Nioh

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Nioh: Since the first Demon’s Souls game appeared in 2009, FromSoftware has shaped a new direction for the action RPG series. At the same time, it affirmed that gamers do not become “emotionless” in front of highly challenging games; on the contrary, they also showed great interest.

Since then, the Souls series has been a huge hit and has a huge fan base!

It wouldn’t be surprising if some other game studios also wanted to “imitate” and exploit this direction thoroughly, so some similar products were born: Lords of The Fallens, Titan Souls, etc.

Although most of those names have received many compliments from players, they still cannot overcome the huge shadow of the famous Souls series.

Without exception, Team Ninja also chose the same direction as above and launched the game Nioh for the PlayStation 4, promising to bring extremely difficult challenges for veteran gamers.

But can Nioh become an independent brand or only exist with the label “Dark Souls clone”?

Let’s explore with Biareview through the following article!

The context of Nioh takes place in Japan in the last years of the Warring States period (Sengoku Jidai), with the main character being William Adams, the first and also real samurai from the West history.

However, the game developer has “fictionalized” Adams’ journey to entrust Nioh – the trip of a samurai who specializes in destroying monsters (Yokai) with terrifying power.

Nioh’s basic combat mechanics are “borrowed” a lot from the Souls series, with control buttons such as dodge, defend, counter, attack strong or weak, etc.

If any player has ever “battled” with any Dark Souls game, it will not be difficult to get used to controlling the character in Nioh.

What makes it easy for us to recognize the similarity between Nioh and Ninja Gaiden is the stormy speed in the combat mechanism.

However, it should also be remembered that Team Ninja also designed an action game with quite a great difficulty at the time of launch – Ninja Gaiden, so Nioh inheriting a part of the features from that game is also nothing strange.

Thanks to that, the dramatic battles are extremely daring and hands-on!

Despite the terrifying speed of battle, there is still an element that players need to consider in every attack that is launched.

That is the Ki stat; this can be seen as another version of the Stamina (fitness) stat in Dark Souls.

At each turn to attack, dodge or block an opponent’s attack, the character will lose a certain amount of Ki. When the Ki is lost, the player will fall into a state of exhaustion. That is also the most extreme stage difficult period because you won’t be able to do anything but stand still and wait for recovery and “take all” of the opponent’s attacks is inevitable! Therefore, controlling the character’s Ki is extremely important!

To increase the “smooth” in each match, the developer also gave William Adams an ability called Ki Pulse; by timing it and pressing the R1 button, your Ki will be restored faster.

Thanks to this, the player can prolong his attack.

Another interesting point is that the “fighting posture” system (stance) profoundly affects the player’s battle strategy.

The game has three types of weapon positions: High, Mid, and Low, with different advantages and disadvantages.

Specifically, the upper hand helps you to deal with an extremely large amount of damage, but on the contrary, it reduces the character’s defense a lot. The lower position is the opposite; while the damage is reduced, the ability to dodge and avoid attacks is very good. The consumption of Ki is also common, helping the player take more actions; The medium is a balance between the two above.

Sometimes, switching back and forth between weapon positions is extremely necessary because your opponent is also very rich in the attack: some like to attack, but some types want to defend.

And you can’t use the same stance against these different opponents.

Just like the fighting stance, the number of Nioh’s weapons is also extremely rich (up to 5 types of melee and three types for ranged).

Each weapon will have different characteristics, greatly affecting the player’s fighting style.

The writer is extremely fond of using a single sword to fight because of its balance.

However, there will also be people who prefer to use dual swords because of the extremely fast attack and dodge speed.

Undeniably, Nioh is a challenging game; the enemies seem to be designed to “see” you to the nearest temple (Shrine) as soon as possible.

Therefore, Team Ninja has also provided a tool to help us solve the most difficult situations – Guardian Spirits.

Using these guardians can help you summon extremely powerful weapons to finish off enemies (including bosses) many times faster.

Even so, having support from Guardian Spirits does not help reduce the difficulty of the game much.

That’s how the combat mechanism is refined, but it also needs “objects” that are strong and interesting enough for players to “discharge” skills on them; Team Ninja did not disappoint players in that regard.

The types of monsters (Yokai) are extremely impressively designed, with different shapes and attacks.

Sometimes, to “treat” a certain type of Yokai, the player must “die” a few times to learn their moves and fighting style and then find a way to counter them.

