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[umiman]

Nioh is a game about Geralt of Rivia a British pirate who reads a book on a ship about the samurai, then dreams about how he'd be one and what weapons he uses and what guardian spirit he would inherit if he were a samurai. He then moves to Japan and embarks on an epic quest to be a true Japanese Samurai.

Also he mass murders a few thousand harmless spirits along the way.

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What is it gameplay wise?

The fairest way to put it would be to say it's a Dark Souls clone. Its combat is more similar to Bloodborne but significantly less spammy due to the stringent stamina (ki) limits. Also instead of everything being Medieval / Gothic themed, it's based on Japanese folklore and the end of the Sengoku period.

It has all the staple Dark Souls mechanics. Bonfires (shrines), soul recovery (grave sites), punishing difficulty, player death locations (revenants), epic boss battles, enemies with good hitboxes and timing-based attacks, online co-op and online PVP, etc. etc.

What it has in addition is a ridiculously deep combat system that makes all the Souls games look childlike by comparison. We're talking gigantic movelists more similar to fighting games than an action adventure game. A billion skill trees, magic trees, ninja trees, clan trees, etc. etc. A ridiculous amount of loot along the lines of Diablo or Borderlands.

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What is it not?

It's not open world like the Souls games. Rather, you have a hub map and areas in which you travel to for quests and subquests.

It's not bright. Souls games can be dark at times but you generally don't have difficulty seeing things unless it's explicitly designed for you not to see anything. Here, basically you will have trouble seeing most things.

It's not the prettiest game. Character models are alright but the texture work on some of the stuff is awful. Also the lack of lighting sucks. Though the bright levels are pretty good looking.

Easy. You're gonna die a lot.

A particularly amazing PC port. There's keyboard controls but no mouse support. And the FPS is very weird in weird locations. They have been releasing a steady stream of patches though. It's not a bad port by any means, but it's not great.

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Why should I play it?

I'm not very good at explaining this but despite all the flaws I really, truly enjoy this game. So much so I pirated it, played for about 20 hours, then bought it, realized it refuses to transfer save files between legit and fake versions, then replayed the entire 20 hours again with a completely different build.

It's kinda like someone took the weapon systems and monsters from Monster Hunter and put them in a Souls game. So you have the deep and intricate loot + weapon mechanics from Monster Hunter, and the hardcore punishing combat from Souls. I think it's a beautiful fusion and that alone lets me look past all the flaws in the game.

I highly recommend it. The PC version is the complete version that comes with all the DLC and I can personally vouch that it has so much content you'll never play most of it. I have 34 hours in the legit Steam copy and I think I'm only halfway into the game. I am nowhere even close to starting the DLCs or the exalted NG+ or the supreme NG++. Yes, this is one of those games where people make a joke about how after you beat the game, you've only beaten the tutorial and the real game starts now.

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[umiman]

The real reason I created this thread is because a few days ago when random coop-ing I ran into someone called Urist. He summoned me to help with Umi Bozu where I promptly rolled into the water and died like a chump.

So who was it? Who was Urist? I know it's one of you!

[Draignean]

Oh, right, I remember wanting to get this for my partner since she's crazy about japan and greatly enjoys dark souls. Definitely will buy, been wanting to get a new game for her for a while anyway.

EDIT: Holy shit. 75gig? I expect the textures to sweep my floor and feed the cat at that level.

[nenjin]

I did not feel I had the requisite love of Japan to play this game. Love Dark Souls but aesthetically this game doesn't hit me the same way.

[BurnedToast]

A particularly amazing PC port. Hell, there's no keyboard and mouse controls as far as I'm aware of. And the FPS is very weird in weird locations. They have been releasing a steady stream of patches though. It's not a bad port by any means, but it's not great.

You had me 100% sold on the game right up until this point. What kind of game does not have KB+m controls? Even the notoriously janky dark souls 1 port had (sort of) working kb+m controls!

