Little tip on the PC version, you can force AA on the nividia control panel, makes it look better.
As for in game tips
- Pay attention to your accessory skills. When you find an item with "kodama sense" on it, equip it. Always have an item on that gives that. They will show up as little green dots on the minimap when you are close to them. They hide everywhere, so break every box.
- Best way to break boxes and things that block your view (monsters might be behind) is to stand close to them, then press A to dodge backwards. It will break them while going back, not forwards.
- Learn to switch stances. Some bosses are far easier in low stance due to your dodge becomes a skip instead of roll similarly to Bloodborne.
- Remember to turn on the kodama blessing from the shrine menu when you get to a new area. For the most part I usually have the healing blessing active.
- Do all the training missions in the dojo. Some of them are required to unlock skills in your skill tree. IE: After you complete the first mission when you go to Japan, the novice ninja toturial unlocks the ability to backstab in the ninja skill tree.
- You gain familiarity with weapons by having them equipped. Don't need to actually use them. Can also speed this up by using whetstones.
- Don't be afraid to use your spirit skill. They recharge fairly fast. If a boss is giving you trouble, you can kill a few enemies and recharge the skill and use it on the boss. To do that you need to use an item that summons your spirit and amrita back to you since it will be left in the boss room. It will negate damage while being active, but being hit also removes some of its duration. A boss hit can oneshot remove it. Best use is to use a debuff on boss, activate it in its face (staggers enemies when activates) and hit as much as you can.
- Level spirit no matter what build you use. At a minimum to 11. Forget which, but there is a spirit that gives kodama sense, treasure sense and enemy sense. Think that requires 11 or 21 spirit to activate.
- Remember to buy ammo for bow / rifle / hand cannon from the blacksmith before entering a new mission.
- You can respec, so don't worry too much about a build at first. Try out the different weapons.
- You get a lot of consumables. Use them.
- You will get a LOT of armor, weapons and things as well. When at the blacksmith, you can customize your "select", and select everything up to a rarity of your choosing and sell/dismantle in bulk without selecting one item at a time
- When at the blacksmith, occasionally press "Y" for dialogue. Spam it a few times until he repeats statements. Sometimes you get questions that gives you a skill point you can use in a unlock menu with the blacksmith that can lower costs and unlock some new things like customizing the face (hair menu). Sometimes the blacksmith has a ! notification for new dialogue, but you can get it without it as well. I usually try talking to the blacksmith after every main mission.
- When you finish the game, you will get to start over (starting with having opened up the first three areas) with a new difficulty mode. You can select difficulty modes at will. So your not permanently at NG+ or NG++. Can switch down and back up if you want. Think it goes to NG +5? Max level is now 750 with a skill cap of 200 instead of 99 which it was at launch. IE: You can unlock NG+ do a few of the old missions as NG+ then switch back to normal game and do DLC missions.