I haven't used my tumblr in years lmao but I'm putting my thoughts here.
For all the current online discourse pitting the two series against each other, it's kinda funny that NG as a trilogy is exactly the same as discussions with DS fans in that each game is wildly different from each other and everyone's always at each others' throats over their favorites, with each entry having their unique strengths and shortcomings (I'm not going to get into discourse about the Sigma versions too much though)
As a foreword, I basically only used the Dragon Sword in each game cuz it's my favorite moveset.
Sigma 1
It feels really easy to see how much Itagaki likes Hong Kong flicks with the ambience that Tairon's streets have, especially when making your way to the bar (that, and everything about Jann Lee in DOA being his take on a bruce lee char).
Sigma removed the FMV after the first Doku fight where Ryu's head gets chopped off bc of new censor guidelines, but it was kinda silly how the original games went from that to Ryu putting his new gear on inside a blimp.
I was still getting the hang of adjusting to the base gameplay again after having not played these since like 16 years ago or so; I only played the original '04 release, not even NGB or any of the hurricane packs, sadly, Intercept looks goofy as fuck. I got some practice doing instant UTs but I was still pretty bad at them at the time (why do NG fans call it "on-land cancel")
Sigma 1 has the biggest interplay between immediate vs long term benefit when it comes to whether you want to use essence to charge UTs or scrounge for items and upgrades since there's a lot of stuff to buy like accessories, lots of different consumables, and that damn wooden sword. In this regard, UTs felt the most satisfying to perform in this game, and that might be because you still had to set up the positioning and herding right since they don't make you blitz around the area like in the following games.
The movelists are also a lot smaller in Sigma 1 than the following games, and it's technically all you need, but I get the impression that played a part in Flying Swallow being such a core tool in the initial releases before they tried to balance it, so making a lot of enemies resistant to it makes the early parts kinda awkward until you get your first weapon upgrades I think.
Rachel is playable but unfortunately kinda miserable to play lol, her moveset doesn't really feel like it was made in consideration to the enemies in the game, so I had to rely on a lot of counterattacks for her sections. It's also odd to think that outside of the Sigma versions, after Ryu rescues her with his first fight with Doku she flies off and immediately gets caught again without even showing how it happened (even if it is pretty random with all the teleporters in her last stage)
If NGB and the like is someone's favorite, it's usually because the like the exploration aspect, which I get, but I get a lot of hang ups about missing health upgrades especially for a game like this, but I can appreciate it nonetheless of course, especially the ambushes that I wouldn't think to backtrack to. It does have the best enemy variety as far as I can recall, too.
The bosses are kinda hit or miss, and the base mechanics don't really play nice with making you play a hit-and-run playstyle while making bosses largely immune to The Move that's designed for that (even if it's for the best with how all-solving Flying Swallow was in the '04 version lol), bosses tend not to stay staggered very long, so your main counter is usually something like XYY (or just using the Dabilharo). It's no secret that Murai is the easiest final boss of the modern series, though I didn't think that's all that bad, I'd prefer him to be the final boss after dealing with Vigoor. I think the only boss I particularly liked was Doku, but the inconsistent recovery and fast grab was hgrughruhgh.
Also fuck those ghost piranhas.
That scene of him kicking the Dark Dragon Blade up and shattering it is still cold as fuck though.
Most used combo: XXYYY and eventually X(Y)YY (reliable finisher when enemies roll out of Izuna Drop launch)
Sigma 2
The best set dressing in the modern series, the opening stage Tokyo is such an aesthetic. The linear nature of the game makes a nice callback to the classic series with Ryu traveling around the world.
I liked the prologue motion comic cuz it reminded me of the NES game cutscenes.
Sigma 2 made essence essentially worthless as you can max out consumables in about half an hour and upgrades felt drip fed so damn slow.
With all of them on Normal mode, NGS2 is definitely the easiest of them by a mile, I don't really care to try the original version anytime soon though honestly. NG2 purists are some of the most miserable people I've seen. NGS2 seems to swing between extremes of being really easy and then on Master Ninja just making all the grabs oneshot you makes people very frustrated with it.
The new attack animations feel really good, and the OTs are super nice (my personal favorite being the one where you kick them in the face before stabbing them). It's not that it's "necessary" but it feels a bit easy to fall into complacency relying on UTs in 2.
The movesets have more but I have to wonder how much of it actually helps with NG2's approach to huge crowds of enemies. The rooms being so wide for this now not having a use for the reduced enemies makes environment interaction non-existent too.
Rachel feels a lot better to play in this game, and giving her a huge machine gun was so smart. Ayane feels nice too but I hear the girls don't feel properly tuned to tackle the higher difficulties.
Much better bosses aside from that fucking water serpent, Genshin is a cool rival but Ryu has really lacked a defining rivalry with anyone which may have played a part in NG not staying in the cultural zeitgeist as DMC persisted, not helped by the fact that Ryu kills Genshin here too lol.
I tried not relying on items and Ninpo but the final stage being a gauntlet of Fiend Genshin, Erzabet, Dagra Dai, and then Archfiend was kinda crazy lol
As an aside, I enjoyed being able to mod it so I could play as Momiji with the Dragon Sword, she's cute.
Most used combo: XX->XYY (dashing while cutting up everything in front of you)
Razor's Edge
This is where you really start seeing foundations that would be continued through Nioh 2. Steel on Bone and Cicada Surge are the backbone of Burst Attacks and Burst Counter in Nioh 2.
From the start, the tone makes it very clear that the series is in a different direction from Itagaki, as there's a lot of scenes that show Ryu's face (which was one of his big no-nos for depicting the character). The story attempts to be something different than "Ryu's village gets ransacked for an item and he murders his way through to get it back." People said it was awful, but I didn't find it so offensive as much as it was just ridden with Hollywood cliches of its decade, the story backdrop using military operatives makes a lot of the settings a bit monotone too.
Itagaki just kinda vibed with riding on aura alone lol. That would be fine, but it kinda fell behind compared to how DMC3's story gets a lot more love these days for how effectively it can tell a story without taking too much time. Action game fans often don't give a shit and don't want devs to give a shit but it's like, come on, it's not impossible to have both.
Enemies in RE are characterized by having much better defense and evasion than any other enemies in the series, which frustrates fans of NG2 where you just hack your way through crowds, so it's combat direction is an antithesis to NG2 which I believe is why even the RE version gets such a bad rap. Alchemists are infamous for basically being Justin Wong when it comes to defense, but it does make me consider things like delaying combo strings and stuff which help catch their rolls which I appreciate even if they beat my face in goofy style when I first got to them.
