Nioh's Aesthetics and bosses are kinda.

[PapaGreg096]

Yeah I know its set in 1600 Japan but I don't know, none of the environments have that sense of awe and wonder like Dark Souls has and they feel pretty much the same in terms of color. and the bosses feel like enemies you just fight instead of characters who have their own backstories and lore. Whats worse is that a lot of the bosses look similar to each other. Don't get me wrong the game is flat out fantastic and the gameplay is flat out amazing and the controls feel really tight

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I'm just wondering how it compares to Ninja Gaiden II.

EDIT: Why does everything think the old Team Ninja did this? They didn't. The head of it, Itagaki and the old core team left with him. Regardless of the game's quality, this is a new developer behind it, not the old one.

EDIT2: Apparently it tries too hard to be Dark Souls...

Damn it! I want my fucking Ninja Gaiden. The RIGHT way. That's all I want. I mean, I could perhaps understand churning out a few clunkers since they were novice devs but c'mon now. It's been more than two games. What is going on???

 

[Maximum Bert]

I'm just wondering how it compares to Ninja Gaiden II.

EDIT: Why does everything think the old Team Ninja did this? They didn't. The head of it, Itagaki and the old core team left with him. Regardless of the game's quality, this is a new developer behind it, not the old one.

EDIT2: Apparently it tries too hard to be Dark Souls...

Damn it! I want my fucking Ninja Gaiden. The RIGHT way. That's all I want. I mean, I could perhaps understand churning out a few clunkers since they were novice devs but c'mon now. It's been more than two games. What is going on???

Well dont really know who left with Itagaki but I believe the new team is doing better than the old. Sure NG3 was a mess although Razors edge seems fine (havent finished it yet) and DOA5 is the best game in the series hands down with DOA4 (Itagakis true vision for DOA apparently) being generally regarded as the worst entry in it. Plus Nioh is fantastic so I think they know what they are doing.

Apparently Niohs original prototype to heavily resembled Ninja Gaiden so team ninja were told to re-do it at least that is what I have heard. As for it trying to hard to be DSs meh it certainly bears similarities to that series but I feel it has more than enough to pass as a great game in its own right. Many games cribs mechanics from others and DSs and Nioh are no exception doesnt make them bad for doing so.

I dont know what their next game will be I know they are working on Dissidia arcade with Square but I am sure you will get a new Ninja Gaiden game eventually.

As for the environments they are not huge spectacle grabbers like in DS but I feel they are nice enough considering the grounded feel they are going for and like DS I am still having a blast exploring them. Been in villages, old strongholds, catacombs, floating shrines, ships and caves among others so far so its not like there is no variety either but yeah its not like the best of places you see in DS or FF.

As for the monsters definitely a limited variety but I feel this was mostly down to the combat and allowing you to learn each enemy well rather than inundating you with constant new enemy types that you had to figure out. I feel DS could get away with more new enemy types simply due to the simplicity of the combat but ofc that is supposition on may part and I feel it could have done with a few more enemy types personally they also dont have the range of scale as the DS enemies.

Bosses however I feel are better than DS in general with a wide range of types and attack patterns yeah there are some duds but I personally feel they have done a great job with the bosses. Maybe its down to the combat being better but I have much more enjoyed the bosses in Nioh than I did in any of the DS games even if I did really like some of those as well especially Artorias.

 

[Blitsie]

I'm just wondering how it compares to Ninja Gaiden II.

EDIT: Why does everything think the old Team Ninja did this? They didn't. The head of it, Itagaki and the old core team left with him. Regardless of the game's quality, this is a new developer behind it, not the old one.

EDIT2: Apparently it tries too hard to be Dark Souls...

Damn it! I want my fucking Ninja Gaiden. The RIGHT way. That's all I want. I mean, I could perhaps understand churning out a few clunkers since they were novice devs but c'mon now. It's been more than two games. What is going on???

Tries too hard? Not at all. It very clearly wears its inspirations on its sleeve (Souls being a big one) but it sets out to do its own thing. You can play it as a Souls game if you really want to and heck you probably will for the first two hours but you'd be barely touching the surface of the combat system if you keep on doing so. You can customize combos as you buy more skills, enemies also have their own stamina bar and can get winded and most importantly; you have the Ki Pulse.

That damn mechanic is your one way ticket to enjoying the game like an action RPG version of Ninja Gaiden as with enough practice you can nearly subvert the whole stamina system, turning you from a medium-speed tank taking pot shots and rolling back and forth to an absolute demon dancing around enemies as you slice them apart with nary a breath to catch in between.

