedicated like one sentence to it in this review. It's not that it's bad. It's interesting enough, and it sets up villains and whatnot. The setting and the lore and atmosphere are all interesting if you're into that sort of thing. But the gameplay is the main attraction here.

@Fight_Teza_Fight The loot system in Nioh is quite similar.

There's different weapons, and then each of those weapons comes in different flavours, and then those different flavours come with different stat boosts. You can pick up a weapon and then find the same one with an exotic rarity rating and it will have way better perks.

Some will like it, some won't. Souls is deliberate and you have to hunt down weapons from specific places. Nioh is more chaotic but that means there's always a chance you'll find something amazing. Personally I really like this method.

@SegaBlueSky There are a LOT of systems in this game. We've got a fairly strict 1,000 words policy on reviews here that we have to adhere to lest we have our feet dipped in concrete and we get dropped into the sea. So only the really pertinent information makes the cut. But if you were to ramble on the review could probably be like five times as long just talking about the various systems in play.

There's THREE separate levelling up systems, all lifted from different games.

In terms of being hard to get into, I don't think it will be. I actually think the opposite, and this is the most accessible version of the Souls formula to date. It might even be a gateway drug into Souls for some gamers. It explains everything really well.

I really wanted to love the demos I've played but for the life of me I couldn't get my head around the KI system, especially during combat.

@adf86 It's a really rewarding system once you get into it. You basically just look for a little blue light and tap R1 and it boosts your Ki recovery so you can get more attacks in. It's super useful and can get you out of a pinch.

@SnowstormX The story isn't offensive or anything. It's just a thing. You'll get more out of it if you're interested in Japanese culture.

@Varitt You're right, I misread the question. I thought they were asking if Twilight Missions were NG+. If you finish the game there's a more traditional NG+ akin to Dark Souls, that offers customisation options and other stuff not in the vanilla game. Or you can replay various missions in the standard difficulty or Twilight difficulties. Few different options to choose rather than the Dark Souls method of having to play the whole game again or nothing.

Didn't finish the game yet. Put around forty hours into it. According to the review guide we got I'm in the last world, couple of missions off finishing it. Can't talk about any of the latter half of the missions due to embargo business, not that people would probably want them talking about anyway.

@andreoni79 As someone else pointed out, you're asking if there's a NG+ mode at all... there is. But there's also the option to play missions again or Twilight missions at any time. So you have the option of what you want to do.

@andreoni79 The policy is in place because data showed that people didn't read longer reviews, as I recall. It also helps to get the review right down to the info you need, rather than talking about absolutely everything in the game.

I'm around most of the day so I can answer any questions people might have in here.

It sounds really good, I just don't have time for it right now. Great review, though, John — what a start to the year this has been!

@get2sammyb I've already missed two great games in January, and I'm still only half-way through the games I got for Christmas :') there's far too much going on right now.

@TrueAssassin86x The reviews are really strong around the web. It's been such a strong start to the year for PS4 — incredible, really.

@Mega-Gazz Well, I've sunk forty hours into it and according to the review guide they sent us I'm close to the end. Obviously if you're interested in getting all the best gear and stuff then your play time is going to go up dramatically. There's a lot of optional stuff here.

Platinum doesn't look brutal. It looks like it can probably be done in one play-through. The ones that make me pensive are the collecting all Kodama one which will be a MASSIVE collectathon, but nothing is missable so doable, and the complete all missions one. If complete all missions includes Twilight missions then this is going to increase play time by an enormous amount I'd imagine, since some of those missions recommended levels are way above what's needed to finish the game.

@andreoni79 The review, in my opinion, is already very detailed — and @johncalmc is kindly taking time out to answer everyone's questions in the comments section.

We made the decision to cap the length of reviews for two reasons:

a) There's much less demand for written reviews these days, and even less for essay length ones. We found that most people scrolled through the body of the text and only read the conclusion, which is fine, but it makes all the time spent writing, researching, editing, and proofreading a longer review a waste.

b) I personally feel that exceptionally long reviews are unnecessary. A review should critique what's good and bad about a game, and give you a brief overview of what to expect; it doesn't, in my opinion, need to be an instruction manual detailing every tiny facet of the game.

We've seen a lot of success with this format, so it's unlikely to change.

I can't get past the features it's ripped off from the souls series. I know other games have done it too, and I know other games are entitled to use the same mechanics (it's not as if you can't have more than one FPS, right?) but for some reason this really bugs me lol

@kyleforrester87 The way I look at it is that Souls has almost become it's own genre now. I mean, From Software used their own formula from Demon's Souls to make Dark Souls, and then again for Bloodborne. The games are popular and with Dark Souls gone and Bloodborne maybe/maybe not getting a sequel, other studios are going after the market. I get why it might put people off, but it's really not that different to platformers taking the systems that Mario invented and going in their own direction, or using the conventions that Call of Duty 4 made popular and basing their FPS on that. Nioh takes the Souls style of game, and then puts its own twist on it.

@johncalmc Yeah, thats logical. For some reason I cant get my head round it though haha. I guess FPS's used to be called "Doom clones" though, right? Just gimmie time, ill get there

@kyleforrester87 Yeah man. That term was thrown around a lot in the '90s when the FPS genre was fairly new. Maybe in twenty years people will be looking back on when we used to call things "Dark Souls but..."