As for bosses, in addition to their appearance being built “superior,” extremely meticulous. It can be typical as Hino – Emma made the writer’s hair “afraid” as soon as he first met them face; their difficulty can only be described by the word “zero tolerance”!

Their power can knock down players in just “one-note,” plus lightning-fast attack speed and extremely unpredictable.

Indeed, it is extremely common for you to replay more than ten times to destroy a boss when playing Nioh.

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In addition to the Yokai, there is a type of enemy that the writer takes “a fair amount of time” to confront, which is “Revenants” – wandering souls.

For the writer, this is a pretty good idea when designing them.

Revenants can be seen as “souls” of other players controlled by the machine to fight you when summoned.

Revenants will copy almost everything, from that player’s equipment, level, and fighting style.

Therefore, winning them is also a tough challenge, and the rewards are sometimes well worth it!

If Dark Souls puts players on an extremely large map, where you can freely explore every corner, going to many different lands throughout the journey.

In Nioh, it is completely different; the game is designed based on the selection of missions, each other task will take players to various maps to perform.

You will probably feel quite constrained when it comes to this difference of Nioh compared to Dark Souls.

However, rest assured that while only playing a separate map in each different mission, they are also very large with many nooks and crannies to explore, enough to cost the player 2 – 4 hours to complete a task.

In addition, such a division also makes it easier for players to go back to old missions, maybe to earn more items or “feel like”!

If you have ever played through the Diablo series of games, you must have enjoyed the feeling that every time you defeat an opponent, the object will “vomit” like rain, spoiled for picking!

That feeling will be reproduced in Nioh.

Now, you will no longer have to worry about getting “bottles” to exchange for amrita (a type of point that helps characters level up) or money.

Even if you are lucky, you can collect extremely good equipment from killing the extremely weak monster!

In addition to the items to pick up, you can also collect different materials to give to the blacksmith.

From here, she will craft extremely good equipment, making it easier for you to breathe during the game.

Besides crafting equipment as well as buying and selling, this blacksmith girl also has many other typical functions such as Soul Match (enhance equipment), Disassemble (decay into raw materials), Reforge (replace) change the effect of equipment) and another function that the writer likes is Refashion, which helps you change the appearance of the equipment into another shape that looks “cool” many times more!

In Nioh, the character image is built extremely “eye-catching,” the number of armor and weapons is many but very unique. If you are a “love of beauty,” it will take you hours to try to match the guy William Adams with the coolest outfit possible!

The model of Yokai built exudes a mysterious, “dark” look that suits the context.

In addition, the effects of lighting, lightning, and rain look unbelievable.

Team Ninja also included Nioh graphic settings to give players the freedom to choose the ability to optimize graphics according to their preferences.

There are three modes: Movie – in this mode, the resolution is set to the best, but the frame rate is reduced to 30 frames per second (fps); Action – in contrast to the above mode, although the resolution is slightly lowered, the frame rate is guaranteed at 60 fps.

The system will change the resolution and frame rate for the last mode to be slightly higher than 30 fps.

Despite that, but with what the writer feels, Nioh is still beautiful enough to experience Action mode, plus the frame is smoother at 60 fps.

Although quite small, there is another bright point, but it makes the writer have a very good experience during the game.

That’s the relatively fast loading speed of the game screen, which makes the feeling of being knocked down constantly become “lighter” a lot!

Imagine: you have to wait more than 2 minutes to reload the game after each defeat by an enemy; how much inhibition will it be?

Although the difficulty is the main feature Nioh wants to bring to players and is also the general “recipe” for games in the Dark Souls series, it is also a “double-edged sword” in itself.

Sometimes, the writer feels “extremely proud” when overcoming a difficult boss or level.

On the other hand, the writer just wanted to turn off the computer and quit the game because of the inhibitions of the incredible difficulty of this game!

That is a huge “barrier” for players with the purpose of “fun is the main” or “impatient” to be able to approach Nioh!

In addition, another issue that is also controversial online is cooperative play (co-op).

Instead of allowing players to easily call on other players to join the game and support as in the previous experience, Team Ninja made a “weird” decision to make the rules: only if the player passed the level. If you play A, you can join other players in level A!

In a world that is inherently “harsh” in the Dark Souls series, the developer’s above rule is no different from “harder” players!