I definitely am, but from what I'm reading it's not really a Souls game. Very much looking forward to it. From Software is a day 1 buy forme.Not going to play Sekiro?
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I definitely am, but from what I'm reading it's not really a Souls game. Very much looking forward to it. From Software is a day 1 buy forme.Not going to play Sekiro?
To me Bloodborne reigns supreme. Mostly because the gameplay (but i am a huge whore for the aesthetic too). I feel is the most refined of the soulsborne games. Even after like 70 hours of Nioh it is clunky shifting through stances and regenerating stamina... IDK I found it to be unnecessary complexity.
Sifting through all of your drops constantly is also a huge chore and I hated that part.
It made my gripe about useless items from the Dark Souls series even worse in Nioh with its loot pinata. I mean in Souls where there's plenty of weapons but a lot of them are shit or only have a few moves that you actually want to use and the rest of the moveset is garbage. Nioh just made that part even worse for me.
See to me Nioh is more akin to Diablo than Souls. The item hunt is absolutely amazing to me and a big part of why I have put so many hours into it.
As far as the battle mechanics go, the only thing I felt was needlessly complex was the damn flux system. I ain't got time to ki pulse AND swap stances AND weapons. However ki pulsing alone is just hitting L1 after you do a combo/attack, and you don't even have to do that as long as you grab the ki pulse on dodge abilities for all stances. What that means is when you dodge, you just ki pulse as you dodge. So, you go in attack, count to 3 then dodge back out. Bam ki pulsed and full ki again. It takes a little practice but once you get the timing down it is loads better than just the flat stamina system of soulsborne.
Yeah Dark Souls (not so much bloodborne) is BLOATED with useless shit. Yeah there are 9000 weapons, but only about 50 of them are actually useful. The rest are either complete crap or just carbon copies of one of those 50. However in Nioh it's more like Diablo. Every item is useful in it's own way. It's just trying to find how to synergize everything towards the build you are trying to go for. Yeah there are a bunch of shit stats, but it's one of those games where you play the RNG lottery at the blacksmith to get the stats that you want. Once you do, and it all synergizes correctly, they payoff is amazing.
Dont get me wrong. Bloodborne is just one of those games that transcends pretty much everything and is not just a game of the gen for me but game of all time. Nioh just does a really great job of scracthing almost every itch I have when it comes to gaming tastes. It's not all perfect, and the story is kind of shit, but in the end I'm a huge sucker for item farming and build tweaking and Nioh has that in spades.
I just hope for Nioh 2 that they buff up the builds that are non living weapon, especially the ranged builds (Ninja and more importantly Omnyo Magic as the nukes are weak as hell). Also the RNG bullshit on item stats is over the top. A majority of the stats are complete shit. Tempering really helps alleviate that, but it still could be better. Which I do believe that is part of what you are touching on.
I am not that much of a fan of the item hunt in a Souls type game. Diablo loot pinata and build tuning is absolutely fantastic in games like Path of Exile. Where you're also running through maps at blinding speed hoping for the RNG gods to bestow their blessings upon you. I did hunt down all of the armors, hunter tools and weapons in bloodborne specifically though. Because they are all so unique and all viable. I don't think I hated a single weapon in bb really. The only one I didn't use was the lol shield and the Reithspallasch thing because it just really didn't fit my style. Even though I thought it was kind of cool.
Doing that kind of thing in Nioh really wasn't my style and I didn't like doing it. If Nioh 2 refines the process a lot more maybe I'll get to it faster.
This game has a lot going for it, except when it steps on your dick.
Grab attacks are bullshit, they need to be high interrupt/low to mid damage or low interrupt and high damage. High damage and high interrupt is just cheap bullshit, and there is some pretty cheap bullshit done by the bosses and a few enemies in this game.
Especially in Way of the Nioh where most shit kills you in one hit and blocking is nearly useless because either shit hurts and kills you anyways or they hit you so much and fast that your guard gets broken and you get one shot.
However, for the most part this game has does something brilliantly and that is balance the builds reasonably well. It really feels like it’s on the the player to find what works for them, and there are many options, rather than be funneled into a certain style like the souls games do.
Namon hit the nail on the head with the front loaded difficulty. The first boss you fight is a really confined space and you actually need the extra space as a newb. The other things about this game is that it’s the opposite if a Souls game. Block when you should dodge, dodge when you should block, buttons, timings, and many other things.
If you go from playing Souls to this you might find yourself fighting with the controls at first, or at least I sure as fuck did.
Biggest tip, you can’t panic roll out of combos.
Exactly and that was this game's biggest fault was the word of mouth marketing. The viral marketing tried to paint this as a souls like, and it isn't... at all. The only thing they share with souls is a stamina based combat system and a similar "buy a stat" leveling system. After that, they are almost two completely different genres. I liken it to comparing Super Mario with Super Metroid. Sure both are side scrollers that involve jumping from platform to platform, but the similarities quickly die from there. I fought with the controls too. Fuck, I platinumed the damn base game and didn't *truly* understand it until I came back a year later and picked it up again. With that said, it's very reasonable to come in as a souls fan and leave feeling disappointed, but I'd always argue give the game a shot. Survive the first play through and figure out what you find the most fun as you do. Then go into the second difficulty working towards your "build" and see how quickly it gets fun.
And on grab attacks... basically all of their fuck you one shot kill attacks, I think their reasoning is they feel they project it enough with the black and white "smoke" that gathers just before they do it. I am successful at avoiding it 75% of the time. But that 25% makes me want to break things. And it sucks the only option is to get the fuck out of dodge.
That is one thing I did like about Nioh. Not only were all the builds you could conceive you could make work I didn't really find a path of least resistance item build that just seemed to work constantly. Nor was discussed by every Tom, Dick and Harry. And I love trying new shit constantly. So you didn't have the Ludwig's Holy Blade situation going on.
I rolled with spears and dual blades whenever possible. If I play it again anytime soon or Nioh 2 I'll try something harder like the Kurisagama.
If they can curtail the ui hell (loot flooding is fucking aids on console), increase encounter variety, increase build variety and balance armor types (kigetsu, tatenashi etc were just better than other sets) this will be a GoAT level game for me that I'll eagerly dump another 500 hours into. Goddamn the first one was amazing, blemishes and all.