NiOh: SamuraiSouls

[Antonok]

So, as Team Ninja's newest(and sadly ps4 exclusive) action-rpg game releases tomorrow, I just wanted to see if anyone else was getting/looking into it.

I played the demos and it's basically Ninja Gaiden meets Dark Souls, filled with plenty is BS deaths.

[danzibr]

So, as Team Ninja's newest(and sadly ps4 exclusive) action-rpg game releases tomorrow, I just wanted to see if anyone else was getting/looking into it.

I played the demos and it's basically Ninja Gaiden meets Dark Souls, filled with plenty is BS deaths.
It's on my want list. Saw some previews, thought it looked awesome. Don't have a PS4 yet though.

[Dienekes]

My PS4 will finally have a use since Bloodborne. Truly a glorious day.

[GloatingSwine]

Nioh is the Dark Souls of Dark Souls clones.

The speed of combat feels closer to Bloodborne, but stamina management is if anything even more critical than in Dark Souls because enemies much more clearly follow the same stamina rules as the player, and you can see their stamina bars alongside their health whilst locked on and running out opens them up for a visceral style attack. Even monstrous enemies have stamina bars, and they affect the stamina system by leaving pools of evil goo on the floor that slow your stamina recovery and speed up theirs.

It all feels like the game is even more scrupulous with the rules than Dark Souls is.

[Rodin]

Nioh is the Dark Souls of Dark Souls clones.

The speed of combat feels closer to Bloodborne, but stamina management is if anything even more critical than in Dark Souls because enemies much more clearly follow the same stamina rules as the player, and you can see their stamina bars alongside their health whilst locked on and running out opens them up for a visceral style attack. Even monstrous enemies have stamina bars, and they affect the stamina system by leaving pools of evil goo on the floor that slow your stamina recovery and speed up theirs.

It all feels like the game is even more scrupulous with the rules than Dark Souls is.

I've also noticed that the game punishes greed HARD, as most tougher enemies have a very fast spin attack when you're behind them that's near impossible to dodge if you're trying to "read" them like in Bloodborne. You have to go in for your couple attacks, then dodge back BEFORE they start their counter-attack. The attacks from in front tend to be a little bit (or even a lot) slower, so it encourages facing them head on rather than the standard circling technique that works so well in the Souls games.

I think what I like most thus far is having meaningful ranged weapons. Picking a sniping spot and removing a few enemies with judicious headshots is invaluable, and certain enemies even have reasonable weak spots that you can use to interrupt their attacks and get in a couple of cheap shots in.

I hate those pools of evil goo though. I can never remember to try and use the Ki Burst thingy that dispels them, and when I do my timing sucks and I fail at it. Mostly thus far I've been just avoiding the pools, but when I get stuck on a ledge with a yokai it can get bad real fast.

I think my biggest criticism thus far is that the hitboxes feel a bit janky. I've had quite a few occasions where I was sure I dodged and got pancaked regardless - in particular against the boss at the end of the first "real" mission. It's possible that I'm just used to Bloodborne's more forgiving iframes.

[GloatingSwine]

Well, Team Ninja did a Team Ninja and put a ridiculously hard boss right near the start of the game. Alma's evil paralyse flinging cousin can get in the sea...

(Also protip: Unlock the Living Water skills. Their description is bad, what they actually do is automatically do a ki pulse when you dodge, which is super useful).

[Antonok]

Finally got it downloaded and starting playing it. So far living up to what the betas/demos were. Don't like the change to Coop though.

[Amaril]

Playing it, loving it, currently getting my ass beat by paralyzing vampire lady. And holy crap, if that's what the Living Water skills actually do, the game does a horrible job of explaining them. I was gonna get them anyway, but that brings them to 1100% essential you-need-these-as-soon-as-possible tier.

What builds is everyone going for? I'm being boring and doing mainly sword, with kusarigama for backup. Medium armor, bows, fire doggo for super.

[Rodin]

Pure axe build here, I've tooled about a bit with the kusarigama but being a strength build kinda puts the kibosh on getting good damage from that. I favor rifles as my ranged weapon of choice, with cannon as my backup for shooting giant demons in the face. As a strength build I'm also going for heavier armors, and have barely touched ninjutsu or magic. Fire doggo for the Super as well.