There's apparently a fan made .exe you can download to make kb+m work with the game but I don't like downloading random exe files off internet forums.

Too bad, it sounds interesting and fun.

[umiman]

Oh, right, I remember wanting to get this for my partner since she's crazy about japan and greatly enjoys dark souls. Definitely will buy, been wanting to get a new game for her for a while anyway.

EDIT: Holy shit. 75gig? I expect the textures to sweep my floor and feed the cat at that level.

It won't. I'm not particularly sure why the filesize is so big.

Maybe it's all the voice acting.

I believe Ygdrad uses compactGUI to shrink the filesize to a few GB. Nothing you can do about the download though but IIRC the actual download is "only" around 41GB, which then unpacks to 75GB.

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BurnedToast: Yeah, I don't get it myself. I'd like to have it too, if only for aiming the guns and bows.

I went into this fully expecting to hate it and making fun of my friend who was really liking it. When you have superspeed internet with unlimited bandwidth, you can do things like this. However, after about an hour I was pretty much addicted. It's why I can't really explain why I like it so much despite all the flaws.

[umiman]

Huh, I was wrong.

Turns out there are keyboard controls for this game.

There's no mouse, but the keyboard works. The controls actually remind me of Dynasty Warriors for the PC.

[Draignean]

Is good game. Has proper Kappa soul sucking animation. 10/10, would get soul sucked out through asshole again.

[ukulele]

While i dont think the KB+M, its a real problem for the game(i use joystick and i dont thinknk a good port needs excelent KB+M controllos) i somhow got boread after a few hours, while the combat is in theory more complex than in a DS game (diferent stances and such), i some how feel the combat is more repetitive and "squared" than in a DS game, i dont know how, but thtats what i feel, also im drunk,.

[Ygdrad]

Yeah, I used compactGUI and it took the game from 74GB down to 21gb in size without any apparent performance hit. The devs probably just didn't compress any of their files at all. The game didn't actually run on my pc at first because I use an old G3258 dual core cpu without multithreading overclocked to 4.4ghz. The game doesn't really require 4 cores but wouldn't launch on it which I fixed by injecting some dll's into the game executable and it runs at 30-60fps on 1080p max settings depending on the zone.

When it comes to kb+m controls I wouldn't throw a fit about it. I've entirely given up on consoles as in this age of affordable gaming rigs they no longer have a purpose and am definitely a PC gamer, but some games are just better with a controller. This is one of them. A keyboard only lets you move/point in 8 directions in 45 degree increments and that's just not enough for the accuracy you need in combat in games like this or dark souls.

Unlike in Dark Souls, being summoned for co-op in Nioh is very rewarding. Not only do you get loot from everything, you also have a chance at some extra rare stuff the host doesn't get like umbracite and get some extra glory. If anyone wants to co-op just add/contact me on steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/Ygdrad

[umiman]

My co-op experience in this game can be summarized like this:

1. Connection error
2. Connection error
3. Some guy summoned me to help with Umi Bozu. I roll into the water and die like an idiot.
4. Connection error
5. Some guy summoned me to help with Umi Bozu. He dies.
6. Connection error
7. Connection error
8. Some guy summoned me at the start of the spider stage. I notice he one shots every single thing. I'm wondering why he even summoned me since he's too busy cheating.
9. Connection error
10. Connection error
11. Connection error
12. Connection error
13. Some guy summoned me to help with Umi Bozu. Hasn't done a single thing in the level. He barely makes it to the boss room and hasn't even activated a single bonfire. I thought he wanted to do it hardcore mode. During the fight he hides in a corner of the map while I have to slowly kill the boss myself. Since there's no fire, this is taking forever, but it's not particularly hard. Then he dies to a random small Umi Bozu. What a fucking loser.

