When the unique Nioh burst onto the scene in 2017, it emerged as the very best Soulslike exterior of FromSoftware itself, with exemplary fight, thrilling bosses, and ridiculously deep mechanics. Three years later, Nioh 2 has improved in virtually each side, however total hasn’t modified a lot, making it basically a “higher than Nioh 1” recreation. Nioh 3, however, is greater than only a repetitive sequel. This can be a full transformation of the method, changing the static world map with an enormous open discipline masking a number of completely different eras of Japanese historical past. This variation, together with the addition of a model new ninja stance that modifications Nioh’s fight guidelines, and a sequence of small high quality of life changes all make it the most important shake-up within the sequence up to now, and top-of-the-line Soulslikes up to now.
First off, the dangerous: One space the place we have not seen a lot change is storytelling. This can be a disgrace, as this has all the time been one of many weakest components of the sequence. As with earlier Nioh video games, the story primarily serves as a method to information you thru fictionalized retellings of essential battles and wars in Japanese historical past. Big apparitions, magical stones with corrupting affect, and guardian spirits are frequent there. You play as Takechiyo, Tokugawa Ieyasu’s grandson and successor to the shogunate. Takechiyo should journey again in time to acquire the means to defeat an historical evil that has corrupted the current.
The largest downside with Nioh’s story is that it’s extremely dry and admittedly a little bit boring. Those that are conversant in Japanese historical past might be able to perceive extra by understanding the background and significance of those historic figures and occasions, however for a layman like me, there simply is not sufficient work accomplished to make me care about what is going on on in every period that Nioh 3 takes me to. Luckily, the cutscenes are quick, the choreography is nice, and these lack of story do not get in the best way of the motion components that make Nioh 3 top-of-the-line Soulslikes on the market.
Let me begin by saying this: Nioh 3 has a number of the finest Souls-like fight on the finish of the story, previous or current. The look and feel of the weapons, the number of weapons, the depth of the mechanics, the difficult and aggressive enemy AI, the completely different approaches you possibly can absorb each battle, the record goes on and on. Finest in school high quality on each stage.
Virtually all of that’s true for Nioh 2, however what pushes Nioh 3 even additional into the stratosphere is that it is cut up into two distinct fight modes: Samurai and Ninja. Samurai mode is a standard Nioh fight expertise, that includes cautious useful resource administration by way of using ki pulses to revive stamina, the necessity to swap between low, medium, and excessive stances relying on a given encounter, and a cautious stability between defensive strategies and offensive rushdowns.
Ninja mode, however, is a very new type of Nioh’s fight that does away with the aforementioned Ki pulses and stance switching, changing them with a lot quicker assaults that do not require stamina, permitting you to principally suffocate your enemies with assaults with out even giving them an opportunity to counterattack. Moreover, Ninja mode additionally offers you entry to a few ninjutsu assaults, together with shuriken, traps, and magic spells, which refill as you land assaults, excellent for focusing on enemy weak factors or attacking these annoying flying enemies.
The 2 modes could be freely switched on the fly, and so they even have their very own gear units, basically permitting you to construct two completely different characters with completely different fight focuses and kinds. Crew Ninja correctly avoids falling into the entice of forcing you to make use of one stance over one other to defeat sure kinds of bosses or enemies. This entice usually prevents artistic fight expressions in different video games. As a substitute, each stances are all the time viable, and the selection of whether or not one is healthier than the opposite for a specific kind of encounter is all the time as much as your discretion and playstyle.
It all the time felt nice to return to a boss you beforehand fought and died and regulate your technique utilizing kind of of one of many modes. For instance, in a combat towards a boss with highly effective however predictable assaults, you possibly can preserve a samurai stance to parry the assault and go away extra stamina to counterattack. However in fights with quicker, extra unstable bosses, you would possibly give attention to a ninja stance and use the Quickstep Mist capacity to get round to the extra weak bottom and keep away from having to dam .
I clearly choose the flexibleness and velocity of the Ninja Stance, however developer Crew Ninja has accomplished a terrific job of balancing the 2 stances to make each of them price changing regularly. Samurai mode feels a bit weak at a base stage, nevertheless it’s balanced out by a lot better protection. There’s additionally an extra mechanic referred to as Artwork Mastery that rewards you with a powered-up particular assault or heavy assault when you handle to fill the meter by hitting and blocking with out getting hit. Ninja Mode, however, looks like Crew Ninja has lastly eliminated all the limiters that earlier video games have positioned on fight with a view to stability stamina administration, throwing up their arms and saying, “Simply go wild.”