I didn't find the paralyzing lady that hard actually, she felt much easier than the dude on the ship. Both did require farming elixirs (or farming for junk items to trade in for elixirs) so I could go in with a max of 8 rather than struggling with 3-4 instead.

Edit:

Tachibana Muneshige is awesome.

His little lightning spirit, on the other hand, can die in a fire.

[Antonok]

Playing it, loving it, currently getting my ass beat by paralyzing vampire lady. And holy crap, if that's what the Living Water skills actually do, the game does a horrible job of explaining them. I was gonna get them anyway, but that brings them to 1100% essential you-need-these-as-soon-as-possible tier.

What builds is everyone going for? I'm being boring and doing mainly sword, with kusarigama for backup. Medium armor, bows, fire doggo for super.

Just beat Vampire Lady.

I was going with a Kusarigami build, but ended up switching to a regular katana with ninja skills to back it up. Also lets me switch back to the kusari is I want something different.

[danzibr]

Oh yeah. Definitely gotta buy this. Just reading the comments, things look good. Huge variety of weapons and builds. Mmmm.....

[Dienekes]

Oh yeah. Definitely gotta buy this. Just reading the comments, things look good. Huge variety of weapons and builds. Mmmm.....

Maybe it changes (I only beat the second boss so far) but I wouldn't say there's a huge variety of weapons. There are a lot of drops, but besides some numbers there are really only 5 weapons. Admittedly the stance system makes those 5 weapons have a bit more depth than a lot of other games.

In terms of item design, I think I have to go with Bloodborne having the best weapon system so far. Essentially every weapon has 2 stances instead of Nioh's 3, but there were more different types and I never had to go through an inventory screen to see which weapon had 5 more damage than I'm currently using, or whatever.

I am loving the game so far, my only real complaint is the inventory management and that as of mission 2 and this game is the easiest Soulslike I think I've ever played.

[Antonok]

I am loving the game so far, my only real complaint is the inventory management and that as of mission 2 and this game is the easiest Soulslike I think I've ever played.

It gets harder. You eventually unlock twilight missions which is basically hard mode. I will agree it is quite a bit easier than the demos were though.

[Amaril]

I do have to agree, the loot system is my least favorite thing so far. I much prefer the traditional Souls style, but it's not gonna keep me from enjoying the game.

Maybe I'm just bad, but I haven't found it significantly easier than the other Souls games I've played. Haven't had that much trouble with the regular enemies, but the Onryoki took me like twelve attempts. Kept tagging me with that big spin attack after I baited his overhead and went in with my high-stance heavies, because I couldn't dodge back in time. Lack of I-frames is hard to get used to.

[Dienekes]

I do have to agree, the loot system is my least favorite thing so far. I much prefer the traditional Souls style, but it's not gonna keep me from enjoying the game.

Maybe I'm just bad, but I haven't found it significantly easier than the other Souls games I've played. Haven't had that much trouble with the regular enemies, but the Onryoki took me like twelve attempts. Kept tagging me with that big spin attack after I baited his overhead and went in with my high-stance heavies, because I couldn't dodge back in time. Lack of I-frames is hard to get used to.

Hmm, interesting. I beat him my second try. But I think part of why I found him easy was that even in the old Souls I never really was an I-frame abuser. More a get the hell out of the area or use a shield guy. And for the most part his tells we're big enough for me to just play the patience game, nab a couple quick hits from the bottom stance then run away. Or if I was in a bad position to do that, just block. I think every weapon nullifies all damage, murders your stamina bar though. However, I found the stamina bar seems to refill relatively fast so even that wasn't a big deal.

Oh I also used the Dog Spirit Super Buff. Which helped, a lot.

If the game remains this easy I may limit myself to not using that against bosses. I did similar with the other games by never using weapon buffs, like the temporary lightning damage items and similar.