[Flying Dice]

Just on surface impression it feels less well-balanced than DaS. And not in a good way. Every mob I've seen has essentially the same AI, and it's very easy to exploit with basic footwork. The only time I've died was when I walked off a small cliff (walked, because there is no jump) to do an aerial on Souls muscle memory (you can't, you just flail wildly and try to do a normal attack when you land), then got corner-raped by something high-leveled enough to two-shot me while the camera flipped out trying to deal with two walls in close proximity.

Other than that it's basically just mid stance: bait them into walking forward, thrust, Ki pulse, backstep, repeat.

I'm not sure if it's just me, but it feels like the dodges have wonky i-frames, I've been caught by a backswing while in the middle of one... but I've also not taken damage when I reaction-dodged an attack that should have already hit me. Playing on a controller sucks massive dick, of course. The lockon is shit, the icon is nearly invisible, the range where it auto-releases is way too short, and between gamepad lack of precision and the game not being built for it you basically can't freeaim at all, which makes >1 enemy vastly more dangerous solely because you have to switch to the slow-ass high stance AoEs or get pounded.

Really is bizarre. The controls are the main difficulty. Everything else feels like playing Souls with a cheat trainer on, from the generous native stamina recovery to the Ki pulse to retarded enemy AI. The loot system isn't bad, but the stats are about as arcane and counterintuitive as DaS with THAC0-esque additions. I like being able to summon player death spirits to fight for loot, I don't like them being dumb as a box of rocks. I hate the repetitive monotony of recycling every goddamn piece of trash equipment manually.

Definitely glad I waited for a sale on this one. It's not bad, but it's not worth full price. Maybe if the devs had given us proper K&M controls and half-decent enemy AI. Play if you want 60-100h of grinding sub-par Diablo loot from Hollow Soldiers with occasional gimmicky boss fights, I guess? Doesn't even look very pretty, especially if you turn brightness high enough to actually see what any of the textures look like beyond "shadow" and "deeper shadow".

[Ygdrad]

Every mob doesn't have the same AI and a lot of human enemies are pretty dumb early on. Unfortunately, depending on their weapon they do have a a blindspot at a certain range while approaching you, making long weapons like spears and the odachi potentially easymode against some enemies if you cheese them, outranging and baiting standard enemies was equally easy in dark souls. There are various AI's for them and it's pretty obvious looking at basic bandits barely knowing how to use their weapons, whiffing all their attacks, and some of the nastier later stuff literally reading your inputs to punish your every move if you don't outrange or outspeed them. There also are plunging/aerial attacks, you really didn't try, pressing either light or heavy attack while falling does it, don't know how you missed it. Plunging attacks are weird though in that they don't home in on the enemy like in dark souls, but if any part of your character ever so slightly brushes the enemy on the way down you'll hit them, making it easy-enough to land unless you massively mess up timing/aim.

The dodges are odd, the I-frames are different based on your stance and weapon/skills and your weight might affect it too. Overall you have very few I-frames either way and it's going to be harder to dodge than in dark souls, fortunately you can get out of the way easier than in dark souls too. I'm guessing you're just not used to controllers, no matter how you think about it, a keyboard would be worse for accurate movement and freeaiming attacks, an analogue thumbstick will beat the 45 degree increments of keyboard WASD. I personally haven't had any issues with the lockon or seeing the icon, as you can see its range is actually much longer than you need given it's only useful for melee and a few close-medium range thrown items. Between your movement rotating centered on your target and the marker being pretty hard to mistake once at close range I don't know how you're having issues tracking it.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/865117632213153709/960B5671E261F878E7859F2024A5E254787A4C7A/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/865117632213161680/1B573813012AB9D5FB83E74960E4711F7F586682/
(don't mind the screenshots from the start of the game, just loaded a friend's save to illustrate this.)

Don't know what your actual problem is with the game, but overall that post was mostly misinformation/exaggeration and simply came across as angry. Hopefully others won't be turned off by it. If people are on the fence about the game, I suggest they just look up some gameplay video or streamers.