Another major difference is the Ki meter and removal of consumables, forcing players to use Ninpo to heal based on hitting enemies. Some people really don't like that, but as someone who doesn't like leaning too heavily on the old "shmup bomb" style Ninpo or chugging items, it feels tailor made to how I play to get me to actually use it. In addition, the Ki meter is also used for things like sniping ranged enemies in slowmo in midair, or using Cicada Surge to dodge an incoming attack midcombo, as well as using it to recharge max HP lost inbetween fights, I like that a lot even if the max HP loss is pretty harsh (I found RE to be harder than the rest by a longshot personally). On top of that, RE does not have essence, as UT need to be charged through combat before letting it rip instantly. This means on a whole, RE has less cheese, imo (I wasn't really fond of having to keep essence floating around by holding guard and then losing it if I got knocked down anyway).
Still, that doesn't change that RE's biggest shortcoming is that it had to be built on top of NG3. Having said that, the QTEs aren't as invasive as people made it seem either, even without button prompts, you can smartly intuit which button they want you to press without having to slam a huge picture on the screen. He's about to hit a wall, hold L2+R2, he's going down a slope, get ready to jump. Press Y when he jumps at something. Knife climbing was just about the only thing that wore out its welcome but it's not so unforgivable either.
The main thing is that the opening hour pretty rough with players not having access to many tools and having to fight that damn spider tank. Funny thing about that stealth section in Day 1 though, they really wanted to put more "sneaky" ninja moments that actually feel like being a ninja rather than just being a really fast warrior lol, mixed results, but having a lot of Falcon Dive moments works in that regard when 2 mostly only had that one section in Tokyo when he busts into the skyscraper.
Enemy variety tends to be another criticism of this game, and while dressing most of the main mobs in like army fatigues makes them blend together, I feel like that's been a historic Team Ninja weakness. I get it but I don't really mind either. I would like a mob that's equivalent to the Aberrant Soldier in Nioh 2, still vaguely human but slowly transforming into a fiend (that would be less jarring for Kasumi to cut down at the very least, if she had to mercy kill these guys). The Homunculi are different in that they only transform after their base form is slain. It also takes them awhile to introduce new enemy types, too.
Boss fights are hit-and-miss again, mostly because they have one too many mech bosses and not enough humanoid or fiend bosses, but at least Regent is a cool fight. I like the contrast of him using a rapier to match Ryu's agility with a katana and having that steppy jig fighting stance which works with how hammy his character is.
Combos are so insanely freeform you can just hit buttons and make stuff work as long as you've got the fundamentals. Just look at this section that tells me everything I can do when my signature gap closer is blocked:
The movelist is so insanely bloated because they list every step and every variation of how to get to an endpoint so it's a lot more overwhelming than it actually is. That being said, it adapts to context really well, such as cases where you try to launch but the enemy doesn't go with you, so instead of doing the air combo you immediately go to Falling Falcon instead to attack on your way down, and then continue your offense like that. You really don't have to worry about memorizing anything, just experiment and find what you like.
At the same time, this is when I started getting better about using Wind Path (because it has iframes and auto targets a jump that makes it a lot easier to use the command grab or Flying Swallow the next target), and I feel like I was pushed into using all the tools I had even on Normal, which I like a lot.
Also hey! They got the DMC mocap team for RE lol
Most used combo: XX->XY(Y) (combo into his alternate rising slash) and XXXYYY (the one Ren Hayabusa uses a lot in Nioh 2 with all the spins lol)
I'm definitely excited to keep playing RE more than the rest, it's probably my favorite in spite of its uphill start and the fact that they had 6 months to cook this after NG3 released, which inevitably left some parts that were probably not cooked long enough. Kasumi is so insanely fun and the most fun character to play for me in the entire series.
I'm excited for NG4, even if it looks to have more of Platinum's thumbprint on it more than Team Ninja, but the fact that there's focus on having two protagonists makes it seem unlikely the girls will be playable in it (if they even show up in the story), which would be unfortunate.
Team Ninja's going full throttle this year, maybe it'll be enough to convince Itagaki purists that they've learned a lot in the last 13 years.
Finished my revisit through Nioh 1 before going back to the sequel
First of all, jesus tumblr has changed a lot since I last used it.
Streams can be found here but its roughly 17 and a half hours worth, and thats leaving out many of the side missions
preliminary thoughts will be written below about missions, bosses, and some misc thoughts
There are 20 missions in the base game, including the Prologue and Epilogue, and while one mission is just a cutscene, I’m reminded of my girlfriend saying to me that she’s gonna laugh if Nioh 2 had 20 missions because it really just dresses the game up in 3 different PS2 action games in a dark souls rpg trenchcoat (which is correct).
Any Sub-Missions mentioned are because they have a unique map that isn’t reused in Nioh 2 that is worth mentioning.
Prologue: The Man With the Guardian Spirit
The framing device of the narrative means the actual game starts in London before we head out to Japan. Because William has not technically studied kenjutsu via convenient booklet yet, this means that we’re locked in Mid Stance the entire mission, can’t ki pulse, and gain no amrita, meaning that much of the encounters and mission pace are worthless, as we’re missing 80% of the meat of the game. Just run past everything. The only thing interesting about it is that it contrasts in environment with the whole of the upcoming game’s areas. You get to hear Timothy Watson (Urianger FFXIV: Heavensward-onward) as a disembodied voice (later revealed to be John Dee). You get to hear some hamfisted final thoughts of corpses that barely tie into tutorials for them (prisoners getting tortured saying they’re getting kicked while they’re down being a tutorial for Final Blows is my favorite of them).
A little note is that is because these aren’t Japanese shrines, William uses a different emote when praying at them rather than clasping his hands, a neat little detail. Dying in the Tower of London has a different death message, font ("This Life Has Ended" vs "You Died"), and different loading screens and music.
William is made an Irishman compared to his historical counterpart so Team Ninja could give him a spirit from Celtic Mythology as his partner and justification for immortality (a Merrow named Saorise). She’s cute and speaks entirely in Gaelic.
Boss: Derrick the Executioner
He’s mostly just an axe revenant but bigger. Even when he transforms its like a cross between an Amrita Fiend (that being just a slightly upgraded Yoki). And then you beat him with a cutscene.
But now our Merrow wife was stolen!
KYUSHU REGION
Mission 1: Isle of Demons
One of the biggest criticism of the game amongst its peers is the overuse of villages, forests, and caves. While caves are definitely overused, I personally like villages and forests, and you get a couple of different types of the latter in particular even in this game.
Now the game gives a proper tutorial, although the UI for selecting your loadout is a bit dry, it does give a bit of a description of what to expect from the weapon, which the sequel doesn’t really do.
Right away, the proper opening mission gives us an insight into one of the main ways this game’s level design differs from Dark Souls, in that there are multiple routes that converge to a point that can cater to different levels of strength at a time when you play them and discretion, the shorter path of most resistance and the more sensible route for the first time player, but with the way the NG+ system works in this game, your next rodeo you’ll be prepared to handle it.
