Nioh (and subsequently it's sequel) is the only 3D Souls-like that can stand toe-to-toe with FromSoft's work, nothing else even comes close.

Despite being an obvious Souls-like and taking clear influence and inspiration from FromSoft, Nioh in itself is a very unique game and far from a simple clone of the Souls formula.

Nioh has it all from the fast paced, fluid and stylish Ninja Gaiden combo based/Onimusha stance changing combat.

The sheer amount of build variety you'd expect from a Souls-like, with playstyles based around strength, dexterity, magic and more.

Honestly in my opinion Nioh doesn't get enough credit for how it was the first Souls-like to tell a more concrete story beyond just lore, bonus points because it had a very interesting and unique plot centered around William Adams, a historical Irish sailor and the first ever western samurai and Edward Kelley an English renaissance occultist and alchemist and how they get dragged into the final battles of the Sengoku period during Ieyasu Tokugawa's efforts to unify Japan, all while Japanese demons from myths and legends, Yokai are emerging from the chaos of the wars. It's like Koei Tecmo's Samurai Warriors, but in a dark supernatural fantasy setting.

Also who could forget about the killer OST composed by Yugo Kanno (primarily known for composing all the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure anime OSTs) with some beautiful traditional Japanese folk instrumentation.

Really my only minor complaints being the loot system, bland side missions and mediocre level design, but when everything else is so great it these are easily overlooked.

Challenging but fantastic Soulsbourne action RPG.

You play the role of William, an Irish pirate imprisoned by the English after his usefulness was up on their quest to gain hold of Amrita, a spirit stone granting great power they wish to use against the Spanish in their current war. On his attempted escape William has his personal spirit stolen by am English agent called Edward Kelley who then heads to Japan to fuel a civil war and gain more Amrita, William obviously then gives chase to find a country of spirits and demons.

The story is....not good. It's ham fisted with a pretty ridiculous almost anime villain though I found it interesting they are based on real historical figures who did indeed travel to Japan in the 1600s (William Adams was actually declared a Samurai by the Shogun of Japan Ieyasu Tokugawa for his help). The story is mostly there just to push William from mission to mission which frankly is fine because it's the gameplay where Nioh shines.

Nioh has a mission screen that allows the player to choose which areas to go, either main missions or side quests depending on William's strength and equipment at the time. Each level is full of various enemies from normal samurai to oni (demons) including horned creatures, sentient parasols among others. The battles are excellent though tough, a lot of the enemies will hit hard and if you just hack and slash in, you will die. Nioh, like it's influence Dark Souls, requires a little bit of strategy to make the most of it such as learning enemy attack patterns, knowing when to block, dodge or attack as well as taking advantage of the huge amount of items and skills available to win.

What really separates it from Dark Souls though are...well several things. Firstly there is a large amount of weapons such as swords, spears, axes and some more unusual like the ninja's Kurasigama (Like a hook and chain). Each weapon has upgradable abilities like extra moves which you can customize to suit your playstyle I rather like. Regardless of weapon though, each has three stances you can swap between on the fly. High stance deals more damage but is slower, low is faster for dodging but deals less damage and of course the middle is the best of both worlds. The fact that every weapon can swap between these stances depending on what you are fighting is a fantastic addition.

Secondly is that when players die they leave a bloody grave in other players games in the same location. If you so choose, you can then summon an AI version of the player to fight in the chance to get some of their gear which is a great take on the Dark Souls death messages. (There is a really clever enemy tied to this as well) Speaking of gear, the amount of flexibility with it is great. It seems to be mostly random loot but each gear set has bonuses as well as abilities that boost William. Most of which can be changed or even moved from piece to piece when fused together allowing players to really efficiently optimize their equipment for a certain style. Want to go full ninja throwing shuriken everywhere? Or use full magic powers? A little of everything? No problem.

Lastly is Ki. This is your stamina, everything you do from blocking to attacking takes away Ki, in Nioh though after you finish an attack you can Ki pulse to get a lot of it back after you attack. The timing takes some getting used to but in certain fights it can really help to keep you alive if you can master it.

Aside from combat, visuals and audio to Nioh are also great. It's quite a dark game with Japan in a war with demons roaming around but it gives a fantastic atmosphere with period Japanese buildings, shrines and themes everywhere. The graphics wont blow you away but they do look great and the game even has options on prioritizing framerate or resolution which is pretty neat and rare for a console. On the audio side the voice acting is mostly in Japanese but its very good and the music is excellent fitting with the period and the action....except for the end credits theme which is one of the worst songs ever and so out of place with everything else it's crazy. Seriously look it up on youtube, it's awful.

So with all this praise why only four stars? Well it does have a few issues. There are some really cool enemies in Nioh that are fun to fight for sure. There simply aren't enough. The variety is sorely lacking and I found myself fighting the same enemies in the final mission as I was fighting in the very first I would have thought would be phased out by that point which can be a bit boring. My biggest gripe with Nioh though is the bosses. They are hard, now I'm fine with that, I love challenging games but I didn't think they were balanced. A lot of them can just one shot kill you regardless of heavy, medium or light armor and they generally have pretty huge range and are incredibly aggressive sometimes barely giving a chance to heal. There is no back and forth learning their attacks even if they hit hard and fighting them solo without a co-op companion to by you a few breathing seconds can be pretty frustrating.

