Nioh's Aesthetics and bosses are kinda.

[PapaGreg096]

^^There are no brick walls in Souls though really. The difficulty in Souls is primarily learning to pay attention and not getting careless. Bloodborne is perhaps skued towards a bit more skill-based, but I'd be surprised if even a B-Team Ninja game's primary difficulty didn't revolve around learning insane combos and don't-blink timing.

Is that not the case with this one?

 

[CritialGaming]

^^There are no brick walls in Souls though really. The difficulty in Souls is primarily learning to pay attention and not getting careless. Bloodborne is perhaps skued towards a bit more skill-based, but I'd be surprised if even a B-Team Ninja game's primary difficulty didn't revolve around insane combos and don't-blink timing.

Is that not the case with this one?

No not really. Depends on your playstyle though. For example, I cannot and have not beaten any Dark Souls game (though I've play all of them). I find that I am not patient or good enough for the slow pace of combat. However not only did I beat Bloodborne, I found the game rather easy once I got used to the controls. I breezed through that game without ever hitting any kind of roadblock boss.

I find the same is true for me in Nioh. I breezed through most of the game, even easily defeated bosses that people on twitter and reddit seem to really have a hard time with. A couple of the bosses I took down in only 1 or 2 attempts. Something about the pace of the combat in Nioh really clicks with me and I don't have that much trouble with it.

I die of course. Either getting too cocky, or just surprised by an enemy I didn't see. But that isn't making the game hard, it just serves as friendly reminders to check myself before I wreck myself.

 

[RJ 17]

I honestly don't see why everyone keeps comparing this game to Dark Souls. What, is it just because you've got a stamina bar? Remember a little series called Ninja Gaiden? There's a lot of people saying "This is like Dark Souls with Diablo 3's loot system!" I'd say it's more like Ninja Gaiden with Diablo 3's loot system.

 

[CritialGaming]

I honestly don't see why everyone keeps comparing this game to Dark Souls. What, is it just because you've got a stamina bar? Remember a little series called Ninja Gaiden? There's a lot of people saying "This is like Dark Souls with Diablo 3's loot system!" I'd say it's more like Ninja Gaiden with Diablo 3's loot system.

It's more than the stamina bar. It's collecting amrita (souls) losing them when you die and having to make it back to them again with all the enemies respawned to get them back, or lose them forever if you die. It's the hotkey system for items that do very souls-like things (adding magic to your weapon, Estus healing items, etc). Praying at shrines (bonfires) that restore your health, estus flasks, and respawns enemies. Leveling into specific stats that each give marginal increases to given aspects of play. Equipment weight affecting movement, dodging, and attack efficiency.

Many of the core aspects are copy pasted from souls games that it is impossible not to compare Nioh to a souls game. However there are a lot of differences, namely in all the additional systems in Nioh that aren't there in Souls. Honestly if anything, Nioh feels like the next evolution in souls games which if you look at them are very basic games despite their challenge.