[Rodin]

Hmm, interesting. I beat him my second try. But I think part of why I found him easy was that even in the old Souls I never really was an I-frame abuser. More a get the hell out of the area or use a shield guy. And for the most part his tells we're big enough for me to just play the patience game, nab a couple quick hits from the bottom stance then run away. Or if I was in a bad position to do that, just block. I think every weapon nullifies all damage, murders your stamina bar though. However, I found the stamina bar seems to refill relatively fast so even that wasn't a big deal.

Oh I also used the Dog Spirit Super Buff. Which helped, a lot.

If the game remains this easy I may limit myself to not using that against bosses. I did similar with the other games by never using weapon buffs, like the temporary lightning damage items and similar.

I think the iframes do still exist, but you have to be pretty much perfect with it. Enemies with big swing attacks continue to murder me.

On the Axe at least mid-stance seems to be the only reliable one. Low Stance makes you lose both range and poise damage, which are the only two reasons to be using an axe in the first place. High stance is situationally useful, like against those damn miner zombies that the mid-stance attacks swing too high on, but using it all the time is ill-advised since dodging is virtually impossible against any enemy you fail to kill on the first combo.

Oh, and eventually blocking isn't an end-all beat-all defense. At least one boss I've fought will deliberately chew through your stamina bar so he can coup-de-grace you.

The difficulty is...really uneven. Some missions leave me cursing in classic Souls fashion while I breeze through others. I'm not really sure what to make of that.

[Amaril]

Just took down vampire lady. Either she was easier than the Onryoki, or I'm just finally starting to get into the zone.

I like the writing so far. I find myself actually eager to see more of the story and characters, something I never expected to say about a game like this.

Am I the only one who finds the shop and crafting kinda useless so far? Can someone explain to me why I shouldn't just be giving all my extra gear to the kodama?

[Antonok]

Just took down vampire lady. Either she was easier than the Onryoki, or I'm just finally starting to get into the zone.

I like the writing so far. I find myself actually eager to see more of the story and characters, something I never expected to say about a game like this.

Am I the only one who finds the shop and crafting kinda useless so far? Can someone explain to me why I shouldn't just be giving all my extra gear to the kodama?

I've not found a use for the blacksmith yet. Maybe when you get further in game and unlock more recipes it'll have more use.

Going through the skills, it seems you can do an unarmed build. There's skills for unarmed combat and a few modifiers on gear to increase unarmed damage.

[Rodin]

I've not found a use for the blacksmith yet. Maybe when you get further in game and unlock more recipes it'll have more use.

Going through the skills, it seems you can do an unarmed build. There's skills for unarmed combat and a few modifiers on gear to increase unarmed damage.

There's a couple of pretty useful things you can do at the blacksmith.

Most obvious is buying ammo. I can often keep up with arrows, but bullets and cannonballs are few and far between. I always take the time to stock up before beginning a mission.

Next most useful is Soul Matching. The game explains it really poorly, but basically what it does is it lets you upgrade the base stats on equipment. I'm still using the same Bandit Axe that I found at level 10 or so - every 5-10 levels or so I grab my highest level weapon (doesn't matter what kind) and Soul Match it with my Bandit Axe. The modifiers stay the same, but the Bandit Axe gets the level of the weapon I sacrifice and gains the base stats to match. The Bandit Axe has a load of modifiers that boost Mid-attacks that I really like, so I've kept it with me. It's hella expensive though - I tried to upgrade it from level 25 to 31, and failed because I didn't have the 350K coins required.

The other blacksmith thing that I've used a couple times is Reforging - basically, you pick a crappy ability on a piece of equipment you really like, and you re-roll it. You get another random ability instead. I've only done this a couple times, but it seems handy.

Everything else seems kinda pointless thus far. The barber portion is kinda lulzy - you can choose like 3 hairstyles and 3 beard types, but your hair is always white and two of the hairstyles are just different types of ponytail.

[GloatingSwine]

The third mission boss turned out to be really vulnerable to all the cheesy parries on the spear, what's that, you're charging up some kind of wizard nonsense? How about a quick trip and stab?

Also, the loot is full on Diablo. There are item sets and everything.

[Antonok]

Ok so eventually you get to unlock investments for the Blacksmith, which include discounts, better stock, hairstyles....

Also fire does WAY too much damage. Like the fire wheel guys can kill you within a second if you step in the fire trail, which on a ledge is hard to avoid.