In that regard, this is a well designed mission to start with. There are few avenues where you will be ambushed with any level of actual threat. There are a few yokai, but mostly dwellers and any yokai realm enemies are Yoki. You’ll mostly contend with humans who have no super armor on their attacks, so its just a matter of picking your fights and watching your ki using ki pulses. You’ll occasionally run into a ranged enemy from a high perch, but not the kind that lure you into a fight before they engage you (which the game loves to try and goad you into later on).
The village fringes are easy to navigate, and upon seeing the slope leading to the larger building atop a hill guarded by multiple enemies, a player will likely be spurned toward the forest to go around and sneak along the edge of the cliff, before getting to the main village and then to the coast on the other side where the boss awaits.
Boss: Onryoki
Starter boss that is emblematic of a lot of the lackluster concept of many Nioh 1 bosses. Slow, but easy to circle around so it’ll constantly be using its back attacks (which are always meaty spin attacks), the active frames being annoying to work around because enemy damage is absurd that it’ll probably kill you. The boss becomes much more bearable once the chains break at a certain HP%.
They overuse this boss way too much.
We now have access to Novice Ninjutsu, which finaly allows us to backstab unaware enemies, among other things.
Mission 2: Deep in the Shadows
Here we get the much-loathed caves. They introduce a few new enemies (Ninja Yoki, One-eyed Oni, Large Skeletons). Enemies do a lot of ki damage and there’s a dearth of footing, so players will probably fall to their death a lot of they’re not getting ki broken and killed after unless you’re a spacing god like me with Yoki lol.
Boss: Hino Enma
When people talk about preferring Nioh 1, they usually mention this boss as this super hard wall that speaks of the game’s difficulty (and for that type of gamer, means they think the game is better). In reality she largely just has basic attacks that do a lot of ki damage that have a lot of active frames that make her annoying, on top of her paralysis shouts. The most interesting thing is that she hits you with an umbrella sometimes, but her gimmick is the paralysis.
I just activated Living Weapon and beat her up, LW is so silly. She’s not hard, just annoyingly simple.
Afterwards we meet Okatsu, who will be conspicuously absent in the DLCs and sequel likely due to not being able to use Emi Takei’s likeness. She seems like a surrogate for the modern viewer’s values commenting on the insanity of honor-based warrior culture and the amount of death it brings.
Both of the Sub-Missions that take place here involve the Heshikiri Hasebe being lost, come on, man.
Mission 3: The Spirit Stone Slumbers
I’m actually pretty fond of the surface level of Dazaifu Temple. Thankfully the water is only knee high so its not lethal. It’s relatively level but gets players more familiar with ambushes.
Boss: Nue
Thunderbolts do an annoyingly high amount of damage, some come out a bit unfairly quick (particularly when recovering from ki break). As always, any boss that specializes in lightning damage will be annoying because shock status is the worst and slows you down. Trying to hit the the stomach when glowing to ki break it instantly is rather inconsistent.
After beating the Nue we go to the underground section, which i hated a lot more because it was so repetitive I got lost and ran in circles a bit, and the stone sentinels are tedious to fight in the early game due to their high damage and slow vulnerability. There’s a good reason they didn’t bring this enemy back for the sequel. They’re like lesser umi-bozu if they actually had the potential to kill you on their own.
Ginchiyo Tachibana joins us for the last hallway of the mission. She has unique animations posing with her hand by her sword and while moving too, but I don’t believe she has any unique attacks like her husband. You can run back to a previous section to bathe in a hot spring and she’ll be appaled at your lack of manners.
Boss: Muneshige Tachibana (sus)
Kelley’s attempt at pretending to be Japanese, but lacks the capacity for lightning the real deal does (thank god). Still, you can parry most of his attacks except the Tiger Sprint (running Iai), and Quadrisect (Sword’s LW skill but he can do it without LW). This is mostly a fight about watching out for not getting ki broken.
We then get access to Novice Onmyo and Novice Martial Arts, and, if one really wanted to tear their hair out, a proper duel with the real deal, as Muneshige is brutal for a duel mission this early in the game (no wonder Nioh 2 waited till the 3rd region to give duel missions).
CHUGOKU REGION
This is largely a filler region, as William is stalled by the appearance of an Umi-bozu damaging the Liefde preventing him from traveling inland.
Mission 4: The Silver Mine Writhes
This is the closest equivalent to a swamp level, but its also a boring cave level. There are fans that vacuum miasma clouds so you can destroy the rocks generating them.
Boss: Great Centipede
A big Nothing Boss, activate LW and cut it into chunks. I feel like this boss might give trypophobics a bad time.
Mission 5: The Ocean Roars Again
I don’t know how to describe it, but this stage has a lot of Otogi vibes to it, which is funny considering Otogi was a pre-Souls From Software game. The stage is likely to invite a lot of watery deaths in the way of its broken wooden floors blending under the water surface. This is when players need to start considering one way drops in order to reach more parts of the area, as well as having to keep watch for Nurikabe to access blocked areas, rather than their existence just getting a way around an area or encounter.
Here’s a stage where they introduce benefits for full exploration in easing the boss fight. Lighting the 3 main bonfires will automatically kill the adds when they enter boss fight, and can be used after to buff your weapon with fire so you don’t need to use your own buff on it.
The place is likely to wear out its welcome very quickly.
Boss: Umi-bozu
I don’t think you’ll find a single person who likes this boss, and for good reason. Aside from the other valid reasons people hate fighting its lesser ilk, not having fire damage makes this fight unbearably slow. Thankfully, Nioh glues you to floor edges when attacking unlike Dark Souls, but moving closer when the boss is at the edge of the arena will result is slipping between the ground and it, falling into the water. And many of its attacks are large, and painfully slowly telegraphed attacks that do tons of damage, which is a source of frustration on its own. Thankfully, due to the nature of the fight and its arena, it is never seen outside of this mission.
We now have access to Adept Martial Arts, Ninjutsu, and Onmyo.
Sub-Mission: Bridge of Bone
A series of enemy gauntlets taking place on a pretty banged up set of bridges. It’s a rather generic environment, but scenic nonetheless given this is a game about samurai, so bridge fights are good. Maybe it was simply too generic after all and that’s why it didn’t reappear in the sequel. A later sub mission has William fight the revenant of Benkei, recreating his famous fight with Yoshitsune. In higher difficulties, Yoshitsune himself is represented by a Raven Tengu accompanying Benkei. The bridge missions were popular for dropping your revenants for other players to get copies of your gear from you, so it made a nice backdrop to fight them in.
