There’s always a hook, whether it’s through gear or the beautifully grim world, but you’ll keep coming back for more desired punishment. There’s nothing like an enemy dropping that ultra powerful weapon you didn’t know you were looking for. It helps that Team Ninja has implemented an RNG loot system similar to games such as Diablo, encouraging you to find and create the best equipment possible. You can find yourself losing countless hours, not only with the lengthy main story, but the various side missions scattered about the world, altering existing maps to better fit the objective. This is still an action RPG where you will be cautiously going around every corner, trying to avoid well placed traps, but instead of being in an open world to explore, we are treated to mission-oriented structure, having players traverse vastly different areas of Japan in a mostly-linear set path. While it has a similar gameplay formula that more developers should replicate, Nioh is its own entity entirely, adding in its own alterations that actually make the experience better in numerous areas. There’s some freighting enemies, along with bosses that have unique design you won’t find anywhere else.Ĭalling Nioh a Dark Souls clone would do it an injustice. This is one of the best parts of Nioh as the world is incredibly disgusting, but in a beautiful way.
It mainly provides a means of expressing the absolutely dark and disturbing world that Team Ninja has created for 1600 Japan. Really, the core story is far from anything special, even with the numerous cutscenes occurring before and after many of the missions. The difference is that there is a huge emphasis on spirituality and Japanese folklore, such as humans possessing their own animal spirits and oni (demons) roaming the land. The world of Nioh is completely packed with historical figures, such as Edward Kelley being the antagonist (even though his supernatural abilities were his own claims), alongside Tokugawa Ieyasu, Ishida Mitsunari and probably the most well known figure in Japanese history, Oda Nobunaga. He escapes an English prison only to shipwreck in Kyushu, finding out things aren’t so great over there. The story behind Nioh revolves around a mysterious man named William, who is loosely based on the real life English sailor who traveled to Japan, William Adams.
With such an appealing premise, there’s no question why the game was met with critical praise when it was released on PlayStation 4, and because of this, Koei Tecmo has decided to bring the profoundly satisfying action RPG to PC where it can shine. We move to the final years of the Japanese Sengoku period, where monsters infect the land with their corruption and historical figures attempt to combat evil with their own fictional sources of power.
While there are those who will call it a Dark Souls rip-off, this is far from the truth, as Nioh offers so much more than you’d expect.
The studio has taken a break from their development on their long-running series and brought us a new IP that exceeds Ninja Gaiden in its difficulty. Among those games also happens to be Nioh, from famed developer Team Ninja, best known for their work on franchises such as Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden. In the first couple of months alone, we got NieR: Automata, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Resident Evil 7 and so many more that followed. 2017 has been one of the best years for gaming in a long time.