[Spore]

Have fun and feel my envious looks inside the back of your head. I hate exclusives.

[GloatingSwine]

Ok so eventually you get to unlock investments for the Blacksmith, which include discounts, better stock, hairstyles....

Also fire does WAY too much damage. Like the fire wheel guys can kill you within a second if you step in the fire trail, which on a ledge is hard to avoid.

Fire wheels are the new skeleton wheels.

On the other hand sometimes they just bimble around uselessly and then get whacked.

[Dienekes]

Fire wheels are the new skeleton wheels.

On the other hand sometimes they just bimble around uselessly and then get whacked.

So, exactly like skeleton wheels then.

"Oh, I see you ran into that wall there and are now spinning in place. Thank you for standing still so I can hit you."

[Rodin]

At least the fire wheels are generally by themselves so they beat you up but don't kill you. Those skeleton wheels used to hunt in packs.

[Amaril]

Oh God, the poison mines. I am not gonna enjoy this :smallannoyed:

By the way, I can't imagine I'm the only one bothered when a game with a Diablo high-speed loot treadmill presents something like "this sword is the legendary Raikiri, the lightning-cutter, passed down through my family; as thanks for your brave assistance, my guardian spirit has commanded me to entrust it to you" in the first few missions, when you know you're gonna get something better and replace it in an hour, tops. If I get a legendary magic sword, then dammit, I wanna be able to keep using it for a while! I guess the whole soul matching thing will let me keep it useful, but still...

[Antonok]

Oh God, the poison mines. I am not gonna enjoy this :smallannoyed:

This area gets significantly easier once you realize you can take care of the poison permanently.



By the way, I can't imagine I'm the only one bothered when a game with a Diablo high-speed loot treadmill presents something like "this sword is the legendary Raikiri, the lightning-cutter, passed down through my family; as thanks for your brave assistance, my guardian spirit has commanded me to entrust it to you" in the first few missions, when you know you're gonna get something better and replace it in an hour, tops. If I get a legendary magic sword, then dammit, I wanna be able to keep using it for a while! I guess the whole soul matching thing will let me keep it useful, but still...

This also has started to become less of an issue. Basically I just keep with a set armor (one I can craft if it starts getting under leveled), and one good weapon with stats reforged. Think I've switched weapons twice the entire area, and then it had to be a really nice weapon to make up for the loss of abilities on the weapon.

Also has anyone came across an issue with the dodge just straight up not working at times? Like you hit the button, you know you hit it, but he just stands there like an idiot and gets hit? I've had it happen and noted a few streamers I watch commenting on it.

[GloatingSwine]

The dodge thing might be holding it too long and the game thinking you want to dash instead. It's a fairly short period before a dash starts.

And yeah, the loot treadmill is actually largely replaced by upgrading your weapons with soul matching as soon as you find a set weapon you like.

[Amaril]

The poison mines turned out to be nowhere near as bad as I expected--certainly no Blighttown. Actually, they were kind of a joke. I think I died maybe three times, and two were to that first fire wheel. The centipede didn't get me once.

...I think I may be a little over-leveled...

[Typewriter]

I'm taking my time playing for a few hours each night and just sorting of slow-rolling it. It took me a while to get used to some of the differences from the Souls Series (areas aren't connected, hub area is a series of menus instead of a physical location, stances, etc. etc.) and for the most part I feel like they did a good job of making something that is their own - in a good but different from Souls sort of way. There are, however, a few areas where I feel like they sort of flubbed and I personally think they should have stayed closer to the Souls area in.

1. Weapons/Armor. It's pointless to look for gear because it's all the same and boringly generic. Every now and then I'll feed a higher level piece of gear to a weapon I like or I'll find a new weapon I like, but that's about it. The only reason I still scour levels is to find the little creatures scattered about. And that's getting tedious because everytime you 'complete' this challenge you have to start it all over again. This just feels silly. My favorite levels are the ones where there are no Kodama because then I don't have to bother exploring. By making gear generic they've killed any and all motivation to thoroughly explore areas whereas, in the Souls Games, finding something - anything - is fun and new. A sword isn't just a sword, it's slightly longer or shorter. Or maybe it has a slightly faster attack rate. It's distinct while still being a sword.