These complaints however don't ruin the game, I would highly recommend it to both action fans and some RPG fans, especially Dark Souls players. The game took me about 90 hours to beat overall going for the platinum trophy. It has a ton of content with a lot of missions, co-op multiplayer, bosses and different weapons and styles to try out so it's certainly good value for money and well worth your time. Looking forward to trying announced Nioh 2.

Recommended.

+ Characters based on historical figures is a nice little touch.
+ Combat system is brilliant.
+ Different stances and Ki pulsing are a great implementation.
+ Great value for money.
+ Great art, graphics and audio....

-.....except the end credits theme song which is strangely abysmal.
- Story is pretty bad.
- Needs greater enemy variety.
- Bosses aren't greatly balanced.

This is a pretty interesting game to play. It's form is really dark souls-like. But the insides are really different. Fighting is fast and pretty fun, but levels and enemies are reaaly boring. Idea with levels instead of connected world is pretty interesting as well: when playing I felt like it similar to some online game where you can hop in, do a sub mission and feel like you achieved something or go into main mission. But the levels are somewhat boring and look same-y. It is fun to play, but by the end it begins to feel tiresome. Also, the balance is pretty bad, for example, the last boss is a joke, you can beat it like no problem but the encounter right before it is pretty challenging and made me replay several times and this imbalance can be seen throughout the game.

I’m actually not a big fan of this games “Every enemy is using the same tools that you have access to” thing. It’s like playing a fighting game in single player. When you and your opponent have the same tools it comes down to predicting what they’ll do, and it’s a lot less fun to predict what a computer is going to do than an actual person. That being said. I do enjoy just about everything else. The self contained levels are super well made. And how could I possibly not love a game that gives you collectible magical animal companions?!

I overuse the word maximalism. In its general definition it's that catch all for something so loud, fighting for your attention with different patterns, total excess. I often use it to describe something like say Doom Eternal, where the mechanical complexity of it fights for your attention with a lot of hooks and leadins to extremely ridiculous never-ending flowcharts. That game felt so functionally designed from start to end even at its lowest moments.

I really WANT to say Nioh is similar, but this is the example where nothing is really designed together as much as it always genuinely feels like things were thrown hastily. But it sparks the same flow point, right? When you're in the thick of it in a fight and you have a handle over your ki pulse, stance change, flux, weapon swap even, etc. you can make a turn on the enemy and turn them to bloody paste. And then to cap that off they drop a bunch of flashing lights that reminds you once again every time of this game's extremely EXCESS loot system. Of course, immediately after that is the repeated sigh. You're always attacked with so many systems around that loot bullshit to count, and you have to parse your way through all of it to find what matters. If you're lucky or just strictly that observant (god help you) you'll find the tutorials. You'll find a point where you can simply dump 95% of what you find to keep your current gear set and realize that yes there is a completely optional rpg component with tangible benefits the further you get into it, but if you're even slightly less lucky and also lazier, you'll just trade small for big number. Did that sound like a lot? Because I left out like 85% of all the other stuff you can do with loot there in those two options.

Nioh is like that. It's so burning with fat that it is pain on the eyes and my patience. But still I somehow loved it, completed it without much issue, and that was always a hard thing for me to reconcile. It's not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing and honestly the more time goes by the less I find its particular carving of the sengoku period interesting or unique in identity. I get carried a lot by sound and its music is forgettable for a good deal. Its souls blood is so tacked on that its similar levels amount to 'here's your useless shortcut you'll never use' with that design frame. It even repeats a lot of enemies in encounters that don't strictly test new things from you for a good deal ESPECIALLY if you do sidequests that hate you and even more of your time.

It's so much noise! How does one stockholm themselves into that? Was I so functionally lacking in enjoyment that I needed the closest nourishment of something that borrowed from Souls, wasn't Souls, but also gave me more of Ninja Gaiden?

I suppose so, because during a very brief replay I once again went into a moment where I said, flat out, "fuck what they all say that kicked ass." I'm that weak to well, the 'maximalist' game design, the adrenaline rush of pressing multiple buttons to play footsies with enemies that will brutalize my next move in ways that are for the most part, way better telegraphed than a lot of its peers. You know on my first playthrough I only bothered using dual swords? I fucked around with the tonfas and kusarigama this time and I swear I saw god for a moment. There's so much stuff you can just do that all feels 'so' good to pull off. Flux is an ecstasy game design call, being able to give such forethought to making sure you have to plan so many actions in a row. There's 'just' enough enemies that ask for you to use it to great effect and 'just' enough bosses that feel SOOOOOO good for breaking their ki into two.

Somehow one of my favorites still, absolutely bizarre. No I am really unsure if I'm still going to go over and finish Nioh 2 I forever feel attached to my broken busted ship that I get to fight giant crabs on.

no me gusta el rollo diablo para un juego como este, es demasiado largo, y algunas zonas son demasiado largas y rebuscadas. y si encima tiene el sistema este de misiones en el que no se te guardan los atajos cuando vuelves al sitio se hace aun mas coñazo. y algunos jefes tienen unas hitbox de risa, y resulta muy coñazo al principio. ademas la herrera no vale para nada. pero esta guapo, es mucho mas agil que un dark souls y tienes varias formas de jugar, y esta interesante la historia mezclando cosas reales con monstruos mitologicos. no creo que vuelva a jugar a un dark souls despues de esto, y mucho menos al 2. a ver si en la segunda parte pulen las cosas que aqui fallan