Seriously, you're doing yourself a big disservice if you decide to skip out on the game. It may not entirely satisfy your want for another Ninja Gaiden but god damn will you be missing out on an amazing action RPG that just does enough to set itself apart regardless of the many elements it has from other games.

 

[PapaGreg096]

Yeah I know its set in 1600 Japan but I don't know, none of the environments have that sense of awe and wonder like Dark Souls has and they feel pretty much the same in terms of color. and the bosses feel like enemies you just fight instead of characters who have their own backstories and lore. Whats worse is that a lot of the bosses look similar to each other. Don't get me wrong the game is flat out fantastic and the gameplay is flat out amazing and the controls feel really tight

Well it is a Team Ninja game. None of their stuff has really excelled in terms of...well, anything outside of combat. Even that could only subjectively be considered "fun", since it traditionally allows for so little flexibility. They definitely follow an old school style of game design where looking up the killer strategy on Youtube is typically all she wrote.

I think that is a big part of why the Souls series (I know, I know, as if it needs any more praise) was such a breath of fresh air, because it allowed for near-endless amounts of approach. People are probably still finding ways to get through the game, and no one strategy is considered "the" strategy.

Having said that, it does look like it'd be worth checking out, because it seems to at least go a step beyond what they've done with NG.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Yeah I know its set in 1600 Japan but I don't know, none of the environments have that sense of awe and wonder like Dark Souls has and they feel pretty much the same in terms of color. and the bosses feel like enemies you just fight instead of characters who have their own backstories and lore. Whats worse is that a lot of the bosses look similar to each other. Don't get me wrong the game is flat out fantastic and the gameplay is flat out amazing and the controls feel really tight

Yeah, it's a good game, and the combat is fantastic, but it's not grabbing me the same way that Dark Souls did.

There are some pretty cool areas aesthetically (one of my personal favorites so far is the flooded shrine), but I definitely agree that too many of the areas look too similar and there isn't enough variety in enemies and enemy design.

Everything is just small villages, shrines, and caves with slightly different lighting. There's no real sense of awe to any of it. I mean, you could say that Dark Souls is all towns, caves, and Gothic cathedrals, but for some reason those things had a lot more variety and personality to them. Maybe it's just because the Japanese structures of the time really lacked scale.

 

[Fappy]

Environments and enemy variety are the main culprits for why I haven't finished the game yet. The core gameplay is great, but the boring environments and lack of enemy types just makes everything feel super repetitive.

 

[CritialGaming]

I wrote a full review of Nioh, and you can find it in the user review's section.....or this link.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.947243-Nioh-Review

 

[gigastar]

Main bugbear for me is the loot system, in that its an obvious padding mechanism rather than something that awards exploration. I dont like that you the weapon/armor drops you get have thier power chiefly defined by thier level and that they have a few out of dozens of possible additional stats. Id rather have weapons of a fixed quality then be left with the choice of what to do with them later, like in Bloodborne.

I decided not to buy the game after playing the final demo last month, so i cant really comment on enemy or enviromental variety. Based on what im reading in the thread i find it funny that a game made by Koei Tecmo didnt go out of its way to shove in as much Japanese mythology as it could reach for.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I'm about 10 hours in and my biggest problem is that there's a lack of enemy types. How many times can I fight Oni and skeletons?

To be fair about the enemy types, it has about as many different enemy types as something like DMC4 (probably more even), the problem is just that the game is a lot longer than your typical character action game, which is why the limited selection of enemies starts to become a problem.

Team Ninja probably didn't realize considering they aren't exactly known for having very long games.

 

[PapaGreg096]

Yeah I know its set in 1600 Japan but I don't know, none of the environments have that sense of awe and wonder like Dark Souls has and they feel pretty much the same in terms of color. and the bosses feel like enemies you just fight instead of characters who have their own backstories and lore. Whats worse is that a lot of the bosses look similar to each other. Don't get me wrong the game is flat out fantastic and the gameplay is flat out amazing and the controls feel really tight

Yeah, it's a good game, and the combat is fantastic, but it's not grabbing me the same way that Dark Souls did.

There are some pretty cool areas aesthetically (one of my personal favorites so far is the flooded shrine), but I definitely agree that too many of the areas look too similar and there isn't enough variety in enemies and enemy design.