2. Stats. A personal pet peeve of mine in games is pointless numbers. One of the reasons why I always hated WoW is that 'bigger is better' is the only meaningful rule for stats in that game. I feel the same here. Every piece of gear comes with +2 to this and +3 to that and +7% of something else and most of the time it feels completely arbitrary. Am I doing more damage to this guy because of that? Am I stronger? I have so many things feeding me 'bonuses' that I have no idea what is doing what. I was holding onto old gear at one point because I thought it had good bonuses on it, but I finally replaced it with armor that had completely different bonuses because it was a higher level and noticed absolutely zero difference in gameplay. Even your core stats feel a bit erratic. I've noticed that if I'm leveling the bonus it states doesn't seem exactly right. Example: The game says that going from 10 to 11 Body will give me +1 damage on my axe, but going from 15 to 16 STR will give me +2. I put a point into STR and my damage increases by 2 - then I check to see what will happen when I go from 10 to 11 body again and this time it's giving me a +2 instead of the +1. What the hell is happening here?

3. Few Options. Throughout the years I've put 100s of hours into the SoulsBorne series. I've found that I can play these games in varying ways and find ways to have success regardless of the differences in how I play. In this game, however, I constantly find myself having to change my playstyle and/or gear to make the challenge more manageable. I get to the vampire lady boss and die horrifically. I look at it and said to myself, "How can I beat her?". I try again and die horrifically. I try again and die horrifically. Three more tries down and it doesn't seem to be getting better. I swap my armor out for armor that has +para resist. I defeat her on the next try, easily. I'm sure people are beating her in all manner of ways, I'm sure I eventually could have, but it doesn't feel right. It feels like the game wants you to play a certain way, that they expect you to stop being a heavy armor fighter like you want and to do something different. The next boss fight - the lightning dog thing - I swapped into lightning resist gear after the first attempt and what do you know - beat the boss that try.

4. Control precision. They really nailed a lot of the combat mechanics but I feel like they sort of over-complicated things a bit. This isn't a problem in of itself, but their execution doesn't feel 100% on point - which you sort of need in a game this challenging. Sometimes dodging doesn't seem to work properly (I've heard some people think that the game tries to run instead of dodge since they're the same button). The character occasionally seems to get stuck on terrain at random points for me. Using items in between actions seems to have a bit of weird timing to it - I'll dodge and try to use a potion, but the game decides that I was still in mid dodge I guess and doesn't use the potion. Souls challenging combat has always felt fair to me - I've never died in a Souls game and blamed the game, not in Demon's Souls, not in Bloodborne. I've already had a few deaths in Nioh where I feel like the controls are the reason I died.

To offset my whining I'm also going to include the things that I'm especially impressed by:

1. The Combat System. I don't care for the stance changing personally or the more complex 'combo' system - it's not to my personal taste. BUT - I can absolutely respect the quality of effort they put into it. This is the number one place where I look at the game and I see where they created something distinct from a Souls game, and it works great for people who are good at this type of game. For someone like myself who doesn't play a lot of combo-focused games, it's not as fun as Souls, but anyone who says it's bad or poorly done is wrong.

2. Multiplayer. The inability to play through a level with a friend while it's the first time for both of you is a decision that I think is a bit odd, but I will say that the drop in nature of Co-Op in 'random' multiplayer is phenomenal in my opinion. Probably half my game time this far has been dedicated to helping randoms with bosses and finding secrets in the earlier levels. It's just so much easier and convenient than the Souls games.

3. The blacksmith. While I don't like the 'random' gear I do think they did a good job with the options surrounding it. Level up a piece of gear, forge some new gear, disassemble gear, change the appearance of gear, etc. etc. The interface for all of this stuff is relatively straight forward and intuitive in my opinion. For as much as I don't like 'random' gear the blacksmith does a fantastic job of making it usable/fun.

4.Ninjitsu/Omnyo. Again - a mechanic I don't use very much of myself, but a place where I have to give them credit. I think that the application of magic as items (and a few spells) are very well done and the system seems sufficiently powerful and enjoyable if you focus on it.