@b1ackjack_ps I can understand that. There are a lot of systems in this game. There's three separate levelling up systems which is crazy town. Three stances per weapon. Two equippable weapons at a time. Magic. Ninja powers. Skill trees. Black-smithing. Random loot. It just goes on and on.

At the core though, I definitely think it's more accessible. Even if you just consider how the games start. Bloodborne puts you right into a battle that's basically impossible to win, and then explains very little to you. How many people, who might not keep their finger on the pulse of gaming as much as us, played that and decided they were out?

Nioh is at least welcoming to new players, I think, before it bombards them with systems. It's also worth noting that I think you could pretty much ignore a lot of the systems for most of the game, until you're more familiar with it. E.g. The stances are very useful, but I'm struggling to think of an occasion when I couldn't have got by just sticking with the mid-stance. Ki Pulse is really useful and cool and quick, but again, you could live without it just by playing more cautiously. You don't really need smithing or anything since the loot is generally good enough.

The story presentation and tutorials are just far more welcoming for someone that doesn't want to, or can't deal with Souls/Bloodborne obscureness. I actually think Nioh could be a good gateway drug to get people into those games.

@andreoni79 Haha, it's all good!

@toon_lonk1 When you get a review code quite often the publisher will send you some sort of accompanying guide/tips/hints/stuff. Usually this is a collection of images/videos etc. for you to put in the review, a reminder of when the embargo is, and perhaps a list of things they'd prefer you didn't mention in the review - i.e. the ending, late game stuff, etc.

Sometimes they go a little more in depth and give you a little mini playing guide to help out whoever is reviewing it. Basically, if a publisher suspects their game will be hard or confusing they might give some tips so that the reviewer doesn't get stuck on the first boss and can't finish the game.

@Ralizah For as many fans as Dark Souls and Bloodborne have, there are a lot of people that can't get past how obtuse they are. It's not even that the mechanics of the game are too punishing, it's that the games don't tell you anything. Even though I really like the games (particularly Bloodborne) I can totally understand that criticism. While I'm sure Nioh will get a little derision from the "git gud" crowd, I think it's great that it's more inclusive and it'll be okay for people who want a hard game to play without feeling like they're solving a puzzle.

@Ralizah The bosses are hard but I feel like they're hard, and some do feel a bit cheap occasionally. They hit really hard and have tonnes of health - they're just tanks. Not all of them. But on occasion I found myself just repeating the same thing over and over again for what felt like too long of a time to bring them down. Souls games feel like there's a bit more of a strategy to them with them the bosses (although they have a few like this too).

If you're talking about the bat girl thing that I've forgotten the name of then I had a lot of trouble with that at first. She's one of the very early bosses in the main game. You just have to study what she does and realise that there's literally only one or two moments in her moveset where you can attack and then just chip away at her health in those moments for, again, what feels like a bit too long.

@Dichotomy Thank you. And if there's anything else you'd like elaborating on I'm happy to spend some time going into more detail.

@Ralizah I didn't play the beta so I don't know if it's changed, but for her fight, and for every boss really, there's usually shortcuts you can open up that mean that you can get right to the battle without having to fight, or at least minimising combat. For her fight there's certainly a route to her in which, if you sprint, you only have to kill one minor grunt. I know because I did it about fifteen times trying to beat her 😂

@Ralizah 1. Yes. You can pick action mode which gets you 60fps (I think) at the expense of a little graphical fidelity, cinematic mode which boosts the visuals and hits 30fps, or a mode that's a mix of the two.
2. No. It's one difficulty mode for the main game with optional harder areas.

@Mega-Gazz Yeah. It's the same as Dark Souls or Bloodborne in that regard. If you're getting punished - which will undoubtedly happen at some point - you can find a spot that's good for levelling up and raise your stats enough and find good loot to make a difference and get by.

@SnowstormX Yeah the spider boss is around the midway point. If you've played the Souls games before you'll probably have had a moment where you realise that you've kind of sussed the game out and it all becomes a bit easier. The spider boss was that moment for me.

@Dichotomy There is a magic system, and while it's similar to Dark Souls, like the rest of the game it's much, much easier to use. Basically you have a skill tree. You unlock points through general combat etc. and then you use those points to unlock things. Unlocking spells allows you to use them, and you equip the spells just like items. There's ones that attach an element to your weapon, ones that fire an elemental spell at enemies, ones that protect against elemental damage, status magic etc.

The loot system is like Borderlands in a number of ways. First, it's colour coded. Second, it's really plentiful. You're picking up weapons and armour literally every one or two kills. Third, the weapons are of basic types and then it's the stat boosts/perks that make them different. Just like in borderlands how you might have a shotgun that does X amount of damage, plus Y amount of elemental damage, plus it increases your health by Z amount, weapons and armour in Nioh come with their own stuff like that.

Weapons are very distinct. Movesets are entirely different depending on what weapon you have equipped. They all have a basic set of moves in all three stances. Then as you unlock Samurai Points (exactly the same as how you unlock the magic points I mentioned for the magic skill tree) you can unlock various new moves. Example, it might be like four samurai points to unlock a move that lets you do a finishing blow on an enemy that's out of Ki, or two points for one that let's you parry and then instantly appear behind the enemy.

Weapon damage is based on the level of the weapon you have, as well as the perks attached to it, as well as how familiar you are with it (i.e. how much you've used it). So it basically encourages you to keep going. Between the weapon familiarity, constant bombardment with loot, and three various levelling up systems, there's always something to work towards. It's pretty ingenious actually, as long as you don't get overwhelmed.