Everything is just small villages, shrines, and caves with slightly different lighting. There's no real sense of awe to any of it. I mean, you could say that Dark Souls is all towns, caves, and Gothic cathedrals, but for some reason those things had a lot more variety and personality to them. Maybe it's just because the Japanese structures of the time really lacked scale.

Even with the gothic cathedrals from Dark Souls I can tell you a hundred different things from them, the holyness and sacredness of Anor Lando the forgotten, poorly cared of the Undead Burg, the danger that is Sen's fortress and the mysticism of the Duke's Archives.

 

[DeadProxy]

At first, I wanted (and I mean REALLY wanted to) purchase Nioh because it reminded me so much of Dark Souls. However after looking at some reviews ... it seems the game doesn't really change up their environment and enemy types all too much.

In fact even the protagonist cannot be changed all that much (you get a male protagonist that looks like Geralt's brother no matter what) and that's all there is to it. Shame really, I would of loved the game if it tried to expand on those two elements, if not give us the choice between playing a male or female character.

In regard to the Character customizing, or lack there of, you can change your character model to that of the other characters you've met in the game or beat in the Dojo once you reach the third zone or so. You can even be a gnarly black glowy revenant type, but you can't change their appearence. There's also a female character in the game, but I don't know if she's available. I still need to beat her Dojo mission.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

At first, I wanted (and I mean REALLY wanted to) purchase Nioh because it reminded me so much of Dark Souls. However after looking at some reviews ... it seems the game doesn't really change up their environment and enemy types all too much.

In fact even the protagonist cannot be changed all that much (you get a male protagonist that looks like Geralt's brother no matter what) and that's all there is to it. Shame really, I would of loved the game if it tried to expand on those two elements, if not give us the choice between playing a male or female character.

In regard to the Character customizing, or lack there of, you can change your character model to that of the other characters you've met in the game or beat in the Dojo once you reach the third zone or so. You can even be a gnarly black glowy revenant type, but you can't change their appearence. There's also a female character in the game, but I don't know if she's available. I still need to beat her Dojo mission.

Ah, this is good to know! Thank you for clarifying! Still, it is a big turn off when enemies (which I argue to be vital so the game doesn't feel repetitive) lack in variety or have so few types that aren't much different than the rest. I mean, it's one thing to make a common enemy type but I shouldn't see skeletons or certain demons during the final stages of the game except with different colors.

I think maybe you're getting the wrong idea about the game from how critical everyone here is being of it.

It's a good game, really good in fact. The criticisms stated here don't make the game bad. The combat is fantastic and really carries the game. It's fast, responsive, and the way you build up your moveset is really nice. It's Dark Souls married to a character action game in the best ways possible.

The problem is that the game invites comparisons to Dark Souls too readily, but mostly on a superficial level. It's a hard game with a strict death penalty that bases itself around stamina management, and that's really where the Dark Souls comparisons should end. It doesn't have the Dark Souls kind of story telling, and the setting is meant to be a more fantastical version of real historical places in Japan. As such it doesn't have the same kind of freedom that Dark Souls has in its world building. Dark Souls gets to take inspiration from cool locations around the world, to take monster designs from different cultures throughout history, to use weapons and armor from completely different places around the globe, and on top of it all add their own original designs.

Nioh doesn't get that luxury. All the armors in Nioh are real Japanese armors, the weapons are real Japanese weapons, the locations are based on real locations (or at least location archetypes), and the monsters come from Japanese mythology and folklore, but Japan is the only place that the game pulls inspiration from, which is a lot more limiting. So that's where the criticisms are coming from.

I haven't finished the game yet, I'm probably about half-way through, so I don't know how much I have yet to see in terms of new enemy designs, but I feel like I have to defend the game in saying that Team Ninja did the best with what they had to work with. They dug deep with the enemy designs for this game, there's an umbrella yokai for fucks' sake.

That doesn't mean that the criticisms are unfounded, but I think this thread is making them sound more dire than they are. I have yet to hear anyone in this thread say that it's a bad game or that they regret buying it.

 

[stroopwafel]

Comparing Nioh to Dark Souls I think is doing it more harm than good. Nioh is a fantastic game but it doesn't really have the same sense of adventure as Dark Souls. Nioh is a game with little distractions outside of keeping you engaged in it's formidable gameplay loop. It's oldschool challenge with a Diablo style loot grind. The game is quite long but strangely I never really experienced repetition mostly b/c of the really diverse approach to tactics and gameplay. I'd argue the levels being short and sweet actually work in the game's favor.