[Psyren]

Have fun and feel my envious looks inside the back of your head. I hate exclusives.

This. Guess I'll just have to hope for a port one day.

[Rodin]

3. Few Options. Throughout the years I've put 100s of hours into the SoulsBorne series. I've found that I can play these games in varying ways and find ways to have success regardless of the differences in how I play. In this game, however, I constantly find myself having to change my playstyle and/or gear to make the challenge more manageable. I get to the vampire lady boss and die horrifically. I look at it and said to myself, "How can I beat her?". I try again and die horrifically. I try again and die horrifically. Three more tries down and it doesn't seem to be getting better. I swap my armor out for armor that has +para resist. I defeat her on the next try, easily. I'm sure people are beating her in all manner of ways, I'm sure I eventually could have, but it doesn't feel right. It feels like the game wants you to play a certain way, that they expect you to stop being a heavy armor fighter like you want and to do something different. The next boss fight - the lightning dog thing - I swapped into lightning resist gear after the first attempt and what do you know - beat the boss that try.



While I agree on everything else in your post, this is one place where I differ. A big part of why Fashion Souls was such a big thing is because beyond basic type, armor didn't matter in those games. You were either heavy armor build or light armor, and beyond that the actual stats on the armor mattered very little. There was no such thing as changing armor sets to make a boss easier. This was most noticeable in Bloodborne with the fire dog boss in the cursed chalice dungeon. The curse cut your HP in half but buffed up your armor a bit to help compensate, and the dog did almost pure fire damage and so it always one shotted you. I tried equipping a full set of fire resist armor, and this did precisely jack diddly to reduce damage.

When I later played Salt and Sanctuary, the armor system was a revelation - swapping in fire resist gear for certain bosses was almost mandatory. Various shields had really good element resists that actually mattered.

I like having to swap armors for a specific area or boss - it rewards going out of the way to find them, and rewards paying attention to what stats they have. It feels great to cruise through an area that was giving you trouble because you've solved the puzzle on how to equip yourself.


-------

On an unrelated note, one thing Nioh could learn from the Souls games is that Instakill attacks really, really suck. Especially when the boss can do them as you are emerging from the pre-boss cutscene.

[Typewriter]

While I agree on everything else in your post, this is one place where I differ. A big part of why Fashion Souls was such a big thing is because beyond basic type, armor didn't matter in those games. You were either heavy armor build or light armor, and beyond that the actual stats on the armor mattered very little. There was no such thing as changing armor sets to make a boss easier. This was most noticeable in Bloodborne with the fire dog boss in the cursed chalice dungeon. The curse cut your HP in half but buffed up your armor a bit to help compensate, and the dog did almost pure fire damage and so it always one shotted you. I tried equipping a full set of fire resist armor, and this did precisely jack diddly to reduce damage.

When I later played Salt and Sanctuary, the armor system was a revelation - swapping in fire resist gear for certain bosses was almost mandatory. Various shields had really good element resists that actually mattered.

I like having to swap armors for a specific area or boss - it rewards going out of the way to find them, and rewards paying attention to what stats they have. It feels great to cruise through an area that was giving you trouble because you've solved the puzzle on how to equip yourself.


-------

On an unrelated note, one thing Nioh could learn from the Souls games is that Instakill attacks really, really suck. Especially when the boss can do them as you are emerging from the pre-boss cutscene.

This is a fair point - I probably should have categorized the armor thing as another point that isn't bad but not my preference. It does make a degree of sense to have it affect the game in more major ways that benefit you if you respond accordingly I suppose.

I'm actually still relatively early in the game (just made it to region 3) - I've been going very slow and also spending a lot of time doing Co-op - so I haven't seen much in the way of insta-kills. I do find that enemy (and boss) grabs are sort of BS though. There's one enemy type that, when he does his grab, can't seem to be stopped. I've hit him and seen him stagger, but the stagger just transforms into the end of the grab animation. I've been mid-dodge and he's grabbed me.

[Spore]

This. Guess I'll just have to hope for a port one day.

As much as I enjoy the Japanese folklore I'll pray harder for Bloodborne.