KINKI REGION
Mission 6: Spider Nest Castle
If you didn’t hate spiders for dropping on you over loot, you will now, and you will learn to look up at this point. The place is pretty disgusting to look at overall, and unlike usual yokai realm spawned monsters, the giant spiders that jump out of the glowing amrita nests count as an attack when they land, its pretty sudden to, so try not to get spooked by it. I got pretty tired of having to check all the eggs for tiny spiders since their web attack slows you down so much and also does way too much ki damage.
It’s another mission that rewards exploration, as every Hiragumo Teapot Fragment found will remove a plate of leg armor from the boss. The lower caves being just a spider nest was annoying for all the spiders hiding on the ceilings and the parts of the map worth seeing aren’t really used when they bring the location back in Nioh 2 for side missions and the Underworld.
I never actually found Fragment V... as evidenced by my lack of trophy for collecting all the pieces
Boss: Joro-gumo
The boss itself is pretty standard in having a one-two swipe combo, and then an aoe attack when she curls her legs into herself and tries to spin her thorax into you. It just gets even easier when you can hit any of her legs instead of just her front or back.
Mission 7: Falling Snow
Between this mission and the historical Honnoji mission featured in Nioh 2, it was interesting how much of the architecture remained intact, and how removing the ice blockage makes it a different level that is familiar nonetheless, as certain buildings and features are recognizable landmarks in the two missions. The main gimmick is how the lingering regrets of the boss power ice formations in your way that you have to destroy in order to be able to damage the former. Likewise, in the Honnoji mission in Nioh 2, rather than swinging your weapon at the ice butterflies, you merely touch your hand to them, which speaks to the difference in relationship between the boss in question and the player character in 2 vs William who is an outsider to it all.
Ranmaru Mori is encountered as a NPC Revenant with unique dialogue, although he uses Dual Swords instead of Sword in 2, nor is encountering him an obtuse affair involving a specifically looted Devotional Helm.
Overall, I’m a fan of this stage, it helps that nothing in this game happens in the winter until the DLCs due to the much shorter timeframe of the main story, so its the only time you encounter snow.
Boss: Yuki-onna
This is the first boss I felt had any sort of style, especially with her introduction (I’ve said the way characters are introduced in the impression they leave is a specialty Team Ninja really refines in the sequel). Though her attacks are only marginally more interesting, and more likely will give you a hard time with water damage going through your guard. I’ve found her AoE attack is much harder to dodge and is much larger than most, which will also nearly kill you too, it feels a bit too much even for this game. Oh and she starts the first game’s trend of having half-screen dashing grabs, and it only gets worse from there. She's tough but for all the wrong reasons that would make a satisfying challenge.
Mission 8: The Demon of Mount Hiei
It’s a gloomy, rainy stage, again, like “The Spirit Stone Slumbers.” However, I must confess once again I do have a weakspot for the atmosphere it provides. The paths are largely linear, but the main gimmick is that there are a few strong enemies that regenerate health around giant amrita formations that need to be destroyed to kill them. Damage in bursts like an Iai Quickdraw are ideal here. There are some caves but you’ll be weaving between caves and mountain slopes so it doesn’t get as repetitive.
There’s also another Nue here, as a reference to the mythical feat of Minamoto no Yorimasa slaying a Nue on Mt. Hiei.
Boss: White Tiger (Byakko)
Our funny cat gets owned! I hate this boss largely for how jumpy he is and how many hits his AoE spin is, given how much ki damage it does, trying to block it will result in getting ki broken and then killed.
Sub-Mission: The Disappearing Ranjatai
This map is used for quick missions due to it being a tightly packed square, there are a couple of different ways they arrange objectives here. You can count on them not taking too long which is good. Nioh 2 Sub-Missions are a bit more varied in setup (meanwhile the bathhouse map in this game has them use the same “get 3 keys to spell I-RO-HA” twice. In the same region.) I would’ve liked to see them use this map in 2 over the freaking “dilapidated shrine with underground cave” they use more like in “A Request From Ginchiyo” even in 2.
Mission 9: The Iga Escape
TOKAI REGION
Because this area is so far removed from the rest of the locations in both games, locations simply cannot be reused as a result. You dont really travel as far over the course of nioh 2s story (not having a ship will do that).
If you have a terrible sense of direction this place will probably throw you for a loop. If you end up running around in a circle, Hanzo is scripted to appear to give you a hint, which is probably expected since this is the first time encountering ninja trick doors based on the circular floor marks. Not only that, but there are many trick doors and some are one-way trips. The place feels more like a playground but it’ll definitely be more lethal than one. The brief outdoor segment is probably the part I like most.
Aside from there, there’s a section where you enter a dead end and slash a wall scroll and suddenly the entire room is upside when you step out, which is still pretty impressive to me now. This is another mission that I like save for the fact that there’s just a gratuitous room full of spiders, the same one tha flips upside down.
Boss: Giant Toad
Mostly whatever, but rather obnoxious with the jump slam being awkward to dodge through due to combination of camera obscuring and long active frames (are you getting the pattern here). It is funny seeing Masanari’s father alive in Nioh 2 and he indeed has the same spear after all though. Don’t stand behind him either because his turning attack is also multihit, same shit as White Tiger.
We now have access to Veteran Martial Arts, Ninjutsu, and Onmyo (though you’ll need a decent amount of proficiency in a single weapon, 300k).
Mission 10: Memories of Death Lilies
Really beautiful environment that is sadly obscured by fog, which is part of the problem in-universe. It really shines when you get to the shrine parts, combined with the waterfalls and lycoris flowers surrounding the place. Layout is rather linear, but given how confusing the previous mission was, I daresay it’s welcome.
Boss: Ogress
Kinda like Mergo’s Wet Nurse but even easier because she tends to just have a blind spot right under her face lol. She cries tears that grow lycoris that turn into yokai realm, but its not really a big deal. Really pretty arena though.
Mission 11: The Weight of the World
This one is just a one-time cutscene so William gets a little more motivation and trying to fit some kind of character development (not that its really necessary). This does however mark the point that William starts getting involved in the actual war by consequence of his search, as up to this point we’ve been working around the actual battles fought. It’s greatly contrasted with Nioh 2.
Mission 12: The Defiled Castle
We start this mission crawling through shit, so you better have regen talismans or you’ll have a terrible time trying to use your elixirs. This mission has crystal formations that are mind controlling Tokugawa soldiers, which will incapacitate everyone connected to it (as shown on your compass). While you can kill the soldiers in self defense, and there’s no reward for sparing them, it feels nice to, they’ll thank you as the disappear (which is just them retreating).
Boss: Tadakatsu Honda
This guy tends to be a major asshole about using a high speed thrust that will probably oneshot you or something close to it every time he dodges. Just destroy the 3 crystal formations in the arena and try not to get owned.
You can also skip him entirely by giving the necessary amount of shit balls to a random guy before. It’s... odd.