If you play Nioh expecting a grand adventure like Dark Souls you're going to be disappoint(even if the story itself, in my opinion, is quite entertaining). However if you expect a highly polished action-RPG that mixes Ninja Gaiden with Onimusha and has the 'weight' of the combat in Dark Souls you'll probably enjoy it.

I'd recommend anyone on the fence about Nioh to give the game a try though. It's not exactly like these games come in large supply.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I haven't finished the game yet, I'm probably about half-way through, so I don't know how much I have yet to see in terms of new enemy designs, but I feel like I have to defend the game in saying that Team Ninja did the best with what they had to work with. They dug deep with the enemy designs for this game, there's an umbrella yokai for fucks' sake.

That doesn't mean that the criticisms are unfounded, but I think this thread is making them sound more dire than they are. I have yet to hear anyone in this thread say that it's a bad game or that they regret buying it.

I also have not finished the game but I have played a fair bit and there are still new enemy types coming albeit at a slow pace and some are just variations on others with a slightly different appearance and augmented moveset.

I honestly dont have that much problem with the amount of enemy types and some of the bosses are amazing but I would hardly say they have dug deep I mean have you seen how many Yokai there are

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_from_Japan

This is just one list I found and while I dont think all would be suitable for enemies its still a lot to draw from. Whether they limited the enemies in order for balance or cost (or both) I do not know but there could have been more. That said I do not think it is a great detriment to the game, a valid criticism certainly but far from a damning one.

 

[Seishisha]

Don't know if there is any truth to this as far as im concerned it's just hearsay, but i heard that enemy variety and level design were kind of shoved to the wayside and the budget was allocated mostly to the combat systems and the boss fights. Again no idea if it's true but it seems plausible.

 

[CritialGaming]

Don't know if there is any truth to this as far as im concerned it's just hearsay, but i heard that enemy variety and level design were kind of shoved to the wayside and the budget was allocated mostly to the combat systems and the boss fights. Again no idea if it's true but it seems plausible.

To be fair, there are actually a lot of areas in Nioh. While some of the side missions do reuse the same levels off the main missions, there are also side missions that use their own completely different areas as well. From Docks, Japanese shrines, Harbors, Fields, Cliffs, Caves, Temples, Sewers, there actually is a fair amount of variety in the level. I think part of the problem people have with that is that there isn't one giant interconnected world. You choose missions from a map, and that can make the areas feel smaller, or maybe a little samey because some of the side missions are very quick so you move on from an area before it really sinks in.

As of enemy variety, admitedly it does stay kind of limited for a while. Towards the end of the second area it opens up to include different enemies, and actually expands quite nicely by the end. However the reason why it can also feel bad, is that the game is hard. And you'll spend a lot of time in the same areas, so you see the same shit over and over because of the amount of times you will die.

But considering there are only two or three main missions per area, you can actually reach different enemy types fairly quickly if you blow off the side content (which I wouldn't recommend on a first playthrough).

So IMO, I think some of the criticisms of the game in that regard are a little artificial.

 

[RaikuFA]

At first, I wanted (and I mean REALLY wanted to) purchase Nioh because it reminded me so much of Dark Souls. However after looking at some reviews ... it seems the game doesn't really change up their environment and enemy types all too much.

In fact even the protagonist cannot be changed all that much (you get a male protagonist that looks like Geralt's brother no matter what) and that's all there is to it. Shame really, I would of loved the game if it tried to expand on those two elements, if not give us the choice between playing a male or female character.

Apparently this video explains that the main character was based off of a real person.

 

[sageoftruth]

I'm with Dirty Hipsters on this one. The game is really good. Enemy variety is indeed a problem, but the game's excellent combat makes it enjoyable, even when you've done it hundreds of times before. I've been playing it side-by-side with Bloodborne, and I can say confidently that I do not like it as much as Bloodborne, but then again, I LOVE Bloodborne. I really don't think Nioh would be a waste of anyone's money. The only exception would be if you're put off by the Dark Souls kind of challenge, because you will run up against figurative brick walls on occasion, and I know that turns off some players.

In a nutshell, I see this game the same way I saw Witcher 3. It's a game with a list of noticeable flaws, but it does certain things so damn well that I can easily forgive everything else. If you've played and enjoyed Dark Souls games, as well as more fast-paced action games like Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry, this game will please you.