Maybe the most important distinction from earlier Nioh video games is the shift from a mission construction to a sequence of open worlds. Nioh 3’s 40+ hour marketing campaign takes you again in time to the Edo interval, Heian interval, the tip of the Edo interval, and even historical instances. Every period you journey to has its personal large battlefield to discover, with quite a few factors of curiosity all through the map, that includes elective bosses, difficult fight encounters, and priceless rewards.
That final half is essential. As a result of one of many few complaints I’ve ever had with the Nioh sequence is that the random nature of the loot drops does not present satisfying rewards. Whereas a lot of the loot in Nioh 3 continues to be random, there are different essential rewards obtainable. Finishing the Lesser Crucible will energy up your Guardian Spirit and provide you with entry to new Spirit expertise. Defeating a grasp unlocks new nodes in sure weapon talent timber. As soon as you discover the Jizo Statue, it is possible for you to to select from quite a lot of bonuses that can provide help to whereas within the Crucible. Once you snipe a weasel-like earthling demon from the sky, elemental variations of the method seem within the talent tree. Many treasure chests scattered all over the world comprise equippable expertise. All of that is along with the prevailing Kodama and Scanpus collectibles that have been current in previous Nioh video games.
Doing these open-world actions additionally earns you credit score for space exploration, providing you with rewards starting from stat bonuses to talent factors to figuring out extra areas of curiosity on the map. There have been only a few surprises whereas exploring Nioh 3’s open zones, however a minimum of the time was properly price it. This is essential in video games the place you want each benefit you will get.
However whereas exploration is properly inspired, and the environmental design of those huge open landscapes is spectacular, Nioh 3’s open world feels prefer it lacks an identification of its personal. A part of the issue stems from the truth that you may be preventing the identical enemies in virtually each zone. This was the same downside in earlier Nioh video games, and it feels much more so while you’re wandering round a visually distinct open world the place the whole lot feels the identical. There are virtually no enemies that really feel distinctive to the period. The cyclops that seem within the Sengoku interval are the identical as those who appeared within the icy Heian interval, however they throw snowballs as a substitute of rocks.
General you are a minimum of confronted with a reasonably big selection of enemies, a lot of that are new to the sequence, however it is a bit of a disgrace that the returning enemies have no new methods or assaults up their sleeves.
You do not want something particular to remain alert. Nioh 3, just like the earlier two video games, is extraordinarily troublesome even by Souls-like requirements. Enemies and executives are relentlessly aggressive, and when you’re not cautious along with your stamina administration, you may periodically stun and grow to be vulnerable to high-damage assaults, killing you in only one hit. However that problem is the important thing to why Nioh 3’s fight is so thrilling. What’s extra, regardless of the excessive problem stage, the checkpoints are properly positioned, there are many shortcuts, and the loading instances are very quick, so despite the fact that I died 290 instances through the marketing campaign, I hardly ever felt annoyed.
Loot stays essentially the most irritating side of Nioh 3. Actually, it is a loot system that exists to profit New Sport+ on the expense of the primary playthrough. Nice for New Sport+ and past. You’ll be able to dig deep into your gear assortment, choose helpful units, plan your builds round highly effective set bonuses, and get into the nitty-gritty of substances customization. However till you get to that time, bothering with it looks like a waste of time and assets as a result of your gear will shortly grow to be out of date. I’ve performed sufficient of those video games to know that you simply should not sweat the loot in your first playthrough, however as a substitute equip your highest numbered gear and transfer on. However my prayers exit to anybody tackling Nioh 3 for the primary time. As a result of we’re scrutinizing actually 1000’s of items of kit. on high Once you embrace all of the equippable expertise, talent timber, fame factors, guardian spirits, and soul cores that may be positioned in Yin or Yang positions, it is simply…loads.
Fortunately, we have added an auto-equip characteristic that makes it straightforward to equip essentially the most highly effective gear you personal with the push of a button. What’s particularly cool is which you could set it to mechanically equip primarily based on weight. So, for instance, when you do not thoughts dangerous evasion for a couple of invincibility frames, you too can set it to equip all of the heaviest gear you’ve. It can be configured to stability good gear with good evasion. Or you possibly can go to the other excessive and set it to auto-equip you with the very best gear to get you working across the battlefield, even when one or two gear slots are fully empty.
Auto-equipping clearly has its limitations, because it does not consider the weapon’s particular results or set bonuses that outline your construct. Nonetheless, Nioh 3’s menus provide choices to considerably shorten the playtime of the sport with out impacting those that benefit from the means of meticulously tweaking their builds at each level within the marketing campaign.