The following region has some branching paths but it’s also the first time you’re climbing up a castle, it can get a bit disorienting where to go, and more of the same mind control crystals, with getting outnumbered being an easy occurance with the cramped rooms. Having Suppa and Catwalking helps a lot.
Boss: Okatsu
She has an annoying habit of constantly dodging, and her dodges go way farther than anyone else. She can do lunging thrusts off walls and technically gets a kind of air dash to do that when she uses her variation of Living Weapon. Ki breaking her is likely not going to happen due to Nioh 1 AI prioritizing dodging at low ki and her special dodges being that way.
I feel like parts of her attacks were reused for Fist weapons in Nioh 2.
SEKIGAHARA REGION
Mission 13: Immortal Flame
One of my favorite missions in terms of layout. There are multiple approaches throughout the stage and they converge and split again there aren’t really any redundant shortcuts either (which is something the game can be guilty of sometimes, even in 2). All of the fire is kind of an eyesore but the castle itself is beautiful, at least, if you think about it before it was attacked. The stage is just the one i think of the most among nioh 1 maps when it comes to the difference in nioh’s level design vs dark souls.
This stage introduces Amrita Fiends that have spikes to throw, but if you know how to strike the horn they’re not any harder than sword Yoki.
Boss: Magoichi Saika
I actually entered this fight unprepared, due to the room where his objective looks like it might be is just another room, the actual boss room is right above that, so I don’t remember if there’s a shrine nearby there. I guess in a way that’s how he “ambushes” you.
As far as human bosses go, he’s definitely one of the most unique due to how he fights with Yatagarasu instead of just having a Living Weapon mode, even then, his fighting with a musket and swinging his sword more like a cane necessitates a much different moveset. He does have an annoying habit of shooting point blank without even rolling in 1 though.
He also has an easy weakness to shuriken when he’s flying, and human bosses in 1 don’t recover quickly from attacks that ground them like in 2 so you get a free Final Blow.
Mystic Art unlock missions are now available for Weapons, you’ll need 500k proficiency for each type.
Mission 14: Sekigahara
The first section is pretty standard, but brief. While it is foggy, this is actually historically true as well and what contributed to a large amount of tension in the decisive battle between the Western and Eastern armies.
Boss: Otani Yoshitsugu
Rather unique in that he has traits of a youkai boss and human boss both. You can clearly see how his attacks are inspired by Dual Sword skills but not exactly the same, which is more fun that just being exactly the same.
However, he’s a lot easier than I remember.
With Tokugawa soldiers’ morale increased, they rush into the field, going with them will remind you that this game is not Samurai Warriors and you will be shot to death with little glory while trying to clash swords with that other guy.
The two main routes, then, are running upstream or hiding in the abandoned village buildings on the lower end of the map.
Boss: Sakon Shima
RIP Keiji Fujiwara, but this guy is a real dick to fight, as expected of an enemy with a lightning Guardian Spirit. His special attack involves launching you off the ground which makes it impossible to avoid the followup. It’s pretty sudden too, and it’ll oneshot.
Unfortunately, they patched all of the Guardian Spirit skills that can launch enemies like Mizuchi or Daiba-washi to do the same to him.
He comes back in a Sub-Mission in the 3rd DLC with his straw hat as “Mysterious Samurai” but with Mitsunari’s Izuna Guardian Spirit.
Mission 15: The Source of Evil
Sekigahara but Fucked Up(TM), now instead of predominantly human enemies its all yokai. You need to talk to Tenkai to get the purifying stakes for the red amrita crystals, which create permanent yokai realm zones (possibly even more intense in their effects) and act as Biwa Boku-boku that will automatically summon any revenants inside the red zones when approached. When purified, there are now zones that give a lot of buffs relating to the Amrita Gauge, allowing frequent use of Living Weapon.
Oh, and the boss will occasionally try to blast you. This gets pretty annoying. The layout isn’t really anything special overall.
Boss: Gasha-Dokuro
My first attempt, something happened and the boss became misaligned when knocked down and I couldn’t hit its face, that was weird and bothersome because I wasn’t sure what to do.
Not terribly difficult, but not fun either despite having more uses of LW from the purified auras (if you did do that). Break the feet one each and have a go at its face, if you have to break the hands things get even more tedious. Sometimes its hands will come from offscreen and oneshot you while youre focused on the feet, yaaaayyy.
OMI REGION
Mission 16: A Defiled Holy Mountain
Also a contender for one of the best maps in the game, in terms of design and atmosphere. It has a very Jade Cocoon-esque quality to it. The mountains can get tiresome to look at but the forest parths and general greenery really do contribute to the concept of Mt. Ibuki being a source of purity. There’s many different winding paths, and you find many officers on the run being cutdown by bandits. This is the first time (and one of the few times in general) that you see NPC graves appearing in real time immediately after someone is killed. You even do that to another person yourself, with the message “Cut down by William” as the cause of death.
Boss: Mitsunari Ishida
He has some stylish attacks but he’s wrapped up in such an annoying package. Also the first boss that has a tendency to activate LW as soon as you knock him out of it, which is a continuing trend. Of note are his two grabs which are pretty fast, one using his Guardian Spirit Izuna (which does an Izuna Drop), the other being a leaping rush that is bound to get someone.
He also has an attack that charges up and then slashes all around him with wind waves, but it’s not really apparently what direction to expect which slashes which make it an utter annoyance considering guarding it will get you blustered by wind damage, and then rocks will fall from the roof after too.
Mystic Art unlock missions are now available for Ninjutsu and Onmyo. You can finally remove cast animations from buffs. You should be leveling both Dexterity and Magic so the 20 stat requirement to do these shouldn’t matter.
Mission 17: The Samurai from Sawayama
What an utterly confusing stage, it’s far too easy to get lost in here, especially if you fall through the trapdoors and end up in the spider filled corpse pits. Easily my most loathed stage. The stage is entirely indoors and its not particularly interesting to look at either.
Boss: Obsidian Samurai (Yasuke)
The good thing is that this boss is very enjoyable, moreso being able to spar with him more easily in Nioh 2. An oddly high amount of his attacks are susceptible to being parried though. He relies less on form and will often just punch or kick you raw in between strikes and overall has a great “give and take” pace, despite not having a fantastical concept to design attacks around, just that he’s got a big axe and tachi, and a mean haymaker.
Mission 18: The Demon King Revealed
Right off the bat we’re assisted by Hanzo and Okatsu, so you can tell the game isn’t going to pull any punches. Painfully so, Nioh 1 didn’t really quite figure out how to balance encounters with NPC allies very well, especially in the rare occasions you get two. You’ll often fight 3 powerful yokai at once who will steamroll your allies and turning into a well greased deathball makes it hard for you to get into as well. There’s at least 3 instances of this, and there are multiple waves of it in each too.