[Draignean]

Just on surface impression it feels less well-balanced than DaS. And not in a good way. Every mob I've seen has essentially the same AI, and it's very easy to exploit with basic footwork. The only time I've died was when I walked off a small cliff (walked, because there is no jump) to do an aerial on Souls muscle memory (you can't, you just flail wildly and try to do a normal attack when you land),

Press and hold y (heavy attack) when falling. There are drop kills.

Interestingly, for mobs of many units, I usually switch to low stance for the faster attacks and better dodges. I do agree that a chunk of the difficulty of the game is artificial. There are a couple levels where instant-kill environment traps are the order of the day, and more than one area where it's meant to be 'we know this enemy isn't that bad, but how about in a tiny room? Ah fuck it, just surround it with little demon heads'.

That being said, I do usually enjoy the game. There are times when it's absurdly frustrating, and it's not often enough when that frustration is 'Well, I could have done that better', which is bad for a soulsy game. I also feel like the game actively hates me for choosing Tonfa. I'm a decent ways into the game, and there have been no Tonfa rewards. All of the way of the warrior training duels let you fight with any weapon you choose- except Tonfa.

I would prefer to use keyboard and mouse for the game, and I really hate the 'but you only have eight directions!!!' argument. The lack of a walk sensitivity is a bitch, but you can actually free-aim using the mouse and still fight using mouse and keyboard, instead of having to take your finger off the combat controls to adjust the camera. I've beaten the souls game with the mouse and keyboard, and I'm just better with it than the gamepad. You will never convince that it's better to have a control scheme where you have to take your finger off movement to chug elixir, or remove your finger from attack in order to control the camera.

[Ygdrad]

Disclaimer: I do use a steam controller which fixes the taking your fingers off the camera/attack controls part to some degree with its design that improves on the basic 360 controller. Overall, locking on does the job though and the only instance where it's a detriment is if you want to move perfectly perpendicular to the enemy. I do agree that having to let go of the camera/movement to use other controls is retarded and is why I'll never play a FPS with a controller, but games like these are designed so it's not really a problem. If anything, I wish console makers would stop being scared of turning off people with major changes and stick most of the button on the back of the controllers so this wouldn't be an issue anymore. Not that I'm going to be playing consoles, but they affect how other controllers are made. Don't fool yourself though, using WASD on a keyboard does have issues too, like having to temporarily give up use of one of the directions to go press other keys, which is why I use a Nostromo keypad, which has a thumb D-pad when playing games in which I need to do various other actions while staying mobile. Neither the controller nor the keyboard is perfect. Aiming the bow with a mouse would have been nice though :/

I don't really agree with the whole artificial difficulty thing though, it's an overused meaningless term. Using different environments or putting a mix of enemies together isn't artificial difficulty, it's a legit challenge in how you approach it and it's what entire successful games like Hyper Light Drifter base their difficulty on. If you actually have to play better/smarter/differently to beat something, it's not artificial difficulty. Unlike you though I do find that usually when i'm having issues it's because I'm missing/haven't figured out something, or just mis-played. Most things that were giving me grief eventually became easier once I practiced that fight a bit. I'm not the kind to just call bullshit when I get wrecked and move on, I prefer to figure out what I could've done better and there usually is something. I will say that the game's difficulty IS all over the place though, some bosses can be fairly easy while some can be impossible until you figure them out or decide to cheese them with the guardian spirit. Tonfas have an especially hard time against some things if you don't switch strategy for them. With tough things, I've found that focusing on depleting their ki first is better than a hit-and-run playstyle since tonfas don't have good burst damage. If you're good at using demon dance to reliably dodge things you can use that to stay on the offensive though.

I play tonfas too, they were added in a later DLC and so most of the tonfas come from DLC too. The standard ones have been doing the job though, they just aren't part of any set until later, which is a shame. I too would've liked some extra early love for tonfas. I rarely find graves of people using tonfas too so finding rare ones is hard, but that's what crafting is for.