Upon approaching the castle proper after being separated from your allies, on my very first playthrough I was taking in the sight that I didn’t notice the path crumbling and fell to my death, but thankfully, they just put me and my grave at the head end of the approach that I was supposed to run to.
Once we get to Azuchi Castle proper, it turns into a mega man-esque boss rush of 4 earlier yokai bosses, Onryoki, Hino Enma, Nue, and Joro-gumo. Given you have a chance to refresh resources between each fight, it’s not particularly difficult, and there’s no real justification for it either, so it was really just put in to pad the stage, the elevator just automatically activates once that’s cleared.
Boss: Nobunaga Oda
The entire game was building up to this moment, but Nobunaga himself doesn’t really want to be here, so he fights in a somewhat familiar way, taking bits from Mitsunari and Muneshige, while using Tengen Kujaku’s 3 different elemental forms by cycling through a LW with each, giving him different capabilities in each.
He likes to float around a lot at high speed too, which is a bit annoying as he has two different post game fights in which he features as one of the bosses fought alongside another. Despite being feared and being rather powerful in-universe, you can parry him in some ways all the same.
You won’t get a proper boss fight with him alone though, as his fight will end before depleting his HP.
Boss: Kelley
Immediately after, we fight Kelley. Who, surprise, has a dashing grab attack! He’s also one of the only bosses that really has a counter attack, and an annoying one that he likes to spam a lot. He also likes to teleport around to make you chase him. He’s not supposed to have a lot of HP as the tradeoff I guess?
Boss: Yamata-no-Orochi
And then after Kelley he immediately invokes the Yamata-no-Orochi. Thankfully, dying here does not make you repeat Kelley. The one saving grace of this fight is that it’s impossible to fall off the castle during it, so you mostly just need to focusing on reading the snakehead’s attacks. Their breath attacks don’t have a great telegraph, so they’ll probably damage through guard.
Fight one head, then two, and then the last of them show up and open the arena up. By goading them into breaking the amrita structures, they overload and collapse, getting an easy kill on one of them. Once there’s only one head left, the last one will power up, but it’s not that much different. It’s a pretty tedious fight overall, and would probably have made for a more epic boss in a regular RPG rather than an action game. This is something that is greatly rectified with the sequel’s choice of final boss.
Divine rarity gear is now unlocked. Saorise is finally returned to us! She specializes in boosting Amrita Gauge gain, but only physically summoning her with Moment Talismans (retranslated to Fleeting Talismans in 2) or Guardian Spirit Talismans.
Roll credits. But there’s stll something we have to do...
Epilogue: The Queen’s Eyes
Back to the Tower of London, we essentially run the reverse path that we did to escape, which was oddly confusing due to the placement of the two staircases looking similar. Instead of running back to the cells, we find the underground alchemy lab, seeing yokai being cultivated in amrita tanks, and up ahead...
Boss: Kelley Clones
In-game prestige points label this encounter as a boss fight despite lack of boss health bars, but everyone is inclined to agree, as you are essentially fighting 3 (naked) Kelleys at once, and things will get hairy very quickly if you’re not on top of it. You can eliminate the first one crashing out of the tank, but two at once is still an endeavor so it’s best to just leave it to LW, like many things in this game.
Boss: Hundred Eyes
John Dee turns his lab into an arena with dinosaur bones hanging around or something. There’s a lot of Amrita. The boss is rather unconventional in that he doesn’t have as many physical attacks (and bosses don’t have that many different attacks in this game in general). It instead turns into something like bullet hell lite, with many eye drones shooting lasers at you that inflict confusion directly rather than relying on inflicting two elemental debuffs at once. The drones fill a lot of amrita gauge when destroyed so the fight leans into using a lot of LW. He can kill you easily, but the fight isn’t difficult either
POST-GAME MISSIONS
Sub Mission: A Meeting on the Other Shore, The Return of the Gourd
Nioh 1s idea of endgame challenges is throwing 2-3 bosses that were clearly not designed to be fought together and make you figure it out (the answer is always LW). Sometimes preceded by an enemy gauntlet you have to clear each attempt too. Its bad. Really bad.
Key examples are fighting Yuki-onna and Nobunaga together, a gauntlet followed by Obsidian Samurai and Nobunaga, fighting Tadakatsu Honda and Muneshige Tachibana, Hanzo amd Okatsu, a gauntlet of ninjas before fighting Hanzo and Giant Toad, the spear and sword dojo masters. Even the mission that lets you duel Yoshitsugu and Mitsunari will have the latter spawn in if you take too long (and on higher difficulties he comes with an asshole shooting cannons at you).
If that sounds overkill, you would be right. Not only that, but the vital "Yasakani Magatama" accessory that reduces set requirements by 1 is the only guaranteed way to get it by doing Return of the Gourd on NG+
DRAGON OF THE NORTH (DLC1)
This being Team Ninjas first go at releasing DLC there was a rather infamous difficulty spike due to disconnect between them expecting players to have been continually powering themselves up while waiting for dlc to drop which leaves a late player lacking that intermittent time.
As a result, I took a bit of time offstream to find pieces to finish the Dragon Ninja set (which technically wasnt available until dlc3, but nevertheless was necessary, and i was sick of using warrior of the west armor). When completing 7 pieces, True Dragon Sword is activated, reflecting in the swords model having the magatama inserted in thr hilt with a light glow, just like in the xbox ninja gaiden games.
Mission 19: Yokai Country
Its a beautiful snowy forest that gives way to gentle streams, leading to a deep valley and a small village hidden within. It is awfully reminiscent of the good parts of DS3s Road of Sacrifices. Its a much needed change of scenery.
DLC introduces new enemy types the game really needs but uses them often as a result. Red Kappa are combat versions of their green normal types that have paralysis instead of water on their claws. Makes it easier for them to fist your anus. Namahage are a snowier and less predictable foe but equivalent to Yoki. Rokurokubi are slow but powerful foes that rarely can be pulled away from a spot, making you come to them. They are noticably more healthy in nioh 2. You often have to weave in and out because they will often do their aoe grab. Nioh 2 rokurokubi emit yokai mist even before they are revealed compared to the original game.
Boss: Date Shigezane
His deformation makes for more interesting attacks, as a centipede for an arm makes him toss blades lodged inside it or swing in different ways whether he holds his odachi in his human hand or yokai hand. However, this dlc has a nasty pattern of making bosses that swing incredibly fast with high ki damage that will often just kill you before you realize what happened. So once again a cool boss concept is ruined by the execution.
Mission 20: The One-Eyed Dragon’s Castle
As noted in the stages loading screen, Aoba Castle is notable for lacking a castle keep, so the confusing floorplans of Edo, Hifumi, and Sawayama Castle are removed. There are many murder holes for Date musketeers to fire at you from, which is the main stage gimmick. Thankfully they are large enough for you to shoot back at them. Progressing inward the level opens up and encourages you to explore at the urging of Nekomata foreshadowing how there are 3 towers that seem to cover each other...
Boss: Shigenaga Katakura
The boss himself is largely just an axe revenant that uses ninjutsu traps. The main gimmick is that his introduction is not a cutscene, and can be interrupted with him calling you out for it, but you get a trophy for letting him introduce himself. He will then order any men you werent thorough in cleaning out to open fire on you from all directions. If you kill a cannon Yoki in each tower they will permanently despawn.
Afterwards is a brief but beautiful garden trip before we get to a real doozy.
Boss: Masamune Date
A scenic moonlight drop in an arena noted to be similar to Kyoto's Kiyomizudera. You wont have time to enjoy it because Masamune will rip you a new one instantly, with a fast and subtle full screen grab, a large elemental aoe or tons of area denial depending on which guardian spirit hes using. He alternates between using LW between both, so youll have little time to rest, and often shoots flurries of sword beams at you. Rather than giving him many different attacks, they're reflective of the players moves but much faster and shooting sword beams everywhere, its quite disappointing for a man whose clan name would later be defined by his excessive flair.
Mission 21: Spirit Stone Huntress
Picking up immediately from the previous boss arena, this mission is literally only a boss fight, but the balcony is a popular place for people to leave revenants.
Boss: Maria
She has some of the standard combos you would expect from her rapier style, but her being from Spain with a rapier means that you get different kinds of attacks to deal with, so at least she has that over the other bosses in this dlc. She also uses alchemy for spell effects and a mimicry of living weapon, and loves to dash around to create a sense of a frantic pace, though it can vary whether the effect succeeded or not, i personally enjoy the fight but the damage scaling with higher difficulties kills the intended pace which makes it more frustrating, which is a recurring issue with the original game.
Sub-Mission: A Gilded Deception
A exploration mission about fighting revenants of fujitive Minamoto warriors. A brief section of this map is cleverly reused in Nioh 2s The Tengu's Disciple DLC.
DEFIANT HONOR (DLC2)
Due to the emphasis of Yukimura Sanada's refusal to use amrita, the only new enemy type are Ninken, ninja dogs, which are every bit as troublesome as it sounds.
Mission 22: The Siege of Osaka (Winter)
The Winter siege is never covered in Samurai Warriors, so the impenetrability of the Sanadamaru is never really covered. Most of the stage is running from cover to trenches from horrendous waves of flaming arrows and later on cannons that force you to stay on the move as they destroy your cover. Somehow you find a village that hasnt been leveled by the war. This is one of the weaker stages of the dlcs.
Boss: Sasuke Sarutobi
This was the only boss I had attempted to fight on Way of the Strong (NG+) rather than the default difficulty because i had worried I was doing too much damage, so this fight was particularly frustrating and caused me to revert difficulty after.
Sasuke has guns in his tonfas that you can get yourself. Once again, he has a very fast full screen grab with very little telegraph in terms of both startup and lack of exaggerated motion. One is like the lion combo from Naruto and the other just has him dempsey roll you lmao. He has frustratingly good tracking for his combos lengths and high speed and is a rather large pain in the ass rather than enjoyable because of how his speed is expressed in the fight.
Mission 23: Scion of Virtue
Starts in some rather bland caves underneath the Sanadamaru, you encounter 9 of the 10 Sanada Braves (due to Sasuke being the only proper boss fight). Each of them are slightly more skilled than the average revenant but vulnerable in all the same ways as them, if they arent setting up a trap or ambush involving snipers or something. The area itself is a rather tightly packed circle with a raised outer rampart that often has gunners and dense enemy layouts requiring careful engagement.
Boss: Yukimura Sanada
Yukimura reveals that not only does he fight with his own Qilin guardian spirit, he also inherited his father in law's, Janomecho. Qilin gives him familiar LW spear attacks and allows him to use his pistol (literally the only character in the duology that has one, I wish they made it a new ranged weapon type in 2) letting him charge it for explosive shots like devil may cry.
When he uses Janomecho, he floats off the ground like Yoshitsugu and gains a new moveset. Both of these are really cool but he has an annoying tendency to use his large diving aoe thats hard to dodge in Janomecho instead of his interesting attacks, but he's otherwise one of the better bosses in the original game overall.
Sub-Mission: Ganryu
If you finished the Dual Sword mystic art challenge, Yoshiteru Ashikaga gives you a mission to rescue a younger Takezo Shinmen, better known as Musashi Miyamoto back in Sekigahara, its something of a historical myth that he was present there, though highly unlikely. Clearing that will allow a special duel mission here, complete with a unique beach thats unused elsewhere.
Boss: Kojiro Sasaki
Although he is susceptible to reversals and parries like many human enemies, he mixes up a lot of the odachi moveset to create something unique thats still quite enjoyable to fight, and for being a hidden optional boss that is largely a remixed odachi warrior being one of my favorite bosses in this game that says a lot. Unfortunately Shinichiro Miki only voices Yukimura and doesnt voice a Kojiro for a 3rd time.
Many of his moves became available for odachi in the sequel, barring ones based on the LW moves.
BLOODSHED’S END (DLC3)
Mission 24: The Sanada’s Resolve
Half a year has passed, and the ceasefire required Osaka Castle fill its moats and decommission the Sanadamaru, when war breaks out again, the new fortifications are set on a mountain slope, with cannons taking shots. Its a very cramped and dense level, and certain cannons can be baited into destroying their own towers and revealing some extra places. You can also activate some cannons on your own.
The 9 Sanada Braves return but this time they are killed for good here, each with their own parting words and a grave immediately spawning at their feet by Williams hands where you can summom them and kill them again lol. These are the last human enemies youll fight in the main story. Its a pretty straightforward stage but nothing damning about it so its enjoyable.
Boss: Yukimura Sanada, Sasuke Sarutobi
That's right, its a rematch with Yukimura! But this time theres less room and when he gets down to 30%, Sasuke jumps in to assist, turning this fight into a sheer dps race (if you didnt get the memo, that means use LW) to prevent the situation from becoming unwinnable.
Mission 25: Resentment Unleashed
Introducing the last new enemy type, the Magatsu Warrior, a glass cannon elite enemy type that has 4 arms that is best fought by trying to break its extra amrita arms between its flurry of strikes. Its main weakness is lack of tracking, so it is mostly checking to see if players can keep their cool and not panic backwards dodging.
This stage is mostly a series of gauntlets fighting almost exclusively elite type yokai like cannon and ninja yoki with the magatsu warriors, fighting alongside Masamune and Shigezane Date (who has been purified of the centipede deformations). With the boss of the stage blasting you from out of reach.
In that regard, its a bit of a pain.
Boss: Onmoraki
The biggest whatever boss ever. Itll most likely just be spinning around from you being behind it all the time and hardly has any unique traits.
Mission 26: The Last Samurai
This stage is a bit more linear than i remember. But the large chunk of it is fighting elite yokai. There are amrita formations that continually spawn elite enemies while also recovering damage dealt to it quickly, so in order to avoid getting overwhelmed any encounter with these is best dealt with LW, as usual. The amrita roots that encircle the castle feel a bit like hair, or perhaps tails...
There are ghost encounters of Yoshitsugu Otani and Mitsunari Ishida on two separate floors.
Boss: Hideyori Toyotomi
On my very first playthrough, i mostly wrote him off as a joke because i killed him quickly without much trouble, but hes actually quite an impressive fighter for being a coddled child (and also an amrita homunculus). On higher difficulties he no doubt becomes the same issues as many other bosses, since he also loves to shoot sword beams. He switches between a single and dual sword style and at low hp, changes classification to yokai, which also makes him immune to counters (you can still parry him with backwave though, odd). Hes got a surprising amount of flair and is at least a little impressive to watch, though more of an annoyance to fight if you dont push momentum on him.
Afterwards, Yukimura joins you with all of his boss capabilities as you fight one last gauntlet of yokai and revenants while Yukimura expresses his regrets, passing Janomecho to you.
Boss: Nine-Tails
Because youre aided by Yukimura, this fight is not particularly challenging. Using the whole fox shape also doesnt make many of her attacks very interesting. Unfortunately I just dont have much to say about her despite being the final boss of the dlc storyline.
Sub-Mission: A Warrior of Keen Judgment
While not a unique map, I enjoy this sub mission in particular due to it being a remix of the first regions "A Request From Ginchiyo" but with her husband Muneshige now. He is just as strong as he was, and after the battle of Sekigahara, he is now allied with the Tokugawa rather than at odds. Like the earlier mission, the objective is found in one of 3 random marked chests. With each one thats empty, he speaks more about his relationships, and sweetly reminisces about his late wife and fighting alongside her.
Sub-Mission: The Master Ninja
After completing The Last Samurai, we get a mysterious message from the Hayabusa clan. This was a huge surprise, as Ninja Gaiden was the last thing expected in this game at the time.
The arena of choice is evocative of the grass plain seen in the intro of the very first Ninja Gaiden on NES.
Boss: Jin Hayabusa
Jin is a completely different beast from any human fought before. His skills are taken straight out of Ninja Gaiden while having nothing in common in anything else in the game. His Dragon Sword is blindingly fast, high damage and ki damage, including the infamous Flying Swallow that was notoriously overpowered in the original xbox release. He has actual Ninpo which is better than Onmyo despite being a different school, and throws shuriken much faster and damaging than yours ever will. If he switches to Kusarigama though then his moveset is closer to the player's. Presumably because the only weapon similar is the Vigoorian Flails but theres no gama on those.
Despite this, the nostalgia factor makes this one of the most enjoyable fights for me, as it is expressly a matter of overcoming someone who is undoubtedly more overpowered than you.
His boss theme reuses Genshins Theme from Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, and has a unique mission clear tune.
MISC THOUGHTS
Found 146/225 Kodama without Kodama Sensor.
Due to the lack of enemy variety in this game, when they introduce a new enemy type they tend to really wear it out fast by making every yokai realm enemy that new one.
Some regular soldiers and ninja have Odachi and Tonfa in the base game missions on the normal difficulty, I don’t know if this is affected by me having the DLC or not because I don’t remember if there were still Odachi and Tonfa enemies even before I bought the DLCs.
Most shrines nearest to bosses still require a bit of running to get to the boss unlike 2 where most of them are free of enemies on the way.
There’s at least 3 different maps that are some flavor of “underground onmyoji shrine.”
Grabs are inconsistent in whether they get the grey smoke to indicate its a grab, and there’s no specific SFX to indicate one like in 2.
Ki consumption differences in A rank Agility vs B rank is a lot more noticable in this game, and mastering ki pulse flux is much more important in this game when yokai skills in nioh 2 allow for ki recovery while attacking. When you have Agility A suddenly you can attack much more.
Much of the game has to be balanced around the sheer power of Living Weapon, to its detriment.
Boss HP bars do not display ki, which really threw me for a loop even though ki damage isn’t as important in Nioh 1, especially with human enemies prioritizing avoiding getting ki broken and backpedaling a lot more when they’re at risk.
While a chunky LW bar is harder to get, it is surprisingly easy to charge up the amrita gauge between uses.
Casting spells and buffs is unbearably slow but being able to cast buffs with no animation was a bit much. The duration of spells is also annoyingly much shorter than I remember. Cycling through the item shortcuts in one direction is also more annoying than I remember.
Weapon movesets feel barebones now even with LW compared to the skills added in the sequel.
I feel the first dlc had the best level design, but more of the worst bosses. The 2nd dlc was kind of a slump out of all of them but Yukimura is the best boss among the dlcs. The 3rd was pretty average in a lot of respects but had a nice surprise with Jin Hayabusa.
While some levels really suck, a good number of them still feel good to play, and the overall gameplay is fine, just that the bosses by large were lacking and numbers really lacked proper balancing.
Looking forward to revisiting Nioh 2 from a fresh save before the release of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty!
short guys saying they can’t get a date is always so funny to me. im 5’6” and people want to throw me around like a chew toy I don’t know what you’re doing wrong
women will dm me and tell me how much they want to swing me at a wall (flirtatiously) and men buy me cars and houses due to my beauty and it’s all because I’m the human equivalent of a purse dogy
in ‘the creation of adam’, Man lies back indolently, reaching out idly in response to the forwards-thrusting touch of divinity, well within reach but lacking the drive to take it, representing the naive state of original mankind, unburdened by consciousness or desire.
In this fascinating modern take, however, the artist instead shows Man as a driving force, frantically throwing aside all barriers and restrictions in pursuit of his goal: a goal which remains impossible to reach. Fast food, representing compromise for survival in the face of an uncaring and overstressing world, hangs awkwardly in the center of an uncrossable abyss. Note the use of highly-rendered tensed musculature to imply physical effort, emphasized by the contrast with loose, hanging fabric, and also the lack of effort on the part of the employee: She is trying, and were she reach out just a little further, then through their collaboration would Man attain his goal. But, the strictures of her position allow only a certain amount of human generosity and kindness. The structures we build as humanity prevent us from doing all that we can to help one another, and this remains true even when presented with a fellow human willing risk death, to survive.
the role of the person in the passenger seat is not only navigator but secretary as well. you have to type up the drivers messages to random ladies on facebook about cbd cream & google whether that billy joel song was the theme song for that show or not
Periodically I tell my spouse "here, this is that cat I'm always telling you about, look, she's amazing" and he is usually like "that is...definitely...some variety of animal" and I cannot wait for his reaction to this.
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